Miriam found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, folded beneath a stack of towels she'd been meaning to donate since March. She shook it out over the dining table, and the creases stood up like small mountain ranges.

"There's an iron somewhere," Dev called from the kitchen, over the sound of running water. "Bottom of the coat closet, maybe."

"It's fine. Candles will hide it."

He was scrubbing potatoes, four pounds of them, because he could never estimate quantity and always erred toward too much. The roast had been in since four. The kitchen smelled like rosemary and hot fat, and the window above the sink had fogged at the corners.

Miriam came in and took a knife from the block. "Ellie's bringing her new boyfriend."

"The one with the podcast?"

"That was two ago." She started on the carrots, cutting them into rough coins. "This one restores furniture. Or refinishes it. There's a difference and I got corrected."

Dev laughed and reached past her for the colander. They'd worked out the choreography of this kitchen over eleven years — who stood where, who moved when. He tipped the potatoes in, and she stepped back without looking, and neither of them thought about it.

At six-fifteen he went to change his shirt. Miriam lit the candles and dimmed the overhead, then turned it back up because the room looked like a séance. She put on a record, something instrumental, low.

Dev came down in the blue shirt she liked, still buttoning the cuff. "How do I look?"

"Like someone who owns an iron."

"Cruel."

Headlights swept across the front window. Miriam glanced around the room once — the crooked tablecloth, the mismatched chairs, the good wine already open and breathing on the counter — and decided it was enough.

"Ready?" Dev said, hand on the doorknob.

She was.


The doorbell wasn't due to ring for another forty minutes, but Priya had already changed her shirt twice.

"The blue one," Marcus said from the kitchen, not looking up. He was scraping the burnt edges off the roasted carrots, a small act of concealment he hoped no one would notice.

"You said that about the green one."

"I like all your shirts. That's the problem with marrying someone with good taste."

She came into the kitchen barefoot, carrying two candlesticks she'd found in the hall closet, still dusty from the move eight months ago. "Do these look like we're trying too hard?"

"Everything looks like we're trying too hard. That's the whole point of having people over."

They worked around each other in the narrow galley kitchen with the choreography of eleven years — he stepped left when she reached for the colander, she ducked under his arm to get the salt. The Youngs were bringing wine. Deb was bringing her husband, Tom, who had opinions about everything, and their neighbor Curtis was coming alone, which Priya had thought about all week.

"Should I put out the good glasses?"

"We have good glasses?"

She found them behind the cereal, six of them, a wedding present from someone whose name they'd both forgotten. Marcus wiped each one with a dish towel while she pushed the mail off the dining table into a drawer, then reconsidered and moved the whole drawer's worth into the bedroom.

At 6:52 he turned on the lamp instead of the overhead light. At 6:55 she lit the candles. He put on a record because he'd read once that music should already be playing when guests arrive, so it feels like they've walked into something rather than started it.

"How do I look?" he asked.

"Like someone who scraped burnt carrots."

"You saw that."

"I always see it." She kissed his shoulder. The doorbell rang.


The Marchetti-Okonkwo house smelled like garlic by four-thirty.

Dana stood at the stove, pressing a wooden spoon against the bottom of the pot, scraping up the browned bits the way her mother had taught her. The sauce had another hour in it, easy, which meant she still had time to deal with the bathroom, where a tube of toothpaste had exploded sometime Tuesday and nobody had admitted to it.

"They're bringing wine, right?" Femi called from the dining room. He was on his knees under the table, wrestling with the leaf mechanism, which had been sticking since they bought the thing off a neighbor two Aprils ago.

"Marcus is. I told Priya not to bring anything and she'll bring something anyway."

"She always brings that lemon cake."

"That's why I told her not to." Dana tasted the sauce, added salt, tasted it again. "Is the table going to fit six?"

There was a grunt, then a wooden shriek, then a satisfied noise. "Six. Maybe seven if someone's small."

She came in wiping her hands on a dish towel and looked at the table, then at him, then at the mismatched chairs — two from the kitchen, one from the office, the folding one from the garage that they always swore they'd replace.

"It looks like a yard sale," she said.

"It looks lived in."

"That's a yard sale with better marketing." But she was smiling, and she went to get the good napkins from the linen closet, the ones from their wedding that they used maybe four times a year.

Femi put on a record. Dana lit the candles at ten past six, too early, so they'd be half-burned by the time anyone actually sat down. Neither of them mentioned it.

At six-forty, headlights swung across the front window. Femi went to open the door, and Dana turned the burner down to low.


Marcus found the road atlas in the hall closet, buried under a stack of beach towels they hadn't used since August. He carried it to the kitchen table where Priya was scrolling through her phone, comparing motel prices in Asheville.

"Ninety-four a night at the place off the highway," she said. "But the reviews mention a smell."

"What kind of smell?"

"They don't specify. Which worries me more."

He opened the atlas to North Carolina, running his thumb along the blue vein of I-40. "There's that place we drove past in April. The one with the wooden bear out front."

"That was Boone."

"Was it?"

She turned the phone toward him. A photo of a bear carved from a stump, wearing a scarf. He conceded.

They booked two nights, checking out Sunday morning. Priya wrote it on the calendar magnet on the fridge, in the small squares between her mother's cardiology appointment and the recycling pickup.

Friday afternoon Marcus loaded the car while Priya emptied the crisper drawer of things that would rot. He put her bag behind the driver's seat, his in the trunk, the cooler in the footwell where she'd complain about it later.

"Did you unplug the toaster?"

"The toaster doesn't need unplugging."

"You always say that. And then you go back in and unplug it."

He went back in and unplugged it.

They got on the road at four-fifteen, later than planned, into the slow congealing of Friday traffic. Priya read the exit signs aloud without meaning to. Marcus put on the radio, then turned it off when the ads started, then forgot to turn it back on.

