Chapter 2

Lucy placed the Northern Heights jersey on my back seat as carefully as she used to lay out clothes for the first day of school.

She had changed into gray sweatpants, but she still wore the championship medal.

It clicked against the seat belt whenever the car turned.

I drove past our exit.

Neither of us mentioned it until the bakery sign appeared three blocks later.

I pulled into the alley, shut off the engine, and listened to the metal cool beneath the hood.

"You knew since January," I said.

Lucy studied a crack in her phone case. "I knew Dad was interviewing."

"That is not what I asked."

She opened her door and carried the jersey upstairs to our apartment.

The argument I had prepared stayed in the car.

Inside her room, one half of the bed was covered with ordinary fourteen-year-old mess: schoolbooks, damp towels, a sweater she had accused me of losing.

The other half had been arranged into rows.

Six practice shirts.

Two pairs of black leggings.

Travel shampoo.

A phone charger still in its package.

Someone had printed the Northern Heights packing list and checked off nearly every box.

Lucy moved between me and the bed.

"It is camp stuff."

I picked up a plastic bag containing pain relievers, athletic tape, and instant ice packs.

The receipt was from a pharmacy near Ben's house.

"Did your father buy these?"

She took the bag from me and pushed it beneath a sweatshirt. "Everybody brings that stuff."

Her right knee bent less than the left when she crouched.

I sat on the desk chair instead of reaching for her.

The room was full of decisions that had been made quietly while I was driving to practices, baking team cookies, and believing extra training meant extra training.

On her nightstand, her phone lit up.

NORTHERN HEIGHTS GOALIES appeared above a row of messages.

A girl named June had asked which dorm bed Lucy wanted.

Lucy turned the screen facedown.

"You already have a roommate."

"Maybe. If I make it."

The last word came out thinner than the rest.

I asked whether she was scared.

Her shoulders lifted beneath the team hoodie, then fell.

"I am excited. You always make those sound like opposites."

The old answer rose in me: I make them sound different because I am your mother.

I swallowed it.

Mothers could be wrong and still be responsible for what happened next.

I opened the packing list.

Ben's handwriting filled the margin with flight times and equipment fees.

At the bottom, beside MEDICAL FORMS, he had written RACHEL HANDLING.

My name did not appear anywhere.

Lucy watched me find the blank space.

"Dad said you would say no before you looked at it."

I folded the paper along the crease he had made. "Your father made sure I would not get to look."

"You are looking now."

Her knee shifted again.

She pressed two fingers beside the kneecap, caught me watching, and reached for a sock.

I asked for a pain number.

She said two too quickly.

The refrigerator motor started in the kitchen.

Downstairs, a delivery truck rattled past the bakery door.

Our whole life continued while I tried to decide whether two meant two, or whether it meant the largest number Lucy believed I would tolerate.

I told her the camp was not the same as moving.

I would review the medical plan, the school schedule, and every form.

Until then, nobody would announce anything else.

Lucy zipped the suitcase.

"Dad says the evaluation is during his parenting time."

"Your body is not divided by the custody calendar."

She flinched, and I knew I had turned her knee into another piece of evidence.

I loosened my grip on the packing list. "I am not saying no tonight."

"You don't have to say it." She stood and rolled the suitcase toward the wall. "You can make something impossible without using the word."

At the bedroom door, I looked back at the pharmacy bag beneath the sweatshirt.

"The evaluation is two weeks, Mom," Lucy said. "Unless you turn it into a war."