“We’re a team, Mom,” Sophie said, opening her driver’s door.

“We don’t keep polite secrets from each other anymore.”

She slid behind the wheel, started the engine with a quiet hum, and backed carefully past the garage wall onto Oak Ridge Drive.

By two in the afternoon, light gray clouds were rolling over the hills behind Miller Hardware on the county highway.

Lynn stood beside the open trunk of my station wagon, holding two thick steel grab bars wrapped in clear industrial plastic.

Her silver bracelet clinked against the trunk latch as she set the heavy metal fixtures on the floor mat.