Friday morning, Ren was at Riverside Care Home before sunrise, sitting beside her grandmother's bed as the surgical team prepped the operating room down the hall.
"You look steadier than I've seen you in a year," Eleanor said, squeezing her hand as the orderlies came to wheel her down.
"I feel steadier," Ren admitted. "I think I finally put something down I've been carrying a long time."
"Good," Eleanor said. "That's exactly what I hoped Thursday would give you, whatever else came of it."
She smiled. A little tired, a little scared beneath the calm, the way anyone facing a Friday like this one has every right to be.
"I'll see you on the other side of this, sweetheart."
"You will," Ren said, and meant it with her whole chest. And held her grandmother's hand until the very last second the hallway would allow.
The surgery took 3 hours.
Ren spent every minute of it in the waiting room, the trident charm turning slowly between her fingers. Marjorie and Frank arrived an hour in, with coffee neither of them needed but both of them brought anyway. Because that was simply what this town did now. Showed up for each other, the way it perhaps should have all along.
Dr. Palmer came out at last, tired but smiling, and told her it had gone exactly as well as anyone could have hoped.
It had, he added, gone about as smoothly as a surgery of that kind ever does. And Eleanor's heart, tired as it was, had held up exactly the way 41 years of taking care of other people's hearts had apparently taught it to.
Ren put her face in her hands for just a moment, the whole week finally, fully catching up to her all at once. Before she straightened, wiped her eyes, and went to sit beside her grandmother's bed until Eleanor opened her own eyes again. Groggy, blinking, and immediately, unmistakably herself.
"Well," Eleanor murmured, voice thick with anesthesia. "Did I miss anything?"
Ren laughed, wet and real. "Nothing you need to worry about right now."
That evening, riding the 6:40 bus back into town, Earl at the wheel as always, Ren took her usual seat. Near the back, left side, facing the aisle. The same seat she'd chosen on her very first ride through Cedar Hollow, back when nobody in this town had a single reason to know her name.
Old habit.
But something about the bus felt different tonight.
Frank sat two rows up, chatting easily with Norah, who was leaning back with the particular relief of a woman past the worst of her worry. Baby kicking steadily now, husband beside her.
A few other regulars nodded to Ren as she passed. Small, ordinary nods that meant, in the quiet language of small towns, "We see you now. And we're glad of it."
Earl caught her eye in the long mirror above his head.
"Evening, Ren."
"Evening, Earl."
"Good day?"