Near Statesville she said she was hungry. They pulled into a Wendy's, ate in the parking lot with the windows down, and discussed whether to push through or stop somewhere for the night. They pushed through. The mountains were still blue when they arrived.


Marisol found the cooler in the garage behind a bag of birdseed, and she carried it into the kitchen holding it away from her body, the way she'd hold a diaper.

"Something died in here," she said.

Dev looked up from his laptop, where he'd been comparing two motels in Sandusky for the better part of forty minutes. "That's from the Fourth. There were shrimp."

"There were shrimp in July."

"I said I'd wash it."

She set it in the sink and ran hot water while he read her the amenities of the second motel, which had a continental breakfast but no pool. The first had a pool but reviews that mentioned a smell. They went back and forth. Dev said the pool didn't matter because they'd be at the lake anyway; Marisol said if it didn't matter, book the cheaper one and stop reading to her.

He booked the cheaper one.

They left Saturday at seven-forty, which was later than the seven he'd wanted and earlier than the eight she'd argued for. Marisol drove first because she liked the highway before the traffic thickened. Dev put his feet on the dash until she gave him a look, and then he didn't.

Somewhere past Toledo they stopped for gas and he came out of the station with two coffees and a bag of those little powdered donuts, which she said she didn't want and then ate four of.

"You're going to get sugar on the seat," he said.

"It's my car."

"It's our car."

"It's my car that we share."

He laughed. She pulled back onto the on-ramp, merged, settled into the right lane. The sun was coming up hard through the windshield and he found her sunglasses in the glove box and handed them over without her asking, and she put them on and said thanks, and neither of them said anything for a while after that.


Marcus found the road atlas in the hall closet, wedged behind a box of Christmas lights they hadn't unpacked in three years.

"We could just use the phone," Dana said from the kitchen table, where she was making a list on the back of a grocery receipt.

"I know. I like the paper." He spread it across the counter and traced the highway north with his finger. "Two and a half hours if we leave by nine."

"Nine is optimistic."

"Nine-thirty, then."

She wrote *toothbrushes* on the receipt, then *the good coffee*, then crossed out *the good coffee* because the cabin listing said there was a machine and she didn't want to be the kind of people who brought their own beans. Marcus came over and read the list upside down.

"You forgot the phone charger."

"You always forget the phone charger. I'm not the one who forgets it."

"Fair."

They packed Friday night, badly. Dana laid out clothes on the bed and then put half of them back. Marcus threw two flannel shirts and a pair of jeans into a duffel bag in under four minutes and then sat on the edge of the bed watching her deliberate over a sweater.

"It's forty degrees up there at night."

"I know what forty degrees feels like."

"Just saying."

She brought the sweater.

In the morning they left at 9:52. Marcus drove the first leg; Dana held the coffee cups until they cleared the exit ramp. They argued mildly about whether to stop at the diner they liked in Millersburg or push through, and settled it by stopping.

The waitress called them both *hon*. Marcus ordered eggs over medium and got them over hard and ate them anyway without saying anything, which Dana noticed and found, for no reason she could name, unbearably endearing.

They were back on the road by eleven.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a question neither of them wanted to answer first.

"Two nights," Marisol said. "So two shirts, or three?"

Dev looked up from his phone, where he'd been comparing gas prices along I-81. "Three. You always spill something on the first one."

"That was one time. At your cousin's wedding."

"It was memorable."

She threw a rolled pair of socks at him and he caught it without looking, which annoyed her slightly, the way small competencies sometimes did after eleven years.

They'd chosen Asheville because it was four hours away and because Marisol's coworker wouldn't stop talking about a bookstore there with a cat. The hotel was mid-range, chosen after forty minutes of scrolling on a Tuesday night, rejected options including one that was cheaper but had a review mentioning "a smell."

"Did you cancel the dog walker or should I?" Dev asked.

"Nadia's taking Biscuit. I told you Thursday."

"You told me while I was on the phone with my mother."

"I told you before that." She zipped the suitcase halfway, then unzipped it to add a book she knew she wouldn't read.

They left at seven-fifteen Saturday morning, twenty minutes later than planned because Dev couldn't find the phone charger, which was in the car, where he had left it. Marisol drove first. The sky over the interstate was the flat white of early October.

At the second gas station, they argued mildly about whether to eat the sandwiches she'd packed or stop somewhere. They ate the sandwiches in the parking lot, sitting on the tailgate, and Dev got mustard on his sleeve.

"First shirt," Marisol said.

"Shut up."

She laughed. He handed her a napkin, and they got back on the road with the radio low, not talking much, which was fine.


The Rasmussens had been talking about Door County since March, and now it was almost October, which meant Diane had finally booked something.

"Two nights," she said, holding her laptop toward Paul across the kitchen island. "The place with the porch. It's not on the water but it's four blocks."

Paul squinted at the screen. He was still in his work clothes, tie loosened, a beer sweating on the counter beside a pile of unopened mail. "Four blocks is fine. Is that a hide-a-bed in the living room?"

"Why would we need a hide-a-bed?"

"I'm just saying it looks like a hide-a-bed."

She booked it. Friday afternoon they left later than planned because Paul couldn't find the good cooler, the one with the wheels, and eventually located it in the garage rafters holding a tangle of Christmas lights. Diane emptied the lights onto the workbench and said she'd deal with them in December, which they both knew meant February.

They stopped at the Kwik Trip in Manitowoc for gas and Paul came back with two coffees and a bag of those glazed donut holes he liked. Diane took one and said nothing about the sugar. She drove the second leg while Paul dozed against the window with his mouth slightly open, waking once near Algoma to ask if she wanted him to take over.

"You just fell asleep."

"I'm resting my eyes at a red light."

"There aren't any red lights."

The rental had a lockbox that stuck. Paul worked at it with his thumbnail for four minutes while Diane stood on the porch with a grocery bag on each arm, watching a neighbor rake leaves in the dark. When the box finally opened, Paul held up the key like a trophy.

