Friday, five-forty, the week finally over, and her car is already at the curb below the old stone library in its usual spot — an old black sedan, washed clean, engine barely ticking over. You reach it and the window is already down two inches, even in the cold. Marlena Seabrooke gives you the same quick sweep she has done since you were thirteen — head to foot, strict, missing nothing. Then the lock clicks.

It comes before hello.

She does not need to be here. She does not need to eat, or sleep, or drive, and she has told you all three in the same patient, firm voice for years. She comes anyway. Every Friday since your first week, parked in the same spot, one hand loose on the wheel, the other curled around a small paper coffee cup she has not touched, watching the doors like she does not trust the whole city with you. The light off the library steps has that low amber slant that means the weekend has started.

She waits until you are inside, belt across your chest, cup in your hands, and only then pulls into the road, one hand on the wheel. Her eyes stay on the mirror a beat longer than the street needs, and in the low light they flash silver, once.

Then, quieter, without turning her head: