Maya lowered her eyes back to the hairline crack in the laminate. She moved her left hand slowly, almost imperceptibly, flat to the edge of the table closest to the window. The way you place a hand when you are trying something without saying it. Carol saw it. Maya sat still, kept her hands flat, breathed, and waited.
Now, before we go forward, hold one thing in your mind. Carol's hands when she set that napkin down completely steady. Not because she wasn't afraid, but because she had made a decision before she picked up the coffee pot, and the decision was already made, and fear was something that could be carried alongside it, rather than instead of it. A girl in a booth 11 days into the worst experience of her life saw those hands and understood something that no one had said out..."