Inside, it smelled faintly of cedar and someone else's laundry soap. There was, in fact, a hide-a-bed.

"Told you," Paul said.

Diane put the milk in the refrigerator and started opening windows.


Marisol found the cooler in the garage behind a stack of paint cans, still faintly smelling of last summer's lake trip. She hauled it inside and set it on the kitchen counter, where Dev was scrolling through hotel listings on his laptop.

"There's one in Galena for eighty-nine a night," he said. "Free breakfast. But the reviews mention thin walls."

"How thin?"

"One person says they could hear the ice machine."

Marisol wiped out the cooler with a paper towel. "We've slept through worse. Book it."

He hesitated, hovering over the button. "Or there's a place ten minutes outside town. Nicer. One-forty."

"Eighty-nine," she said. "We're barely going to be in the room."

Dev booked it and read the confirmation number aloud while Marisol wrote it on the back of a grocery receipt, which she then lost immediately in the pile of mail on the counter.

They packed Friday after work. Dev wanted to leave by five to beat traffic on I-90; Marisol pointed out that leaving at five *was* the traffic. They compromised on six-fifteen, which turned into six-forty because Dev couldn't find his sunglasses and Marisol insisted on watering the plants, even the sad basil that had been dying since March.

In the car, she took the aux cord first, which was the rule for whoever wasn't driving. Dev merged onto the highway and complained about a pickup truck. Marisol read him a list of things to do in Galena, most of which involved fudge.

"We could do the trolley tour," she said.

"That's for old people."

"We're thirty-eight."

They stopped in Rockford for gas and gas station coffee. Marisol got a bag of pretzels and ate half before they hit the on-ramp. The sun was going down over the flat fields, orange and unhurried, and Dev turned the music down without saying why.


The suitcase sat open on the bed for three days before either of them put anything in it.

"Are we doing the coast or the mountains?" Dana asked Thursday night, scrolling through her phone at the kitchen table while the dishwasher rumbled.

Marcus was wiping down the counter. "You said the coast last week."

"I said the coast if the weather held. It's supposed to rain Saturday."

"It's Oregon. It rains."

She looked up. "We live in Sacramento."

"Fine. Mountains, then. There's that place in Nevada City with the porch." He hung the dishcloth over the faucet, then rehung it when it slid off. "Two nights or one?"

"One. I have to be back for my mom's thing Sunday afternoon."

They booked it on the laptop while sitting on opposite ends of the couch, Dana reading reviews aloud and Marcus entering the credit card number he'd memorized years ago. Ninety-four dollars a night, continental breakfast, a cancellation policy neither of them read closely.

Friday morning she packed both bags because he packed badly. He took the trash out and checked the oil, which didn't need checking, and put the good sunglasses in the glove compartment. They left at ten forty, twenty minutes later than planned, because Marcus wanted to water the tomatoes first and Dana couldn't find her charger.

On Highway 49 they argued mildly about whether to stop in Auburn for lunch or push through. They pushed through, then stopped at a gas station outside Grass Valley for beef jerky and a Diet Coke, which Dana said proved nothing.

"It proves I was right about Auburn," Marcus said.

"It proves you were hungry."

The pines came up on both sides of the road. She put her feet on the dashboard, which he hated, and he didn't say anything about it. The heater made a ticking sound. Neither of them turned on the radio for a while.


The Thursday before, Marisol spread the road atlas across the kitchen table, though she'd already looked up the route on her phone twice.

"Three hours if we leave by seven," she said. "Four if you insist on the coffee place in Bloomington."

Dev looked up from the dishwasher, where he was rearranging the bottom rack the way he did every night, as though she'd loaded it wrong on purpose. "I insist on the coffee place in Bloomington."

They were going to a cabin near Brown County that Dev's coworker had rented out for cheap because a pipe had burst in the guest bathroom and never been fully fixed. Two nights. Marisol had wanted to go somewhere with an ocean, but the flights were four hundred dollars apiece and October was already thin.

Friday morning she packed while Dev checked the tire pressure in the driveway, crouched by the rear passenger side in his work fleece, breath visible. She put in two sweaters, then took one out, then put it back. She packed the good pillow. She packed the cribbage board without asking, because she knew.

"Did you get the dog food?" he called through the screen door.

"Rosalie's got dog food. She's had dogs for thirty years."

"She has a small dog. Wally is not a small dog."

She put a bag of kibble by the door.

They loaded the car at 7:20, which Dev noted and Marisol ignored. He drove first. Somewhere past Lafayette she fell asleep against the window and woke to find he'd turned the radio down instead of off, the way he did.

At the coffee place he got out and stretched, both hands on his lower back, an old man's gesture at thirty-eight.

"Large dark roast?" he said.

"And whatever pastry looks least sad."

He came back with two croissants. They ate them in the parking lot before going on.


Marisol had the map open on the kitchen table, the paper kind, because she liked the way it forced you to see everything between here and there.

"Two hours forty," Dev said, looking at his phone. "Says two-fifteen if we leave before seven."

"We're not leaving before seven."

"I'm just reporting the news."

They were driving to Galena for two nights, a decision made three weeks earlier during a stretch of February when the apartment had started to feel like a waiting room. Marisol had found an inn with a porch. Dev had found a brewery within walking distance of the inn. These felt like complementary contributions.

Friday morning she packed while he made coffee, and they negotiated the cooler.

"Do we need the cooler," he said.

"For the drive back. If we buy cheese."

"Are we buying cheese?"

"Dev."

He put the cooler in the trunk. She came out with a canvas bag of things he suspected they wouldn't use — a deck of cards, a paperback she'd been not-reading since November, a small candle. He didn't say anything about the candle. He had once said something about a candle and had learned.

