Food court doors. Glass. Families. A girl taking a picture of a pretzel as if it were news. A man arguing with a stroller that would not fold. Mira was not out yet. I watched the glass the way I had watched Luis’s neck, which is to say I watched it as if looking were a rehearsal.
The lot was a clock. Carts drifted. A security guard drifted. He looked at the van. He looked through it. He kept walking. Logos do that. Logos are invisibility you can lease.
I sat with both hands on the wheel even though the engine was dead. Ten and two. Student posture. If anyone glanced in they would see a driver waiting on a customer, which was the truth if you squinted until the truth broke.
Luis’s phone buzzed in my lap. Wife this time. I did not read the preview all the way. I turned the phone face down. If I started answering wives I would start being a person again, and persons do not finish what they start in driveways.
A family came out of the doors with bags and a child already crying about leaving. They passed the van close enough that I could have counted the stickers on the minivan they walked toward. None of them looked at me. The child looked at the balloons printed on a store bag and reached, as if printed balloons were the same as real ones.
I told myself I could still leave. I could drive the van into the river and walk home and call Monday a fever. Mira would wait, then complain, then take a rideshare, then live. Luis would still be in my garage. The math did not forgive me either way.
I stayed.
The sticky tree dripped. A drop hit the windshield and crawled. I watched it the way you watch a second hand when you cannot bear to look at the face of the clock. Five minutes had already been a lie. Traffic, I had typed. Stay there. She would stay because the alternative was walking into heat with bags and no plan.
Another text. The rag made my thumb clumsy. Coming.
One word. Mine. A promise that was also a trap.