Jacob
I sat there for a long time.
Later that afternoon, I went downstairs for coffee because there was nothing useful left to do upstairs and because the waiting room had started to feel like a place where all of us were circling the same old wounds and calling it family.
The cafeteria was louder than the step-down floor. Brighter. Alive with the ordinary irritation of people who had to eat while something else happened upstairs.
I saw Leah before she saw me.
She was at a table near the window with two men. One of them was Gabe, the other driver’s son. The other one I’d seen around, but I wasn’t sure who he was.
Gabe was leaning back in his chair, one hand around a coffee cup, saying something that made Leah laugh.
Really laugh.
Not the polite one.
Not the tired half-smile she ga
