Page 57 of Joker

Steady.

I don’t think I realized how much of my life had been built around unpredictability until I stepped into a place where people just…exist without constantly watching each other for the next shift.

Emma finds me first. Not in a way that feels like she’s been waiting. More like she knew I’d surface eventually and decided to meet me there.

I’m in the kitchen again, standing at the counter with coffee I don’t entirely need, watching Lexi sit at the table with a small pile of mismatched toys someone must’ve brought in for the kids at some point. Bunny is there, of course, positioned just within reach, but for the first time, it isn’t the only thing she’s touching.

There’s a plastic dinosaur in her other hand.

I don’t know where it came from. I don’t ask.

Emma walks in like she belongs everywhere she steps, which, from what I’ve gathered, she does. She’s dressed simply, hair pulled back, moving with that quiet efficiency that seems to define the women here.

“Morning,” she says.

“Morning.”

She pours herself coffee, adds nothing to it, and leans against the counter beside me like we’ve been doing this for years instead of less than twenty-four hours. “You sleep okay?”

The question is gentle. Not probing. Just…there.

I nod. “Better than I have in a while.”

“That’s good.” She doesn’t push for details.

Doesn’t ask how long it’s been or why. Just accepts the answer and lets it sit. That alone makes something in my chest tighten.

Because I’m used to one of two reactions. Pity. Or curiosity dressed up as concern.

Neither of those exists here.

Mac drifts in a few minutes later, barefoot and carrying a plate of something that smells like eggs and toast. She sets it down on the table in front of Lexi without asking if she’s hungry, like she already knows the answer is yes and doesn’t need confirmation.

Lexi looks at it, looks at her, then says, “Thank you.”

Mac grins. “You’re welcome, tiny human.”

Lexi considers that, then goes back to her dinosaur and Bunny like this is all completely normal.

I watch the interaction quietly.

Trying to understand it. Trying to place it somewhere that makes sense.

No one is hovering. No one is tiptoeing. No one is treating me like I might fall apart if they say the wrong thing. And somehow, that’s harder to accept than if they were.

Because pity would be easier to manage. Pity is predictable. Pity gives me something to push against.

This?

This quiet acceptance, this lack of expectation, this way of simply making space for us without demanding anything in return?

I don’t know what to do with it.

“You’ll get used to it,” Emma says softly beside me.

I glance at her. “To what?”

“This,” she says, gesturing lightly to the kitchen, the table, the toys, the women moving through the space like it belongs to them. “It feels strange at first.”