ONE LAST TEXT
"I hope he can still get you something soon."
"Me too. I really do want this resolved for you, Eli. You deserve to actually know."
"Thanks. I mean it."
We said goodnight a little while later, and I lay in bed afterward staring at the ceiling the way I did most nights now, replaying the conversation, the side door lead, Claire's small correction about her uncle's job, Jordan's distracted, apologetic face outside the hardware store, and I felt, more acutely than I had in weeks, exactly how alone I actually was in the middle of all of it, everyone else in my life either grieving or exhausted or gone entirely, and Claire, somehow, the only person left with enough bandwidth to actually sit with m