Chapter 25
August 24, 2021
The balcony was smaller than it had looked on Callie’s laptop. She stood beside the RAV4 with the keys still in her hand, studying the sliding door above a row of parked cars while Juna tried to persuade Gus to look at it too. There was enough room for two chairs if nobody expected to move between them. In the listing photograph, the angle had suggested room for considerably more living. Callie could already hear Maggie’s opinion of that particular achievement in photography, but her friend was still across the lot, extracting a bag from beneath something that had shifted during the last stretch of the drive. The afternoon smelled of warm pavement and somebody’s laundry. Beyond the building, a palm tree rattled in a breeze Callie could feel only when it reached the sweat beneath her hair. They had spent three nights in rooms they knew they would leave the next morning. Now she was looking at a door she had signed a lease to keep opening.
“Is that ours?” Juna asked. She had Gus tucked beneath one arm and the giraffe in her other hand, apparently unwilling to leave either animal unsupervised in a new state. Her cheeks were pink from sleep, and a crease from the car seat remained near her ear. Callie had woken her reluctantly when they arrived, knowing that leaving her to finish the nap would improve the afternoon and complicate the night. Neither option had seemed particularly generous to either of them.
“That’s our balcony. We have to get the keys first.” Callie put her own keys in her pocket, took Juna’s free hand when her daughter transferred the giraffe to Gus’s custody, and looked toward the office. She had the confirmation on her phone and a folder beneath her arm. The folder had traveled across the country without acquiring mustard, juice, or any of the crushed crackers that now occupied the seams of the back seat. It deserved recognition for that.
Maggie came around the rear of her car carrying a tote. “I have reached the point where I’m willing to leave several of my belongings here permanently.” She pushed her sunglasses onto her head and followed Callie’s gaze upward. “Oh. That is a very selectively photographed balcony.”
Callie laughed, feeling something loosen in her shoulders. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“The photographer should teach a class.” Maggie shifted the tote to her other shoulder and fell into step beside them. Her shirt was creased from the seat belt, and she had a faint red mark on one arm where she had slept against a hotel pillow with an unexpectedly ambitious seam. They had managed to become tired in different ways at almost every stop. Today Maggie had talked through the final hour while Callie concentrated on staying behind her car and answering Juna’s questions about whether every building they passed was the new house. “Please tell me we’re doing the bathroom before the ceremonial inspection. I want to admire our future with fewer immediate concerns.”
The office door stuck briefly against its closer before Callie got it open. Inside, the air-conditioning raised goose bumps along her forearms. A woman behind the desk looked up from a stack of maintenance slips, asked whether they were the new tenants, and smiled when Callie gave their names. The keys were in a paper envelope beside a copy of the move-in inspection sheet. Callie had begun explaining their delayed arrival time when Juna tugged her hand twice and looked at her with an expression that made every document on the desk less important. The manager directed them to a bathroom down the short hall. By the time Callie came back, Maggie was bent over the desk signing for her set, and Juna had decided the office’s potted plant required investigation. Callie intercepted her before the giraffe could be introduced to its soil.
A second woman came in from the courtyard carrying a canvas bag and a rigid case with a clear panel across its front. The manager greeted her as Denise and moved a stack of papers aside so she could set the case on the desk. Callie noticed how carefully Denise lowered it, keeping its base level. Then something moved behind the panel. A man was seated inside, one hand resting against the edge of his seat, his dark shirt small enough that Callie’s first attempt to understand it failed. He turned toward the manager while Denise searched her bag for an envelope. Callie’s gaze stayed on his face a moment too long before she made herself look back at the inspection sheet.
“These are your new neighbors,” the manager told Denise, gesturing toward Callie and Maggie. “They’re moving into the upstairs apartment today.” She turned back to Callie. “Denise lives in 114 with Paul. She’s his Guardian.”
Denise smiled at them, then found the envelope and put it on the desk. “Welcome. Sorry to interrupt. We’re back about our kitchen tap.” She brushed her hair away from her cheek and addressed the manager again. “Your maintenance guy tightened it yesterday, but it started leaking again this morning.”
The manager pulled out the maintenance slip for apartment 114. “I’ll have him come back. Same time?”
“Later, please.” Paul’s voice was thin at that distance, but the office was quiet enough for Callie to make out the words. He leaned slightly forward as the manager looked toward him. “We have an appointment.”
“After two,” Denise added, checking with Paul before she turned back to the desk. “We should be home by then.”