They got on I-90 at 7:40. Marisol drove first because she preferred the leaving part and he preferred the arriving part. Somewhere past Rockford they stopped at a gas station and split a bag of pretzels and she used the bathroom while he cleaned the windshield with the squeegee, which was mostly water, which did almost nothing.

"There's a diner in Freeport," she said, back in the car. "Or we push through and eat there."

"Push through."

"Okay."

She merged, checked her mirror, and settled into the left lane. He put his hand on her knee. The fields went by, brown and flat and unremarkable, and neither of them said anything for eleven miles, and it was fine.


On Thursday night, Dana spread the road atlas across the kitchen table, which made Peter laugh, because they both had phones.

"Humor me," she said. "I like seeing the whole state at once."

They were going to Galena, three hours west, because Peter's coworker had mentioned an inn with a wraparound porch and Dana had been saying for a month that she wanted to sleep somewhere that wasn't their apartment. The inn was booked, so they took a motel on the edge of town for ninety-four dollars a night and agreed that was fine, they'd barely be in the room.

Friday after work they argued mildly about departure time. Peter wanted to leave at five and hit the road before dark. Dana pointed out that five o'clock Friday on the interstate was a punishment, not a plan, and they should eat first and go at six thirty. She won by making chicken and rice, which was hard to argue against.

Peter packed the car while she cleaned up. He put the small suitcase in the trunk, then his boots, then the umbrella, because the forecast said forty percent Saturday. He texted their neighbor Renata about the cat. Renata wrote back a thumbs up and a picture of her own cat, unrelated.

They left at six fifty. Dana drove the first leg with her seat too far forward, as always. Peter fiddled with the radio until he found a station playing something from 1997, then gave up on it twenty minutes later when it dissolved into static.

Outside Rockford they stopped for gas and Peter bought two coffees and a bag of pretzels. Dana ate the pretzels while he drove the rest.

They got in at ten. The motel smelled like carpet shampoo. Dana lay down on top of the bedspread with her shoes on, and Peter said, "Don't," and she said, "Five minutes."


The Beckstroms had decided on Tuesday, over reheated lasagna, that they would drive to Galena.

"Two nights," Priya said. "Not three. I want a full Sunday to do laundry."

Daniel agreed, though he privately thought two nights was hardly worth the four-hour drive. He booked a room at an inn with a wraparound porch, then spent twenty minutes reading reviews that complained about thin walls, and booked it anyway.

Friday morning they packed. Priya was efficient, rolling her clothes into tight cylinders, adding a cardigan because northern Illinois in October could turn on you. Daniel threw things into a duffel and then unpacked half of it when she asked whether he really needed three pairs of shoes.

"One of them is for hiking."

"We're not hiking. We're walking on a brick street looking at fudge shops."

He kept the boots anyway, but he moved them to the trunk so they wouldn't take up room in the back seat.

They left at ten-fifteen, which was later than Daniel wanted and earlier than Priya expected. She drove first. At a gas station outside Rockford they argued mildly about whether to buy sandwiches there or wait, and settled on coffee plus a bag of pretzels that neither of them really wanted but that they finished before Freeport.

The highway thinned into two lanes. Corn fields, already cut, went by in rows that seemed to pivot as they passed. Priya put on a podcast, then turned it off when Daniel started talking about his sister's kitchen renovation.

"She's going to regret the open shelving," Priya said.

"That's what I said."

They got in around two-thirty. The room smelled faintly of cedar and old radiator dust. Priya tested the mattress with the flat of her hand, then sat down on it.

"Okay," she said. "Not bad."

Daniel was already at the window, working out how much daylight they had left.


The suitcase lay open on the bed, and Marcus stood over it holding two nearly identical flannel shirts.

"Blue or gray?" he asked.

Priya didn't look up from her phone. "It's going to be sixty-five and raining. Bring both, they weigh nothing."

"You always say that, and then you complain the car's full."

"That's because you also bring three pairs of shoes."

He put both shirts in. Outside, the Saturday morning was already brighter than either of them had planned for; they'd meant to leave by seven and it was pushing nine. The coffee maker had beeped twenty minutes ago and neither had poured a cup.

"Did you cancel the grocery delivery?" Priya asked.

"You said you'd do it."

"I said I'd do it if you reminded me."

She rescheduled it for Monday while Marcus carried the bag downstairs and wedged it behind the driver's seat, where it wouldn't slide. The cooler went in the trunk with four seltzers, the leftover pasta salad, and a bag of pretzels he'd bought specifically because Priya liked the sourdough ones and the store had finally restocked them.

They argued briefly about the thermostat—she wanted it at fifty-eight, he thought that was cruel to the houseplants—and settled on sixty-two. Priya watered the pothos anyway.

By nine-forty they were on the highway heading north toward the cabin her cousin rented out at a discount. Marcus drove. Priya held the aux cord hostage for the first hour, playing an album he'd heard four hundred times and had come to like against his will.

"We forgot the good pillow," she said around exit 34.

"We did not forget it. I put it in the back seat."

She turned and looked. It was there, in its blue case, sitting upright like a passenger.

"Okay," she said. "Good."

He reached over; she took his hand without comment, and they drove.


The Weekend Plan

The idea started at the kitchen table on a Tuesday, when Dana looked up from her laptop and said, "What if we just went somewhere Friday?"

Marcus was rinsing a pan. "Somewhere where?"

"Anywhere within four hours. Not the airport."

They settled on a small town in the mountains, two and a half hours northwest, because Dana's coworker had mentioned a bakery there and Marcus liked the idea of a drive with actual scenery. He found a motel with decent reviews and a coffee maker in the room. Ninety-four dollars a night. He booked two nights before Dana could second-guess it.

Thursday evening they argued mildly about departure time. Marcus wanted to leave right after work, beat the traffic. Dana wanted to sleep in and leave Saturday morning, rested. They compromised on Friday at six, which meant packing Thursday night.

