The counter was too crowded. I couldn’t fit a Dixie cup between the pots and bowls. Mrs. Boden arrived. She was over ninety and wore bangles on her wrists every day of the week.

“I can take two.” She held out both her hands. I put a bowl in each.

“You got it?” I asked.

Behind me, the screen door slapped. It was Reggie, still bandaged.

“I have it, young lady,” Mrs. Boden said before going out.

I should have been nervous to be alone with him, but I’d known him so long, I couldn’t find fear. “Reggie, good morning.”

“Morning.” He jammed a hand in his jeans. “I brought the truck so I could take the big stuff.” With his free hand, he indicated the food everyone had dropped off for the soup kitchen.

“I can give you a hand.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I called you a lie, and I knew it was a lie, but I said it anyway.”

“Okay.”

“And I had no business getting in your face. My feelings are the same, but I have to be a man. Just be a man about it. You’re a woman of your own mind. That’s the end of it. We’ve been friends for a long time and that’s all I want from you if that’s what you have to give. I’m upside down thinking I spoiled that.”

I picked up the heaviest stock pot, and he rushed to relieve me.

“Thank you.”

He turned and kicked open the screen door.

“Reggie.”

He stopped with the door half open.

“Things are changing and you sensed that. You reacted to it. You didn’t spoil it. We’re still friends, but like I said… things are changing.”

“Yeah.”

“But not what I think of you. That hasn’t changed. We’re still friends.”

“I appreciate that. I couldn’t live with myself.”

I put my hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’d better get that out or everything’s going to be cold.”

As he walked across the back porch and I went to the kitchen to get another pot, Harper barreled down the stairs in her yellow polo.

“You’re working?” I asked. “I haven’t made you lunch.”

“Don’t worry. I got it.” She yanked the plastic tail of the bread bag off the top of the fridge, spinning it in the air before catching it.

Mrs. Boden came back in. “Got room for two more.” She cradled two bowls in her arms and headed out.

Harper leaned into the pantry for a jar of peanut butter.

“Are you all right?” I asked my sister.

“Fine.” She snapped a shopping bag from under the sink and dropped the jar of peanut butter and loaf of bread into it. She tried to leave, but I put my hand on the door. “What?”

“You’re not fine.”

“I’m going to be unfine and late.” I knew the warehouse shifts as well as she did, and she wasn’t late. When she realized I wasn’t budging, her shoulders slumped. “I’m as fine as I need to be.”

“Taylor?”

“That’s over. He needs to have his life. I’m not going to hold him back.”

“That’s awfully mature of you,” I said through a haze of disbelief.

“Whatever.”

I took my hand off the door and wedged myself between her and it. “How are the college applications going?”

She shrugged. “I don’t see the point.”

Reggie clopped up the porch to get more pots, and I pulled Harper into a corner to give him room.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s, like, a hundred dollars per application.”

“How many do you want to send out?”

“Three. Stanford. MIT. Michigan.”

I would give it to her even if three hundred dollars meant I had to stay. “You have to become what you were meant to be.”

“Oh, give me a break.”

“Harper.” I put my hands on her biceps. “I never thought I was meant for anything. I wasn’t pretty like Marsha. I wasn’t smart like you. Mom always dreamed so small for us. But she was wrong. I was wrong. I became something here. I found my purpose in my people. But you? You’re never going to be your best self here.”

She looked away from me, twisting her mouth into a defiant curve.

“Maybe,” I added, “you’ll find your purpose and Taylor at the same time.”

“We’re all going to find Taylor.” She clopped the floor between her feet. “There’s talk he’s buying the factory.”

“Our factory?” I exploded from the inside out. “That’s wonderful news! We haven’t heard a thing since… was he the one we cleaned it for?”

“No. It’s…” She shook her head. “It’s complicated. But it’s real and you know what? I don’t want to be here when he’s here.”

Behind her, Johnny and Pat joined the march of food-carriers.

“Do you have three hundred dollars?” My offer was tinged with hope.

She looked less thrilled. “It’s three seventy-five, and I can put it together.”

“Are you sure?”

“If you let me get to work already.”

I hugged her first, planting a long kiss on her cheek. “I love you, Harper.”

“I love you too.”

She pulled away and brushed past Reggie to get out the door.