Callie lowered her pen without having written anything. In training, she had practiced with models, studied photographs, and watched demonstrations filmed close enough to make the handling techniques clear. The person on the desk was smaller than her phone. His shoes rested above a floor he could never have stepped down onto safely, and his hand had moved with the familiar impatience of somebody waiting for a repair that should already have been finished. She could identify the carrier’s broad base, its ventilation, and the protection around his seat. Her mind supplied the features obediently. It did less well with the fact that he had just rescheduled a plumber.
Juna pressed against her leg. “Mommy. There’s a little man.” She spoke at the same volume she used to announce a dog outside the car, and Callie felt her face warm before she had even looked toward the desk again. Maggie’s hand had stopped halfway into her tote. She lowered it and moved the bag off the counter, giving the carrier more room than it needed.
“That’s a person who’s had Smallara,” Callie said quietly. She crouched beside Juna, bringing her daughter’s attention back to her. “Remember when we talked about people getting smaller? You can say hello. We don’t point at people.” She had explained this at home with pictures, while Juna asked whether the people in them could wear her doll’s clothes. Now she found herself searching for an answer simple enough for her daughter without making the man three feet away endure a lesson about himself.
“Hello,” Juna said. She lifted Gus instead of her finger, which Callie chose to accept as progress.
Paul raised his hand. “Hello.” He appeared to say something else, but Denise’s bag rustled as she folded the envelope into it, and Callie missed the words. Juna nodded anyway, happy to have been answered, and hugged gus against her chest. When Callie straightened, Denise was lifting his carrier by its handle while keeping her other hand beneath the base. The manager promised to confirm the maintenance time. Denise carried Paul back through the courtyard door, and he turned his head to look outside as they went. A few seconds later the door closed, and the manager was explaining where Callie should return the inspection sheet.
Callie wrote down the deadline. She had already been told once and had not heard it. Beside her, Maggie collected the keys and asked about the laundry room, her voice almost back to normal. Nobody behind the desk looked as though anything remarkable had happened. There was a leaking tap, a medical appointment of some kind, and two tenants who needed to document the condition of their carpet. Callie accepted the envelope with both hands, thanked the manager, and took Juna outside into the heat.
“I didn’t expect that,” Maggie said once they were crossing the lot. She was looking toward the courtyard doorway, though the woman and the carrier had disappeared. “I know that’s stupid. We’ve been listening to reports for months.”
“It isn’t stupid.” Callie watched Juna navigate a crack in the pavement with exaggerated care. Her daughter had decided the giraffe needed to walk for this part and was making it step along beside her own shoes. “I knew how big he would be. I just hadn’t actually seen somebody.” She could still picture his hand against the seat. There had been nothing unfamiliar about the gesture until she tried to account for its size.
Maggie slid the key ring over one finger. “I almost asked whether he needed help. With absolutely nothing. He was sitting there having a conversation.” She shook her head and stopped beside the cars. “Okay. Apartment first. I’m not carrying the entire contents of my car upstairs while I’m still thinking about this.”
They brought up the things they could carry without leaving Juna alone, which amounted to one bag each, the folder, and an assortment of animals whose supervision became increasingly demanding on the stairs. Callie’s key caught before turning, and she adjusted it with more patience than she felt. The door opened into warm, still air with a faint smell of carpet cleaner. Afternoon light lay across the empty living room and stopped at the wall beneath the window. Without the listing’s furniture, the room looked both larger and less useful. There were no places to set things except the floor, the counter, and a narrow ledge near the sliding door. Callie put the folder on the counter and turned on the nearest light. It worked. She realized she had been waiting to establish that before allowing herself to enjoy anything.
Juna crossed the room and peered through the glass. “We go out there?”
“After we look at it together.” Callie tested the sliding door’s lock, then the latch, and left both fastened while Maggie opened the bedroom doors. She checked the balcony through the glass. The rail looked sound, but there was a gap beneath the bottom bar that she had barely registered during the video tour. A child could not fit through it. The man from the office could. She found herself following the gap all the way to the corner before realizing that she was inspecting the apartment for somebody who did not live here. She turned away and called Juna toward the bedrooms, carrying the envelope with the keys as though she might still need evidence that they were allowed inside.
