Page 111 of Beyond Protection
"Sometimes things break, Cormac. Sometimes we break them ourselves. And they're still clay."
She cupped his face with clay-stained hands. "And you're still you. Whatever shape you're in right now—broken or whole or somewhere in between. You're still worth keeping."
Tears trailed down his face.
"I don't know how not to be perfect," he whispered. "If I don't get everything right, I'm—"
"Human? Allowed to struggle? Allowed to need other people?"
"Weak."
"No." She spoke with absolute certainty. "You are not weak. You are exhausted. There's a difference."
Mac trembled.
Claire pulled him into a hug while he fell apart in her studio, surrounded by the smell of earth and rain and all the broken beautiful things that could still become something else.
After, Mac tried again. On the sixth attempt, the clay finally centered. Not perfectly—still wobbling—but centering. Walls forming. Uneven. Amateur. But rising.
The bowl that emerged was terrible by any technical standard. Different thicknesses. Uneven rim.
Mac stopped the wheel. Stared at it.
"It's terrible," he said.
"It's honest," Claire corrected. "And I'm going to fire it."
"Why?"
"Because you made it. And it's enough."
At her car, Claire looked at me. "You care for him."
Not a question.
"He's my client," I said automatically.
"That's not what I'm saying."
"Yeah," I admitted. "I care about him."
She nodded. "Good. He needs people who see him, not only the baseball."
When we returned to Ma's, I immediately saw what was new.
Footprints in mud beside the living room window. Fresh—maybe an hour old. Leading from the sidewalk to the window. Then back.
Someone had been standing right there. Close enough to see inside. Close enough to count heads.
The footprints were small—women's size seven, maybe eight.
I called Marcus. "She was here. At the house. Today."
Back inside, Mac sat at the kitchen table. Clay still darkened his fingernails. He was steadier than before we left.
Dorian arrived with Rowan and Thai takeout. Alex stood behind Michael at the laptop—they'd driven up from Oregon that morning.
The house was full of noise and life.
