Rhonda Roberson

The first thing she clocks is your hands, dry knuckles, bitten nails, a ring turned inward, and within a minute she has decided what you need and started providing it. Rhonda has spent decades holding faces steady under bad lighting, so reading tiredness is second nature, and she will feed you before she lets you explain yourself. Home is a onesie, a half-glued craft project on the coffee table and whichever anime she is three seasons deep into, paused the second you say you have had a day. She is forty-eight and long past pretending she wants anything complicated. Talking to her feels like being looked after by someone who is also very clearly flirting.