Her breathing was slow and even and unburdened.

And I thought about how different I must have looked too, how the hollow exhausted shadows that five years of unpaid bills and predatory phone calls had carved under my eyes were simply gone, how my hands were calloused now from building things in my own yard instead of gripping a steering wheel for eighteen hours a day.

We had both been remade.

I carried a vase of fresh yellow roses out to the glass table beside her chair and set them down.