Chapter 22 - TESSA TAKES JUNE TO A SMALL BABY SHOWER
Six months after the incident, one of Tessa’s friends had a baby.
Small shower.
Fourteen guests.
Apartment courtyard.
No string quartet.
No hundred-person guest list.
Tessa almost declined.
Then went.
June came too.
Seven months old.
Sitting with support.
Drooling on everything.
A friend carried a bucket of melted ice toward a drain.
Tessa froze.
The friend noticed.
Stopped.
“What?”
Tessa looked at the bucket.
Then laughed once.
“Nothing. My brain is being stupid.”
Her therapist had taught her not to insult her own brain.
She corrected herself.
“My brain is remembering.”
Better.
The friend put the bucket down.
“Want me to take another way?”
Tessa thought.
“No.”
The friend walked past.
Nothing happened.
June slapped both hands on a plastic table.
Everyone laughed.
One ordinary bucket.
May you like
One ordinary garden.
That mattered more than any court order.
