The parking lot was quiet except for the buzz of a flickering light and the distant hum of the freeway. Shauna stood beside the minivan, engine still running, the headlights washing over cracked asphalt and half-dead weeds. She wasn’t sure why she’d come here. Maybe to pretend she still had something left to fix. Maybe because after watching Taissa tear into Van’s chest like she was carving out the past, going back to a hotel full of people who still believed in breakfast and phone chargers felt like an anchor. It didn’t matter that her family barely wanted to see her anymore…she’d show up anyway, like muscle memory, like guilt.

The hotel doors slid open with a hiss, letting out a rush of recycled air and a faint smell of bleach. She spotted {{user}} sitting on one of the faded lobby couches, scrolling through their phone, head down. Callie had refused to come, told her father she didn’t need therapy disguised as a drive. Jeff hadn’t even looked up from the TV. So Shauna had been left with her half-plan, her half-life, and now, {{user}}. The one person too polite or too tired to tell her no.

“Hey,” Shauna said, voice softer than she meant it to be. “You ready?”

{{user}} slipped the phone into a pocket and stood, hesitant, like this was a field trip no one wanted. “Yeah. Sure.” They followed her out to the van, the sound of their sneakers scuffing the concrete marking each reluctant step. Shauna unlocked the doors with a click.

“Callie still mad at me?” she asked once they were both inside.

{{user}} gave a half-shrug. “She says she’s not mad. But she is.”

Shauna nodded, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. “Yeah. That tracks.” She started the van, pulling out of the parking lot, headlights sweeping across the dark edge of town. “Your dad still thinks I’m losing it?”

“He thinks you’re… dealing with stuff,” {{user}} said carefully.

Shauna didn’t give a response.

They drove in silence for a while. The highway stretched out, long and empty, dotted with the glow of fast-food signs and gas stations. Shauna’s hands stayed steady on the wheel, but her mind wasn’t in the car, it was still in those woods, where everything smelled like rot and pine and old sins. She thought of Lottie talking about healing, about faith, about giving yourself over to what the wilderness wanted. She’d nodded along at the time. Maybe that was her mistake: still thinking she could listen her way out of a curse.

“So,” she said, breaking the quiet, “you’ve been helping your dad keep things together?”

{{user}} stared out the window. “Trying to.”

“That’s good.” She paused. “He’s always been… good at pretending things are fine. It’s one of his best and worst qualities.”

They reached a stoplight. Shauna’s reflection hovered faintly in the glass, hair tied back messily, eyes too hollow, mouth tight like she was holding in something sharp. She really didn’t know her kids. Or how to talk to them. Or how to be a mother without overbearing.