Page 35 of Smoke Signals

The morning starts rough. I burn the toast and forget to water down her juice and have to remake it. Alaska lines up her shoes by the door and then moves them an inch to the left, correcting herself.

At preschool drop off she lingers longer than usual, fingers hooked in my hoodie pocket. Ms. Rodriguez gives me a look that’s gentle and curious.

“She’s been pointing to Friday a lot during calendar time,” she says quietly.

I nod. “That’s the night her tutor comes, she really likes him.”

Alaska presses her forehead into my hip, then lets go and walks inside without looking back. I stand there longer than necessary, hands shoved in my pockets.

The drive to work feels longer than usual. Every red light stretches, sirens thread straight through my chest. I keep seeing Stellan’s face when I pulled back, not angry or disappointed, but steady and hurt. That might be the worst part.

Work doesn’t help today. My hands are fine, but my head isn’t. I catch myself zoning out between clients, staring at the wall. One of my regulars asks if I’m seeing someone, and I laugh too loudly and say no way too fast. She raises an eyebrow like she knows better. Maybe she does.

By lunchtime I’ve decided exactly nothing except that avoiding this isn’t working.

I eat a granola bar and scroll through my phone without seeing anything. Stellan hasn’t texted. That’s not surprising. He said he’d give me space, and apparently he meant it.

That should make me feel relieved.

It doesn’t.

I leave work early because my last appointment doesn’t show up and the quiet in my car feels louder than the city. I don’t turn the radio on. I let my thoughts circle instead of shoving them away.

I keep telling myself this is about Alaska, about not bringing chaos into her life, about keeping her world predictable and safe. That’s the story I’ve been telling since the day Lance didn’t come home. It’s a good story. It’s responsible. It’s also incomplete.

Because if this was only about Alaska, I wouldn’t feel this hollow ache every time I picture Stellan not walking through our door again.

I pull into the parking lot outside my apartment and sit there with the engine running, hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. My reflection in the windshield looks tired and older than I feel inside.

“You don’t get to do this halfway,” I say out loud.

I don’t know who I’m talking to. Lance, maybe. The version of me that learned how to shut things down before they could hurt.

I turn the engine off and sit there for a second, hands still on the wheel, before I force myself to move.

By the time I pick Alaska up and get us home, the silence in the truck feels heavier than it should.

At home, she’s quieter than usual. She eats her snack without lining it up first, and she watches the door. That hurts more than it should.

I crouch in front of her. “Hey,” I say softly. “You know I love you, right?”

She nods.

“And you know I’m always going to be here. Uncle Hartley will always do what’s best for you.”

She looks at me then reaches up and pats my cheek, the way she does when she thinks I’m the one who needs comforting. The simplicity of it almost wrecks me.

Dinner is easy because I don’t have the energy to fight with ingredients or the stove. We do grilled cheese and apple slices. She helps me flip the sandwich, serious and focused, her small hand steady on the spatula handle.

“You’re really good at that,” I tell her.

She smiles, just a little.

After her bath, she insists on wearing her dinosaur pajamas even though they need to be washed. I don’t argue. I sit with her until she falls asleep, counting her breaths, listening to the hum of the building around us.

When I leave her room, the apartment feels too quiet.

I pace the living room once. Twice. I stop in the kitchen and lean my palms against the counter, head bowed. The smell of dish soap, bread, and home presses in around me.