Maggie stood in the smaller room, looking at the window she had chosen. Outside it, branches from a tree softened the view of the next building. She set down her tote and drew the blind up another few inches. “Still want this one.” Her voice had a pleased certainty Callie was grateful to hear. “The light’s good. And I can probably put my desk there without having to climb over the bed to reach it.” She pointed to the wall, then looked toward the larger bedroom. “How’s yours?”
Callie went in with Juna and tried to translate the measurements she had written at home into places where they would actually sleep. The mattresses would arrive the next morning; tonight they had the sleepings bags her father had insisted they take, which had seemed unnecessary until this exact moment. There was enough space for a bed for Callie and a smaller one for Juna, though putting both in would leave less room for the other things she had imagined. The closet doors ran reluctantly along their track. One wall had a small patch where somebody had touched up the paint without matching it particularly well. She put Juna’s bag against it and watched her daughter install Gus beside the zipper. Juna tried three positions before finding one that allowed the dog to see the doorway.
“He sleeps here,” Juna announced. She patted the empty floor beside him, then looked at Callie for approval. “I sleep here too.”
“Tonight you do.” Callie crouched to open the backpack, making sure the bedtime book had survived another day of travel. The wooden spoon was lying beneath it. She held it up, and Juna immediately directed her toward the kitchen, where it belonged. Having crossed several states, slept badly, and negotiated the bathroom habits of two cars’ worth of people, Callie found that her first permanent contribution to the apartment was placing Sally’s spoon in a drawer. She checked that it was clean before she closed it. Behind her, Maggie began opening windows, letting air move through the rooms while she called out the marks that needed to go on the inspection sheet.
Unloading took longer than Callie’s most pessimistic estimate. Juna accompanied every trip downstairs until Maggie offered to remain with her and start photographing the apartment’s existing damage. Then they traded, with Callie sorting the bags inside while Maggie fetched another load. They found a scuff near the refrigerator, a loose cupboard handle, and a bedroom outlet whose cover had been painted to the wall. Callie photographed that one herself. By the time the last box was upstairs, her shirt stuck between her shoulder blades and Juna had unpacked most of the animals into a formation that occupied the center of the living room. Maggie stopped in the doorway with a bag of bedding, looked down at the plastic creatures, and took a deliberate step around them.
“We need a walking space,” she said. She set the bedding near her room and crouched beside Juna. “They can live by the wall. I do not want to explain to the emergency room that a giraffe ended my education.”
Callie reached to gather the animals. “I’ll move them.” Her hand closed over the rabbit before she noticed Juna’s expression and Maggie’s raised palm. She let go again, feeling unreasonably caught.
“She can help.” Maggie waited while Juna considered the alternative territory beside the window. “Show me where the rabbit goes. Then we’ll put the others with him.” Juna carried the rabbit over with the wounded dignity of a landowner confronting an unexpected zoning restriction. Maggie followed with the giraffe. Watching them, Callie became aware of how often she had been answering requests by doing everything herself. It was faster until somebody had to live with the result. She returned to the kitchen and put the cupboard handle on the inspection sheet rather than tightening it before they had documented that it was loose.
They needed milk, something for dinner, and several things Callie had left in Minnesota because buying them again had finally become less absurd than transporting them. Maggie found a grocery store on her phone. Juna accepted the proposed trip only after being promised that Gus could stay where she had put him, and Callie locked the apartment with an unfamiliar feeling of leaving belongings in a place nobody she knew was watching. On the stairs she almost reached for her phone to tell Sally they were going out. She had already sent an arrival message, and there was no reason her mother needed to know about milk. Callie put the phone away and concentrated on holding Juna’s hand.
The road to the store passed the edge of campus. Callie saw PPU’s name on a sign before she recognized any of the buildings, then turned her head far enough that Maggie reminded her gently which direction cars generally approached from. She stopped looking until the next light. Beyond a line of trees stood a broad building with shaded windows and the words SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING fixed near its entrance. Two people came out carrying long cardboard tubes, arguing about something Callie could not hear. A bicycle leaned against a rail. It was an ordinary afternoon outside a place she had studied in photographs for months, and suddenly she wanted to park. She wanted to walk through the doors and find the labs, even if all she was allowed to do today was stand in a hallway and read the room numbers.
“That’s it,” she said. The light was still red. She could look for another few seconds without doing anything wrong. “One of the buildings, anyway. I think the first lab’s around the other side.”
Maggie leaned forward to see past her. “Tomorrow we should walk over. Figure out where everything is before we have to find it while late.” She was searching the next stretch of buildings now, and Callie remembered the studio supplies she had helped unload. “I want to see mine too. Preferably before they start telling me what’s wrong with everything I make.”