Dana pulled out the duffel bag from under the bed and found a sock in it from a trip two summers ago. Marcus stood in front of the closet holding two flannels, unable to decide, until Dana said, "Take both, it's one bag."

They forgot the phone chargers, remembered them, forgot the ibuprofen, remembered that too. Marcus put a bag of pretzels and two bananas in the front seat because he said gas station food made him feel unwell. Dana filled a water bottle and left it on the counter, where it stayed.

Friday, they left at 6:20. Marcus drove the first hour. Dana handled the music and read aloud the names of towns they passed, most of which sounded made up. Around Exit 41 they stopped for gas, and Dana bought a coffee and a bag of gummy worms, which she opened before she was back in the car.

"You said gas station food," she said.

"I said food," Marcus said. "Candy's different."

She fed him a worm and they merged back onto the highway.


Marguerite found the road atlas in the hall closet, behind the vacuum, its cover soft as cloth from years of handling. She brought it to the kitchen table and spread it open to Pennsylvania.

"We could do the covered bridges," she said. "There's a cluster of them near Washington County."

Desmond looked up from the sink, where he was rinsing coffee grounds out of the carafe. "How far is that?"

"Four hours, maybe. Four and a half if we stop."

"We'll stop." He set the carafe upside down on a dish towel. "You want to leave Friday after work or Saturday morning?"

She considered. Friday meant driving in the dark, arriving at some motel near midnight, but it also meant a full Saturday. Saturday morning meant sleeping in their own bed and losing half a day.

"Friday," she said. "But I'm not cooking Thursday. We'll eat whatever's left."

He agreed to that easily. He always did; he was the one who ate leftovers standing at the counter anyway.

They booked two nights at a place called the Ridgeview, which had eleven reviews and a photograph of a parking lot. Desmond read the reviews aloud while Marguerite made a list on the back of an envelope: chargers, allergy pills, the good camera, sneakers.

"Someone says the walls are thin," he reported.

"Someone always says that."

Thursday they ate a strange dinner of rice, half a rotisserie chicken, and a can of green beans. Friday at five-fifteen Desmond backed the car out while Marguerite locked the door twice, the way she did, testing the knob.

Twenty minutes onto the highway she reached over and turned the radio down.

"Did you unplug the iron?"

"You didn't use the iron."

"I used it Tuesday."

He merged into the left lane. "It's unplugged," he said, and she decided to believe him, and watched the exits go by.


The Loading of the Car

Marisol found the cooler in the garage rafters, still smelling faintly of last summer's lake trip. She wiped it out with a paper towel while Dev stood in the kitchen doorway, phone in hand, reading aloud from a website.

"There's a place in Bardstown that does distillery tours, but you have to book ahead. Or there's a state park with a covered bridge."

"How far is the covered bridge?"

"Twenty minutes past the hotel."

"Then the covered bridge," she said. "I don't want to do a tour where someone talks at us for ninety minutes."

He didn't argue, which surprised her a little. He'd been the one to suggest the trip on Tuesday, standing at the sink, saying he couldn't remember the last time they'd left the county. She'd said yes before she thought about the dog, the mail, her mother's Sunday phone call.

They packed Saturday morning. Dev put the suitcase in the trunk, then took it out again to fit the cooler underneath, then put it back on top anyway. Marisol brought the dog's bag next door to Karen's and stayed longer than she meant to, listening to a story about Karen's son's transmission.

"We're losing daylight," Dev said when she came back, though it was nine-fifteen.

"We're losing your patience."

He laughed and handed her the coffee he'd made in the travel mug, the good one with the lid that didn't leak. She got in and adjusted the seat, which he always pushed back too far.

Somewhere past the county line he asked if she'd remembered the phone charger. She hadn't. He said there was one in the glove box, probably. There was. She plugged it in, and neither of them said anything for a few miles, the highway unspooling ahead, the radio low, the whole thin bright weekend still in front of them.


The Thermos Question

The suitcase lay open on the bed like an argument neither of them had started yet.

"Two nights," Dana said. "You don't need four shirts."

Marcus held one up, a flannel he'd owned since graduate school. "What if it rains and I get soaked?"

"Then you wear the other three in succession, like a very slow burlesque."

He put two shirts back. She noticed and said nothing, which was its own kind of thank you.

They were driving to Asheville because Dana's cousin had a cabin she never used and had offered it in a text message with too many exclamation points. Marcus had wanted to fly somewhere. Dana had pointed out that flying somewhere cost money they'd agreed to save for the water heater, which had begun making a noise like a man clearing his throat.

At 6:40 a.m. Saturday they loaded the car. Marcus insisted on the thermos, the big steel one, filling it with coffee while Dana idled in the driveway.

"We're going to stop at a gas station in ninety minutes anyway," she said when he climbed in.

"Gas station coffee tastes like a penny."

"You've never met a coffee you didn't drink."

"I've never met one I didn't finish. There's a difference."

She backed out of the driveway. He fiddled with the radio, settled on a station playing something from 1987, and did not sing, though she could tell he wanted to.

Twenty minutes in, she asked if he'd turned off the porch light. He said yes. Then, after a pause, he said probably. She turned around.

He didn't complain. He held the thermos in his lap while she drove back, and when they pulled in and saw the light glowing faintly against the morning, he said, "Well. Now we know."

"Now we know," she agreed, and went in to flip the switch.


The suitcase lay open on the bed for three days before anyone put anything in it.

"I'm bringing the gray fleece," Marisol said Thursday night, holding it up. "It's supposed to drop to fifty at night."

Daniel looked up from his phone. He'd been comparing two cabins outside Asheville for the better part of an hour, both of them nearly identical, both of them $180 a night. "The one with the deck has better reviews, but it's forty minutes from town."

"Forty minutes of what, though? Highway or that windy road?"

He zoomed in on the map. "Windy road."

"Then the other one."

He booked it, and she heard the little confirmation chime and felt the trip become real in a way it hadn't been.

