They left before dawn. Not because it was smart, not because they had a plan, but because sleep had slipped away from both of them like a cruel trick, and the silence of the countryside was louder than any city street. James couldn’t stand the walls pressing in, Penelope lying stiff beside him, the ticking of the old clock on the mantel. So he said they should go. And she didn’t argue. She just gathered her coat, her bag, and her silence.
The road was empty, damp from last night’s rain, shining faintly in the beam of the car’s headlights. Mist hung in sheets across the hedgerows, sometimes so thick James had to slow until the world was nothing but a patch of gray tunnel and the hum of the engine. His hands cramped on the wheel.
He kept glancing in the mirror. He knew it was useless; ther
