The trailer is smaller than I remember. Or maybe I am bigger now.
Not in body, but in the accumulation of years and mistakes that press against the walls of this place like they might burst through the aluminum siding.
Finn sits across from me at the kitchen table, his shoulders too broad for the space, his suit too expensive for the vinyl chairs that squeak against the linoleum floor. Every time he shifts his weight, the chair protests with a high-pitched creak that makes me want to crawl out of my own skin.
My mother sets a casserole dish between us. Green bean casserole, the same recipe she made every Sunday when I was growing up. The smell fills the cramped space—cream of mushroom soup and fried onions and the warmth of a home I tried so hard to leave behind.
I told her about the baby ten minutes ago, standing in this kitchen while Finn waited in the living room and pretended to study the family photos on the wall.
I said it fast, the way you rip off a bandage — I'm pregnant, Mama, about eleven weeks — and watched her hands go still on the casserole dish.
She did not cry or shout. Just pressed her lips together, nodded once, and carried the dish to the table as if I had told her the weather forecast.
At fifty-three, she still carries herself like she is waiting for the next fight. Shoulders squared, chin lifted, spine straight despite the years of physical labor that should have bent her by now.
Her face is weathered but striking, all sharp cheekbones and a jaw that could cut glass, framed by hair she keeps cropped short because she has never had time for vanity.
Her hands, rough and reddened from decades of cleaning other people's houses, move with an authority that fills the small space.
I inherited those hands. The shape of them, at least. Though mine are softer, unmarked by bleach and scrub brushes and the particular abrasion of other people's dirty floors.
"Help yourselves," Mom says, lowering herself into the chair at the head of the table.
Her gaze makes the slow circuit from Finn's face to mine and back again, gathering evidence
Finn reaches for the serving spoon with a confidence that does not match his surroundings. His sleeve brushes the salt shaker, and he catches it before it tips, steadying it with reflexes that seem almost absurd in this context.
"Thank you for having me, Mrs. Novak," he says. "This smells incredible."
I watch his hands navigate the casserole, watch him transfer a portion onto his plate like he has eaten green bean casserole in trailer parks his entire life.
He has not.
I told him about my mother during one of those late-night conversations in college when exhaustion strips away the careful walls we build around our origins. But I never expected him to sit here. Never expected to watch his Italian leather shoes rest on linoleum that has been patched several times since I learned to walk.
The silence stretches, broken only by the clink of the serving spoon against ceramic. Outside, a dog barks—probably the Suttons' mutt, still alive after all these years.
"Honestly, when you said you were coming home after all these years," my mother's voice cuts through the quiet, direct and unadorned in the way she has always been, "I thought you were coming to stay."
I set down my fork and meet her gaze across the table. Finn's presence beside me is a warmth I cannot ignore, a gravitational pull that makes every word feel weighted with additional meaning.
"I'm divorcing Daniel," I say, and the sentence lands between us like a stone dropped into still water.
I watch their faces, searching for surprise and finding none.
Finn's expression does not shift by a single degree. His jaw remains steady, his eyes fixed on me as if he has been waiting for this confirmation.
My mother's reaction is more complicated. Her mouth tightens at the corners, and I see the words she wants to say gathering behind her teeth. The questions, the accusations, the pointed observations about choices made and warnings ignored.
She swallows them because Finn is here. And even Joice Novak knows better than to air family grievances in front of company.
"Good for you," she says instead. "What's your plan then?"
I lift my glass of water and take a long drink, buying time to organize thoughts that have been spinning since the bus ride. The condensation leaves a wet ring on the table, and I trace it with my fingertip while I speak.
"I was going to file for divorce first thing Monday morning," I begin, keeping my voice steady. "Contact Dr. Morrison since she'll remember me. Find a job."
The words sound different out loud than they did in my head on the bus.
More like a prayer than a plan.
"Find a trailer," I continue, forcing myself to meet my mother's eyes. "Make it a home."
Her expression does not soften the way I hoped it might. Instead, her brow furrows, and she sets down her fork.
"That's your plan," she says flatly. "Come back to Millbrook, find a trailer, work some minimum-wage job while pregnant… And repeat every mistake I spent eighteen years warning you against?"
"Mama, I don't have a lot of options right now, you have to understand that I am doing the best I can with what I have, and what I have is—"
"Actually," Finn interrupts, and both my mother and I turn to look at him, "I have already drafted a new version of Aubrey's contract as my assistant."
His voice is calm, assured. He sets down his own fork and folds his hands on the table, his posture shifting into something more formal.
"The revised contract includes an apartment in the city provided by the company," he continues, his gaze moving between my mother and me. "Fully furnished, located within walking distance of the office, with all utilities covered as part of her compensation package."
I stare at him, and the lie sits between us, invisible and enormous.
There is no revised contract. There is no company apartment waiting for me in the city.
Finn Howell is inventing solutions from thin air because he cannot stand the thought of me returning to a trailer park. And he knows that my mother will accept a corporate benefit more easily than she would accept charity from a stranger.
The gratitude rises in my chest alongside the shame of needing to be rescued.
I file the feeling away for examination later, when I have the emotional bandwidth to untangle what it means.
My mother studies Finn with narrowed eyes, and I watch her make calculations I cannot follow. She has spent a lifetime reading people, sorting them into categories based on the gap between their words and their intentions.
"That's generous of the company," she says finally.
Her tone suggesting she knows exactly how much of this generosity is corporate and how much is personal. Finn does not flinch under her scrutiny, meeting her gaze with steady certainty.
The silence that follows is charged with unspoken understanding. My mother recognizing that this man has inserted himself into her daughter's life. And Finn refusing to apologize for the insertion.
"Well." She pushes back from the table with a sigh that carries the weight of a decision already made. "It's late, and my bedtime was an hour ago, and I don't have enough space in this trailer for three people to sleep comfortably."
She rises and gathers her cardigan from the back of her chair, shrugging it over her shoulders.
"I'll stay the night at Theresa's place next door." She says it matter-of-factly. "She's been asking me to come over for months, and I suppose tonight is as good a time as any to take her up on the offer."
"Mama, you don't have to…"
"Hush." She cuts me off with a wave of her hand. "You two can have my bed. Sheets are clean, changed them today. There's extra blankets in the closet if you get cold."