“You’re paying them to do that.” Callie followed the car ahead when the light changed, still holding the sight of those doors somewhere behind her attention. She had been thinking about tuition as numbers, classes as intervals between preschool drop-off and pickup, and labs as descriptions in emails. There were rooms waiting where she would be expected to learn things she did not know yet. She wanted that badly enough to feel it beneath the fatigue. In the back seat, Juna asked whether the big school had blocks. Callie told her she would have to find out, and Maggie offered the opinion that any school without blocks had failed to consider all its possibilities.
Inside the grocery store, Callie took a cart and let Juna ride rather than spend the entire trip negotiating which way she intended to walk. The air smelled of bread and the sharp dampness of the produce section. Maggie had the list on her phone; Callie had a second list in her head that was already longer. They worked their way toward the milk, adding apples, pasta, sauce, and something that could be eaten without requiring them to locate all the kitchen boxes. Near the household aisle, a short run of shelves interrupted familiar rows of cleaning supplies. A sign above it read LITTLE CARE. Beneath that, the printed category strip included the words PET SUPPLIES.
Callie slowed the cart. There were secured drinking containers, packaged bedding, and feeding dishes far smaller than anything Juna had outgrown. One packet showed a collar in a display window. The shelf was nearly empty beneath a particular drinking container, while a neighboring row remained full. Somebody had attached a handwritten note advising customers to ask at the service desk about stock. Callie read the price under the collar, then looked back at the category strip. At home, the handling equipment had been brought out for training and put away afterward. Here it had shelf space, missing stock, and a customer notice written by somebody who had probably grown tired of answering the same question. She was still looking when a woman pushed a cart around the corner and stopped beside them.
The woman had a carrier secured in the cart’s upper section. A Little woman sat within it, her head turned toward the shelves, a silver-colored collar catching the overhead light when she moved. Callie guided her own cart forward enough to leave space and pretended to consider a packet of cleaning cloths she did not need. The shopper picked up one of the dishes, held it beside the carrier, and waited. The woman inside shook her head. Her answer was lost beneath the store’s music and the clatter of a cart passing behind Callie, but her hand moved toward another package, and the shopper exchanged the dishes without asking an employee to intervene.
“We still have some,” the shopper said, looking down at her companion before she put the selected package in the cart. “I’m asking about tonight.” She listened, leaning closer to the carrier. “Again? We had that yesterday.”
The Little woman folded her arms. Callie caught only the last word of her reply, something about dinner, but understood the expression well enough. The shopper laughed under her breath, put the package beside a loaf of bread, and turned toward the next aisle. Callie watched them leave before she remembered the cleaning cloths in her hand. Maggie was examining the shelf label. Neither of them spoke for a moment. The man at the apartment had wanted a later maintenance visit. This woman wanted something for dinner badly enough to defend eating it two nights in a row. Callie had prepared for emergencies. Apparently she also needed to stop being surprised that people had preferences.
“I can’t even read the instructions from down here,” Maggie said quietly. She had crouched near the shelf, looking upward at the packages. “If I was choosing one, someone would have to hold every single thing for me.” She stood again and checked the phone, her mouth tightening briefly before she returned to the list. “We need actual plates. Unless you packed yours in that box you told me definitely did not contain plates.”
Callie returned the cleaning cloths and took a packet of paper plates from farther along. “That box contains cables. I’m almost certain.” She glanced back once at the sign. She understood why somebody had stocked products together that people bought together. She also remembered the Little woman’s folded arms beneath the word PETS. Juna was trying to see the carrier around the end of the aisle, and Callie moved the cart before her daughter could lean farther out. There would be questions. For now they needed groceries, and Juna had spotted bananas she considered essential to the continued success of the afternoon.
By dinner, the apartment smelled of tomato sauce instead of carpet cleaner. Maggie had found the saucepan, Callie had found the pasta, and neither had found the colander. They solved the problem with the pan lid and enough caution that Maggie accused Callie of treating spaghetti like hazardous laboratory waste. Juna sat on a camping mat with her plate on a box, supervising the distribution of grated cheese. Callie ate sitting beside her, knees bent awkwardly, while Maggie leaned against another box and declared that unpacking the mugs tonight would count as achieving a major life goal. Through the open window came the sound of a door closing somewhere below them and a conversation that faded into the courtyard. Somebody’s television was loud enough to hear without being clear enough to follow. Callie had never lived in a place where other people’s evenings passed this close to hers.
