I let her hold my hand for another minute, kiss me on the cheek as she got out of the car. I promised her I’d think about what she said and that I’d do a better job eating. I said what she needed to hear because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was too late; I was already at home in the dark.

• • •

When I got back to my apartment building, I turned off my engine and waited, listened to the sound of the night: trees rustling in the wind, a man’s far-off hollering for a dog or a child, the tinny sound of someone’s radio drifting out through their open apartment window. But I didn’t hear any reporters, saw no news vans or clicking heels racing over to check who was inside my car. They must have given up and gone to look somewhere else. Maybe they were camped outside the Logans’ house, a more picturesque scene, to be sure.

I wasn’t sure I had the energy to get out of my car, walk across the parking lot, and climb the flight of stairs to my apartment. Open the door and face the empty rooms that still smelled like my daughter. But falling asleep in my car and being awoken by cameras in my face would have been even worse. Not because I really cared about being captured with drool on my cheek and sleep in my eyes, but because I’d never hear the end of it from Cal. Land, either. There was a protocol to grieving on a national stage and I’d already fucked it up once. I wouldn’t be allowed to do it again.

My footsteps made hollow slapping sounds on the concrete steps as I climbed, my steady progress screeching to a halt when I stepped out onto the landing and saw a man sitting in front of my apartment door, knees drawn up and forehead resting on his folded arms. He raised his head when he heard me, stared at me through bleary, beer-heavy eyes.

I crossed my arms across my chest. “What are you doing here?” I’d always taken Junie to Izzy’s house, or picked Izzy up at her own. Izzy’s parents had never been here. I wasn’t aware Zach Logan even knew where I lived.

He’d been crying, the dim light catching silvery trails on his cheeks. “That thing you said today . . .”

I sighed. Louise had been right. Apparently my scene at the press conference was all anyone could talk about. “I shouldn’t have said it. Not out loud. I’m sorry I ruined the press conference.” I knew how to apologize even when I didn’t mean it, knew how to make the right words come out of my mouth in hopes they might diffuse whatever punishment was coming my way. With my mother, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But other people didn’t have her gift for sniffing out insincerity. It was like serving cake without the frosting. I’d left out the most important part, but people ate it anyway.