It wasn't that she wanted to stop, to skid to a halt and truncate her escape by finding her feat leaden and weighted in place. But she did stop, and it was fear that made her do so. It might be hard to understand how being afraid kept a person from running, but it did. It had. It had a lot and often during her marriage, and she'd kind of convinced herself all those memories didn't matter, they weren't bad, they had no effect on her life, but here she was. Stopped. Just liked she'd found herself whenever she'd tried to convince herself to go, go, go. And it wasn't even Caspar's fault. Caspar, had never done anything to her, nothing bad, but he was Marcus. He was an extension of Marcus here, arm reaching out from the flowerbed and his fingers outstretched.
And all those questions that always tumbled around in her head like dryer sheets, they were silenced. Because this fear was real, and it didn't belong to some machine that wasn't her. In that moment and in that place, she was unquestionably Amy through and through.
And she stopped, because he called her name and touched her shoulder. And she turned.
Someone was knocking into him, and it was loud, and the door was there, there and so close. But she stood, swayed, was a thing planted, and she blinked blue eyes at him. He looked older to her, more spent, and she wasn't surprised he was here and at this place. "Hi. Caspar." Acknowledgement in just a name.