They left Friday at four-thirty, which meant they hit the worst of it on I-40, brake lights stacked up past the airport exit. Daniel drove because he always drove the first leg. Marisol had made a playlist but they ended up listening to a podcast about a bank robbery instead, and when it ended neither of them started anything else. The quiet was fine.

They stopped in Statesville for gas and she went inside for coffee and came back with two coffees and a bag of Combos.

"I didn't ask for Combos."

"You'll eat half of them."

He ate more than half.

The cabin key was in a lockbox and the code didn't work the first two times because Daniel kept mistyping the four. Marisol took the phone, read the digits aloud slowly, and it opened.

Inside smelled like cedar and, faintly, like a previous dog. There was a note on the counter about the septic system. The deck was smaller than the photos suggested.

"It's fine," Marisol said, dropping her bag.

"It's fine," Daniel agreed, and went to find where they'd put the good pillow.


The map was spread across the kitchen table, weighted down at one corner by the sugar bowl, which Marcus thought was excessive since they both had phones.

"Two hours and forty minutes," Priya said, tracing the highway with her finger anyway. "But that's without stopping."

"We'll stop."

"We always stop." She said it like an accusation, but she was smiling. Last spring they'd tried to drive straight through to Asheville and ended up pulling over twice in the first hour—once for gas station coffee, once because Marcus spotted a hand-painted sign for peaches.

They were leaving Friday after work, which meant Thursday night was for logistics. Priya made a list on the back of an envelope: dog food to the neighbor's, mail hold, the good sunscreen from the bathroom cabinet. Marcus checked the tire pressure in the driveway while it was still light out, crouching by each wheel with the little pencil gauge his father had given him.

"Do we need the cooler?" he called through the screen door.

"For a weekend?"

"For the drive. Drinks."

She considered it. "Bring the small one."

The argument, when it came, was about the hotel. Priya had booked a place downtown, walking distance to the restaurants. Marcus had assumed they'd stay by the water. Neither of them raised their voices; they just went quiet in that way that meant something, until Priya said, "It's two nights," and Marcus said, "You're right," and meant it, mostly.

Friday at 5:40 they pulled out of the driveway. Priya drove first because she liked the highway and Marcus liked the back roads. He put his feet on the dash, then took them down when she looked over.

Forty minutes in, he said, "There's a place up here that does milkshakes."

She was already slowing for the exit.


The Thermos Question

Dana found the road atlas in the hall closet, wedged behind a box of Christmas lights they hadn't used in three years.

"We have phones," Marcus said from the kitchen doorway.

"I like seeing the whole state at once." She spread it on the table, smoothing the crease that ran through Pittsburgh. "Two and a half hours if we leave by nine. Four if we leave at eleven, because of the tunnels."

Marcus made a noise that meant he'd heard her but wasn't committing to nine. He was assembling a cooler on the counter—two sandwiches, a bag of baby carrots he'd bought optimistically on Tuesday, four seltzers.

"Do we bring the thermos?"

"For what?"

"Coffee. For the drive."

"There's a Sheetz twenty minutes in."

"There's a Sheetz everywhere," Dana said. "That's not a reason."

He filled the thermos.

The cabin belonged to his cousin Ray, who charged them nothing and asked only that they check the crawl space for chipmunks. Dana packed a fleece, then unpacked it, then packed it again after checking the forecast. Marcus stood in the bedroom holding two pairs of boots, trying to remember whether the trail past the creek was muddy in October or whether he was thinking of a different year entirely.

They left at 9:40. Marcus drove. Dana held the atlas in her lap without opening it and read him a text from his mother about a neighbor's surgery.

Outside Somerset the fields went gold and low. Dana poured coffee into the thermos cap and handed it over, and Marcus took it with his left hand, steering with his knee for the second it took, which she hated and didn't mention.

"Good call on the thermos," he said.

"I know."

She kept the cap for herself after that, refilling it slowly, watching the wind turbines turn against a sky that hadn't decided about rain.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a question neither of them wanted to answer first.

"Two nights," Dana said. "You don't need three pairs of shoes."

Marcus held up the hiking boots. "The trail by the cabin. You said we'd walk it."

"I said maybe." But she took the boots and wedged them into the corner anyway, then rolled a sweater around them the way her mother had taught her, decades ago, in a house neither of them had seen in years.

He went to check the coffee maker again. It was off. It had been off the first two times. In the kitchen he stood a moment listening to the refrigerator hum, then wrote a note for the neighbor kid about the mail, taped it to the door, peeled it off, rewrote it because his handwriting had gotten bad.

"Did you print the reservation?" Dana called.

"It's on my phone."

"Print it. The signal drops past Millerton."

He printed it. She was right about the signal; she was right about most logistical things, which was either a comfort or a small daily humiliation depending on how he'd slept.

They left at 9:40, forty minutes later than planned, which was earlier than usual. Dana drove the first leg. Marcus fiddled with the radio, settled on a station playing songs from before either of them could vote, and didn't sing, though she could tell he wanted to.

At the gas station outside Fenwick they split a bag of pretzels and argued mildly about whether to stop for lunch or push through. They pushed through. At mile ninety-two the farmland opened up on both sides, brown and stubbled, and Dana put her hand on his knee without looking over.

"Okay," Marcus said. "This was a good idea."

"It was my idea."

"That's what I said."


The Thermos Debate

Marisol found the road atlas in the hall closet, wedged behind a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to hanging.

"It's from 2009," she said, carrying it into the kitchen.

Dev looked up from his laptop. "Roads don't move that much."

"Bridges wash out."

"Not the ones between here and Asheville." He turned the screen toward her anyway, showing the route he'd mapped: four hours and twenty minutes, no tolls, one stop for gas in Statesville. "We could leave Friday at three if you can get out early."

"I can get out at three-thirty. Reyes has a thing at four and I said I'd cover the phones for twenty minutes."

