We cram ourselves and our overnight bags into Ms. Barrantes’s sedan. We leave early, our departure time fully cushioned, only to watch all of our padding disintegrate in a heart-in-throat instant, Ms. Barrantes practically standing on the brake pedal to prevent us from slamming into the stopped van ahead of us.

Yo, if we were playing curse word bingo, all five of us would’ve been winners, waving our arms victoriously in the air, Ms. Barrantes rapid-firing words I’m not even sure are profane.

“Everyone okay?” she says, glancing at each of us. “What the hell are they even working on?”

Ahead of us, a field of orange cones and orange barrels cuts unwelcome polygons into the highway, as men wearing flashlight helmets point at the road and put their hands on their hips, the four-lane highway boa-constrictored to one pathetically skinny shoulder.

Whit opens a traffic app on her phone. “Traffic’s backed up for a quarter mile.”

Ms. Barrantes wags her head. “Nuh-uh” is all she says as she whips the car to the right and onto the center median, narrowly avoiding an orange cone massacre, before leaning into the gas and obstacle-coursing the fuck out of the construction zone. The construction crew’s faces look horrified as they dive out of the way; but she wasn’t close to hitting them. Well, not that close.

“Damn, Ms. B, you a stuntwoman in your spare time?” Autumn asks.

“That’s what I’m talking about, Mom,” Q yells from the back seat. “Hell yeah!”

“Who says brown people don’t like NASCAR,” she says, winking at us in the rearview mirror. Ten minutes later, we spill out of the car and into the airport security line, Ms. Barrantes slipping her keys and cash to the valet without a hitch in her stride. Naturally, our gate is C29, which could just as easily be renamed the Oregon Trail, it’s that long of a hike.

The gate attendant tags our bags because there’s no more storage on the plane, and she looks like she wants to say something when she sees Whit’s belly, but instead she phones the crew we’re finally here and shoos us down the jetway. We fall into our seats, Q and his mom together, Whit and Autumn, and me alone.

I took the solo seat even though Autumn argued she should.

So now I’m in the middle seat, right next to the engine so my entire body vibrates and I can’t hear myself think for the relentless hum, and the cherry?

I have zero armrest real estate.

But it doesn’t matter. I spot the back of Q’s head, the side of his mom’s as she looks at her son in a way no one has to teach you when you have sacrifice your life love, and I’m reminded that what I did, telling Q the truth, didn’t belong to me.