“Not even when you sit for two straight hours in class?”

“Not even a little,” she said.

She leaned back in her chair and stretched both arms high over her head without flinching or hesitating.

The small apartment smelled of clean yellow paint, cedar floor wax, and the fresh autumn breeze coming through the open sunroom window.

On the kitchen counter down the hall sat my grandmother’s porcelain teapot, its lid resting next to a small stack of paid utility receipts.

Out in the narrow driveway, my silver Honda Civic was parked in the shade of the maple tree, its trunk finally cleared of emergency bags and file folders.