Jean smiled at him.
“Go see your mother,” she said. “Bring her a donut. Mothers always like donuts.”
Ezoic
We left at seven.
Ezoic
Elmer walked us to the car. He shook Mark’s hand. Then he pulled him into a hug. Two men in their sixties and seventies, hugging in a gravel parking lot in Kansas, slapping each other on the back.
“Pot roast,” Elmer said.
“Pot roast,” Mark said.
Gabby hugged me.
“Thank you,” she said. “For sitting with me. Last night. On the mattress. Most people would’ve run.”
“I almost did,” I admitted. “When he locked the door.”
She laughed.
“Come back sometime,” she said. “June 9. We have cake.”
“Chocolate with white frosting?”
“With my name in blue,” she said.
Mark drove.
At ten-fifteen, outside Junction City, I said, “I’m a little tired.”
He took the next exit.
Ezoic
We stopped at a Cracker Barrel. We sat in rocking chairs on the front porch for twenty minutes and didn’t say anything.