"Three-thirty then. That puts us in around eight."

Marisol opened the atlas anyway and traced I-40 with her finger, out of habit more than need. Her mother had taught her to do that. "Do we want to eat before or after?"

"After. There's that place with the trout."

"That was in Boone."

Dev frowned. "Was it?"

They packed Thursday night, which was Marisol's rule after the Savannah trip. Dev put the good thermos on the counter and she moved it to the sink.

"That one leaks."

"It's leaked once."

"Once is the whole point of a thermos."

He took the smaller green one instead, the one from his old office, and stood at the counter measuring coffee grounds for the morning while she rolled two sweaters into the duffel. The forecast said fifty-eight and rain Saturday. She packed the rain jacket, then the second rain jacket, because Dev never remembered his.

Friday at 3:47 they pulled out of the driveway. Dev backed down slowly, checking the mirror twice. Marisol held two coffees and waited until they hit the main road to hand him his.

"Left at the light," she said.

"I know."

"I know you know."

He took the left. She put her feet up on the dash and opened the atlas across her knees, just to look at it.


The suitcase lay open on the bed for two days before either of them put anything in it.

"Do I need the hiking boots?" Marcus asked Thursday night, holding one up. "The trail's only two miles."

Priya looked up from her laptop. "It rained Tuesday. It'll be muddy."

"Two miles of mud."

"Bring them. If you don't, you'll complain, and I'll have to hear it."

He put them in. She went back to comparing two motels in Galena, both with the same three-and-a-half stars, one with a hot tub that a reviewer described as "functional." They booked the other one.

Friday afternoon Marcus left work early and got stuck in traffic anyway. By the time he pulled into the driveway, Priya had loaded the cooler—turkey sandwiches, two apples, a bag of pretzels she'd bought specifically because he liked the flat kind, not the twisted ones.

"Did you turn off the water heater?" she asked.

"It's a three-day trip."

"My mother always turned off the water heater."

"Your mother also unplugged the toaster."

They didn't turn it off. Priya locked the front door twice, once with the key and once with the deadbolt, then stood a moment on the step with her hand on the knob, doing the thing she did where she reviewed the house room by room in her head.

"Stove," Marcus said from the car.

"I know. It's off."

They took I-88 west, and the suburbs thinned into corn. Priya put on a podcast about a hotel fire in 1946 and Marcus said it was a strange thing to listen to on the way to a hotel, and she said that was the point. Around Rochelle they stopped for gas and he bought two coffees without asking, hers with three sugars, and she took it without comment and held both cups while he pumped.


The Friday Before

Marisol found the cooler in the garage, behind the Christmas boxes, still holding a faint smell of last summer's lake trip. She hauled it inside and set it on the kitchen floor.

"We don't need that," Dev said, looking up from his laptop. "It's two nights."

"We need it for the drive. Gas station food is a scam."

He conceded without much fight, because she was right about gas station food and because he had a call at four he hadn't mentioned yet. He mentioned it now.

"Four? So we're leaving at five-thirty." She started opening cabinets. "That puts us in Asheville around ten."

"Nine-forty if I drive."

"Nine-forty if you speed."

They packed the way they always did, which was to say separately and with mutual suspicion. Dev put in one duffel, a book he wouldn't read, and his running shoes. Marisol packed two sweaters because mountains, a rain jacket because forecasts lie, and the good pillow, which she refused to travel without.

At four-fifteen, while he was on the call, she made turkey sandwiches and cut an apple into slices, then put the slices in a container with a splash of lemon juice so they wouldn't brown. She texted their neighbor Kelly about the mail. She watered the fern by the window, which was mostly dead but not entirely.

Dev came out at five-oh-two, apologizing. They loaded the car. He backed out of the driveway, then stopped.

"Did you turn off the coffee maker?"

She thought about it. "I think so."

He put the car in park and went inside. He came back out, got in, and said nothing.

"Was it on?"

"It was on."

"Okay."

They merged onto the highway at 5:19. She unwrapped a sandwich, handed him half, and turned on the radio, low, while the light went orange over the interstate.


Marcus found the road atlas in the hall closet, buried under a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to putting away. He carried it to the kitchen table and spread it open while Dana rinsed the breakfast dishes.

"Two and a half hours if we leave by nine," he said. "Three if we stop at that farm stand."

"We're stopping at the farm stand." She dried her hands on a dish towel. "Last time you promised and then drove right past it."

"Last time you were asleep."

"I was resting my eyes."

He circled the town on the map with a pencil, though they both knew the way. Dana went upstairs and started pulling clothes from the dresser. Marcus followed and stood in the doorway.

"Do we need the good jacket?"

"For what? We're going to look at leaves."

"There's the restaurant Saturday."

She considered this, then folded the navy blazer into the bottom of the duffel. "Bring the gray sweater. It's supposed to drop to forty at night."

They argued briefly about the cooler—Marcus said the inn had a mini fridge, Dana said the mini fridge would be full of eight-dollar water bottles—and the cooler went into the trunk. She packed cheese, crackers, two apples, and the last of the coffee from the good bag.

At 9:20 Marcus backed out of the driveway, then stopped.

"Did you lock the back door?"

"Did you?"

He put it in park. Dana went inside, checked the door, the stove, the coffee maker, and came back out with her sunglasses, which she'd left on the counter.

"Locked," she said, buckling in.

They took the highway north with the windows cracked. Dana held the atlas in her lap without opening it. Around eleven, Marcus put on his turn signal for the farm stand without saying anything, and she reached over and squeezed his knee.


Marcus found the road atlas in the hall closet, under a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to putting away.

"You know we have phones," Priya said from the kitchen table, where she was scrolling through cabin listings.

"I like seeing the whole thing at once." He spread it across the counter, flattening the crease with his palm. "How far is Galena?"