They called home before Juna grew too tired to participate. Sally answered from the kitchen, then moved the phone so Stuart could lean into view. Callie had intended to explain the apartment’s condition, the inspection sheet, and the mattress delivery. Juna took charge of the conversation by announcing that they had seen a little man and that their new house had stairs. She tried to show both pieces of news by taking the phone toward the door. Callie intercepted her and held it low enough for her face to remain on the screen.
“In the office,” Callie explained when Sally asked. “He lives here, I think. He and the woman with him were arranging a repair.” She could see her mother listening differently now. “They were fine. We just happened to be there.”
Stuart adjusted his glasses, looking past Sally as though he might be able to inspect the room behind Callie. “And the apartment?”
“Also fine. The balcony’s smaller than the pictures, but the doors lock, the lights work, and we have hot water.” Callie turned the phone to show him the living room. There were bags against the wall, a packet of paper plates on the counter, and Maggie lifting her hand from her place on the floor. Callie had wanted to show them a room that looked settled. Now she could only hope the chaos looked like the temporary kind. “We’ve got the inspection done. I’ll send the pictures.”
“Tomorrow,” Sally said. “Eat your dinner while it’s warm.” She looked away from the camera, answering somebody on her side, and Hannah appeared a moment later with her hair pushed back and a look that suggested she had come directly from something involving concentration. Callie felt an unexpectedly sharp wish to know what it had been. A game, probably. Something happening in their house without her.
“Did you find the pancakes?” Hannah asked. She accepted the phone from Sally and looked at Juna. “That was your job.”
“We had noodles.” Juna held up her plate, requiring Callie to rescue several pieces of pasta before the tour became more extensive. “Gus has a room. I have it too.”
Hannah asked to see it, and Callie carried the phone down the hall while Juna ran ahead. The camping mats were laid out, the bedding still folded, and Gus presided over the animals beside the wall. Hannah admired the arrangement with enough seriousness that Juna began explaining where everybody would sleep. Callie watched her sister listen. At home, Hannah could have picked up a blanket, fixed the position of the rabbit, or carried Juna downstairs afterward. Here she could only look where Callie pointed the phone. When the tour returned to the living room, Sally reminded them to call whenever they wanted, Stuart asked whether they had eaten enough, and Hannah made Juna promise to report any pancake developments immediately. They finished the call with everyone talking over the goodbye, just as they would have done in the kitchen.
Callie’s screen returned to its ordinary rows of icons. She kept holding it while Maggie gathered the plates. The apartment noises seemed louder now: water moving through pipes, footsteps overhead, the television below them. At home, the end of a conversation did not usually remove the people from the room. She could have gone downstairs, found her mother putting something away, and remembered another thing she meant to ask. She stared at the phone until Juna pulled on her sleeve to request more milk, then set it on the counter and opened the refrigerator. The milk was where she had put it. Everything she needed to do next was waiting here.
Bedtime required finding the pajamas she had kept accessible throughout the journey, then explaining why they were still necessary even though Grandma’s house was far away. Juna accepted the explanation reluctantly and rejected the first placement of her pillow. The mat rustled whenever she moved. Callie tucked a blanket around her, repositioned Gus where he could see the book, and sat on the floor with her back against the wall. The room’s window showed a strip of darkening blue above the neighboring roof. She had opened it earlier, and the cooler air stirred the curtain just enough to make Juna look up from the page. A laugh came from the courtyard, followed by a door closing. Her daughter moved closer beneath the blanket.
“We go Grandma’s tomorrow?” Juna asked. Her voice had lost the busy certainty with which she had shown Hannah the room. She pressed one hand against the mat, testing its spring, and waited for Callie to answer.
“We’re staying here. This is where we live while Mommy goes to school.” Callie laid the book on her knees and smoothed the blanket where Juna had twisted it. “We’ll talk to Grandma again tomorrow. And Grandpa and Hannah. We’ll visit them too, but we have to stay here for a while first.” She had explained the move many times. Juna had understood cars, packing, and a new room. Callie had no idea how much staying belonged to the same understanding. She resisted promising a visit soon enough to solve tonight and become a problem next week. “Your bed comes tomorrow. We can put Gus on it before you try it.”
Juna considered that, rubbing the stuffed dog’s ear between her fingers. “The little man has a bed?”
