Chapter Sixty-Eight
If the first two weeks of Jake’s absence had been a long, freezing march through the dark, the days following the incident at the bar felt like the first quiet cracks of spring.
Lisa became my anchor in a way I didn't even realize I needed. She didn't treat me like a fragile glass doll that was about to break, nor did she treat me like a mysterious outsider who had to be watched. She treated me simply like Ava.
We quickly established a daily routine that kept the shadows of the clubhouse at bay. Every morning, after I finished setting up the clean glasses and prepping the coffee pots behind the bar, Lisa would slip through the kitchen doors. Her hands were almost always smudged with dark engine grease, and she’d have a pair of safety goggles pushed up into her messy,
