Twenty-five minutes later, I returned to the agency parking lot.
I told myself I wasn’t going back to plead for reinstatement.
I only wanted my personal belongings.
The pictures of my daughters.
My notebook.
The headphones Lucy had bought me for Father’s Day.
The painted mug Sophie had made when she was six.
Then I would leave for good.
But when I entered reception, every employee seemed to turn toward me.
People who had deliberately avoided my gaze earlier now watched openly.
Nina rose from her desk.
“She’s in there.”
Through the conference-room glass, I saw the woman from Route 18.
Her silver hair had been carefully brushed, the hospital blanket was gone, and she stood upright beside the table.
She looked nothing like the frightened patient I’d helped on the roadside.
Two suited men and a woman carrying a leather folder stood nearby.
Gavin faced them.
