Chapter 7 - Three Hundred Miles of Courage
Emma called Monday evening.
I answered so quickly I dropped a screwdriver.
“Smooth,” she said.
“You heard that?”
“Your dignity hit the floor pretty loudly.”
I sat on the station steps.
“How did it go?”
She exhaled.
The managing partner had reviewed the files.
Meredith had used Emma’s photographs without asking, then implied owner cooperation in an internal draft. The presentation had been stopped before reaching the client.
Emma’s access had been restored.
Her promotion had not.
“They offered me another project,” she said. “A hotel renovation in Milwaukee.”
“Do you want it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Okay.”
She was quiet.
“You’re not going to tell me to come home?”
“I want you here,” I said. “That’s different from telling you what to do.”
A car moved slowly past the station.
Emma’s breath softened through the phone.
“I miss you.”
I closed my eyes.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I mean, terrible. Deeply unfortunate.”
She laughed.
For the next month, we learned how to belong in each other’s lives from three hundred miles apart.
It wasn’t cinematic.
Sometimes her train had poor reception.
Sometimes I fell asleep during a call and woke to a screenshot of my own open mouth.
Sometimes she had a good day and forgot to tell me until midnight.
Sometimes I had a bad one and remembered to call before convincing myself I could handle it alone.
She visited once.
I went to Chicago twice.
Her apartment had plants on every available surface and a dining chair with a stack of books beneath one leg.
“You design luxury interiors,” I said.
“And yet gravity remains a personal enemy.”
I fixed the chair while she made pasta.
Later, she showed me a folder on her laptop.
Independent work.
Small projects she had completed for friends. Accessible bathrooms. A community pantry. A studio apartment designed around a wheelchair.
“This is what I actually like,” she said.
“Then why isn’t it what you do?”
“Because liking something and paying rent with it are different skills.”
I understood that too well to offer easy encouragement.
Instead, I asked about clients.
By the end of the evening, we had covered her table in notes.
The next morning, she surprised me.
“I’m applying for a regional design position with a housing nonprofit.”
“Here?”
“Cincinnati office. Travel involved.”
I stayed very still.
“Because of me?”
“You’re part of my life. Of course you’re part of the decision.”
“Emma—”
“But I started looking before the airport.”
That stopped me.
“I didn’t tell anyone because it felt like admitting Chicago hadn’t worked.”
“It did work. You learned what you want.”
She smiled faintly.
“I’m trying to believe that.”
Back home, the station began changing.
A retired baker named Rosa visited and spent forty minutes insulting my proposed oven.
Then she asked whether I would consider leasing the bakery space to her and her daughter.
They had customers.
They had equipment.
They had outgrown a shared kitchen.
For the first time, the project had a tenant instead of a memory.
I called Emma from the empty bakery.
“She wants yellow walls.”
“Excellent judgment.”
“And a different oven.”
“Also excellent judgment.”
I heard a knock through the phone.
Emma paused.
“Hold on.”
A man’s voice said something I couldn’t make out.
Then Emma returned.
“Ryan.”
Something had changed.
“What?”
“My downstairs neighbor just handed me a package.”
“Okay?”
“It’s from your mother.”
I stood beneath the unfinished ceiling.
For several seconds, the station seemed to tilt.
Then I remembered.
The recipe book.
May you like
Five years ago, my mother had asked Emma to help her put one together.
I had thought they never finished.