“I think so. I don’t know what his looks like.” Callie leaned down to pull the book back within the light. “People who are Little need beds that fit them.” She could have made one of Juna’s dolls comfortable in a cardboard box with folded cloth, and the thought occurred so readily that she was embarrassed by it. She remembered the man asking for a later repair time. He would have had a life before that carrier, a kitchen he could reach, somewhere he preferred to sleep. “I haven’t seen his room,” she added. “Maybe it’s set up so he can do things himself.”
“He has a little spoon.” Juna said it with the satisfaction of somebody who had resolved the most pressing household question. She shifted Gus beside her cheek and asked for the book again. Callie opened it to the beginning, though they had read enough pages already that she could have continued from memory. Juna wanted it in order. By the third page she was interrupting to supply familiar words; by the sixth, her answers had become sleepy murmurs. Callie kept reading until her daughter’s hand relaxed around the dog’s ear, then remained beside the mat, listening to the small, even breaths beneath the noises of a building she did not yet recognize.
When she finally came out, Maggie was sitting near the window with a sketchbook open on her knees. Several pencils lay beside her. She had drawn the corner of the room where the light struck the wall, leaving the boxes as simple outlines. Callie almost asked whether she was planning the furniture, then noticed that Maggie was working on the shadows rather than making anything useful. Her friend looked up and moved a pencil so Callie could sit. The kitchen counter had been cleared enough to hold the things they needed for breakfast. Maggie had left the remaining boxes alone.
“Tomorrow,” Maggie said, following Callie’s gaze toward them. “They’re not going to unpack themselves, but I have accepted that as a character flaw.” She rubbed a mark from the page with her thumb and glanced down the hall. “Did she settle?”
“Eventually. She asked if we were going back to Grandma’s tomorrow.” Callie lowered herself to the floor, feeling the day in her knees. She could see a pale rectangle of light beneath their bedroom door. “I think she knew we were moving until we actually stopped somewhere.”
Maggie nodded and rested the sketchbook against her leg. “I miss home already. And I spent the last six months telling everybody how ready I was to leave.” She looked around the room, at the open window and the bags they had yet to sort. “I still am. I’m just apparently capable of being annoying about both things at once.”
Callie smiled, grateful that she did not have to introduce the contradiction herself. “I wanted to stop at campus. Right then. Walk straight into the engineering building.” She could picture it more clearly than she could picture the arrangement of their bedroom tomorrow. “Even with the cars full of stuff and Juna asking about blocks.”
“We’ll go.” Maggie bent her knees and shifted the sketchbook back into place. “After the mattresses come. We have to be here for that, and I refuse to spend another night negotiating with the floor.” She glanced toward the kitchen. “Preschool’s Thursday, right?”
Callie confirmed it and began mentally assembling tomorrow’s errands. Maggie listened until the list reached a task that could wait, then pointed out that they had two people, two cars, and no obligation to accomplish the entire semester before lunch. They worked out breakfast, the delivery window, and a campus walk that could include finding the preschool route without turning into orientation itself. It was enough to let Callie stop calculating for a few minutes. She stayed beside the window while Maggie returned to her drawing, watching a line become the edge of their wall. Somewhere outside, a car alarm chirped and fell silent. She would learn which sounds belonged here.
Before turning in, Callie opened the box of clothes and found the circuit diagram still wrapped in a shirt. She checked the glass, wiped a thumbprint from its corner, and set it on the bedroom windowsill where the frame caught a little light from the courtyard. There was no desk yet. The kitchen counter would do until they found something that fit, and she could study there after Juna went to sleep. She put the preschool folder beside her bag near the door, checked that the first morning’s clothes were within reach, and returned to her mat. Juna stirred when she lay down but did not wake. Callie adjusted the blanket over her daughter’s feet, then lay looking at the unfamiliar ceiling while the cooler air moved across her face. Tomorrow she would have beds to arrange and a campus she wanted to walk through. She reached for her phone, sent her mother a message saying they were going to sleep, and set it beside her with the sound turned up.
I’m loving seeing the world both pre-Smallara and now that it’s come over with Callie and Juna seeing a little.
I remember my first college apartment. It was furnished, so I did not have to wait for a desk or mattress 😇
1) “I think she knew we were moving until we actually stopped somewhere.”
Did you leave the word “don’t” out of that line?
The rest of the episode was fine, and like my first comment a little nostalgic.