Chapter 1 - THE FLAT TIRE
The cold had teeth.
Chicago winter always bit hard, but that afternoon it felt personal. Snow clung to the curb in gray crusted piles, the wind sliced through my coat, and my fingers had gone half numb around Noah’s blanket long before I reached the end of the block.
He was fully swaddled against my chest, warm only because I kept tucking the blanket tighter under my chin every few steps.
Beside me, the old bicycle wobbled uselessly on its bent wheel.
The rear tire had finally gone flat in the middle of the street.
I stood there in my green coat and knit beanie, exhausted, one boot sinking into slush while I tried not to cry. My son was only a few weeks old. My stitches still pulled when I moved too fast. I had not slept more than two hours in a row since he was born.
And I was dragging a broken bicycle home in February because my sister had my car.
Not just any car.
The Cadillac my grandfather had bought for me before Noah was born.
Lauren’s silver heels clicked against the driveway as she leaned beside the Cadillac and looked me over with that familiar expression—half boredom, half contempt.
“She can walk,” she said. “The baby’s wrapped up.”
That was the moment Grandpa stepped out of his black sedan and saw us.
He froze with one hand still on the open door.
His eyes landed on me first.
Then Noah.
Then the bicycle.
Then the Cadillac parked in the driveway behind Lauren.
His whole face changed.
I had seen my grandfather angry exactly three times in my life.
Once when a contractor stole money from my grandmother.
Once when my father lied about gambling.
And once when a man at church called my late grandmother “fragile” after she beat him in a property dispute.
This was that same face.
Hard.
May you like
Still.
Dangerously calm.
