I grabbed the sneakers. The cashier was a lanky kid with a constellation of acne across his forehead and a name tag that said HUNTER in block letters a little too carefully drawn. He barely looked up as I set the shoes on the counter. “Fifteen thirty-seven,” he said, bored. “Cash or card?”

“Cash,” I said, and then, because he was a teenager and I am at an age where every teenager is either my son or my responsibility, “You doing okay today, Hunter?”

He blinked, like the question was a foreign language, then smiled a little, embarrassed. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Outside, the air had sharpened, that perfect between-season crisp that makes everything look higher-definition. She was halfway down the block, pushing the stroller with both hands like it might roll toward the horizon without her. “Excuse me!” I called, breathless with the run and a little with the audacity. “You forgot something!”

She turned. The green of her eyes startled me. Not just the color—green like new leaves after rain—but the way they were ringed with tiredness, a pale halo of not-enough-sleep and too-much-thinking. Up close, she looked younger and older at once. The hoodie had a bleach spot on the sleeve that said someone tried to salvage something and made it worse.

“I’m sorry?” she said, polite and wary.

I held out the bag. “You were—there were shoes. These were meant to be yours.”

Her hand hovered, jerking back like the bag might bite. “I… no. No, I can’t.”