"Three hours, maybe. But there's this place near Mineral Point that's ninety a night." She turned the laptop toward him. The photos showed a small A-frame with a woodstove and a deck that looked like it might not survive another winter.

"Does it have heat besides the stove?"

"It says baseboard."

"Then book it."

They left Friday after she got off work, which meant leaving at six-fifteen instead of five, which meant hitting traffic on the interstate anyway. Marcus drove the first leg. Priya had packed a bag of pretzels and two apples and forgotten to bring the good podcast headphones, so they listened to the radio until it dissolved into static somewhere past Rockford.

"We should have gotten gas in town," she said.

"There's a station in twenty miles. I checked."

"You checked, or you're assuming?"

"I checked." He had checked. He felt fine about it.

They stopped anyway, at a Kwik Trip with fluorescent lights that made everyone look ill. Priya bought coffee she didn't want and a bag of cheese curds she did. Marcus washed the windshield with the squeegee, working at a spot of bug residue near the wiper.

"You missed a place," she said, pointing through the glass.

He went over it again.

By nine they were on a gravel road with the headlights catching fenceposts, and Priya read the directions off her phone while the signal came and went. The cabin was smaller than the photos. The key was under a flowerpot, exactly where the host said it would be.


Marcus found the road atlas in the hall closet, wedged behind a box of Christmas lights they hadn't taken down until March.

"We could just use the phone," Priya said from the kitchen table, where she was writing a list on the back of an envelope.

"I like seeing it laid out." He spread the atlas across the counter, flattening Ohio with his palm. "Two and a half hours if we leave by nine."

"Nine is optimistic."

"Nine-thirty, then."

She added *sunscreen* to the list, then crossed it out, then wrote it again. The cabin they'd rented had a wood stove and a screened porch and, according to the listing, a resident cat that came and went. Priya had read the reviews twice. Marcus hadn't read them at all, which she found either restful or infuriating depending on the day.

They packed Friday night. He took the duffel, she took the tote. He put in three shirts for two days and she didn't say anything about it. She put in a paperback she'd been carrying to and from work for six weeks and he didn't say anything about that either.

"Do we bring coffee or buy coffee?"

"Bring," he said. "There's a grinder there. It said so."

"It said *coffee maker*. That's not the same."

He conceded, and ground the beans at eleven at night, the noise startling the dog, who had to be reassured on the kitchen floor for a full minute.

They left at nine-forty. Marcus drove the first stretch while Priya held the coffee between her knees and read the exit signs out loud, not because he needed them but because she liked saying the names. Zanesville. Cambridge. Old Washington.

Somewhere past the second rest stop she fell asleep with her hand on his thigh, and he turned the radio down without changing the station.


Marcus found the road atlas in the hall closet, wedged behind a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to hanging.

"They still print these?" Priya asked from the kitchen table, where she was scrolling through cabin listings on her laptop.

"It's from 2009. Half these roads probably don't exist." He sat down across from her anyway and opened it to Pennsylvania. "What are we looking at?"

"There's one near Jim Thorpe for one-forty a night. Two bedrooms, which we don't need."

"What about the one you sent me yesterday?"

"Booked." She turned the screen toward him. "This one has a wood stove. But the reviews mention mice."

"Everything has mice." He squinted at the photos. The porch looked decent. "How far is that from here?"

"Two and a half hours if we leave before Friday rush."

They booked it. Marcus put a reminder in his phone to email his manager about leaving early, then immediately worried it would look bad, then decided it wouldn't.

Thursday night they packed. Priya laid out clothes on the bed in two stacks and kept adding to hers.

"It's two nights," Marcus said.

"What if it rains and everything gets wet?"

"Then we come home."

She put back one sweater. He carried the cooler up from the basement and rinsed it out in the tub, and they argued mildly about whether to buy groceries here or stop at a store up there. Here won, because the coupons were here.

Friday afternoon he loaded the car while she went through the house unplugging things. She checked the stove twice. He didn't say anything about it.

The traffic on I-78 was worse than they'd planned for. Priya read aloud from the cabin's check-in instructions, which mentioned a gate code and a gravel driveway that "may require caution." Marcus said they'd figure it out. She said that was what he always said, and then reached over and turned the radio down so they could keep talking.


The forecast promised sun on Saturday, which was all Marisol needed. She pulled up a map on her laptop Thursday night and turned it toward Dev, who was rinsing a pan.

"Three hours to the cabin place, or five to the coast," she said.

"Three." He shook water off his hands. "I don't want to spend the whole trip in the car."

They booked the cabin for two nights, $178 total, and she screenshotted the confirmation because the cell service up there was supposedly bad. Dev said he'd handle food. Marisol said she'd handle everything else, which mostly meant remembering the towels.

Friday after work they packed. Dev filled a cooler with eggs, a carton of half-and-half, ground coffee, two steaks, and a bag of salad he admitted he'd probably throw out on Sunday. Marisol went back and forth on whether to bring the good pillow and finally brought it, wedging it behind the driver's seat.

"Did you turn the water heater down?" she asked from the doorway.

"It's fine for two days."

"It's four dollars."

He went and turned it down.

They left at 5:40 and hit traffic almost immediately, sitting through three cycles of the same light near the on-ramp. Marisol put on a podcast about a bank robbery. Dev drove. Around the second hour the light went orange over the hills and they stopped at a gas station where he got gas and she got a bag of pretzels and a Diet Coke she'd deny drinking later.

"You want me to drive?" she asked.

"I'm good."

The last twenty minutes were on gravel. The cabin had a lockbox with a code that didn't work until Dev tried it a second time, more slowly. Inside it smelled like cedar and old smoke. Marisol found the light switch. Dev carried in the cooler and set it on the kitchen floor with a grunt.

"Okay," she said. "Not bad."


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus finished loading the cooler into the trunk. He wedged it behind the spare tire cover, then stood back and frowned at the arrangement.

"You're going to have to move that," Priya said from the driveway, holding two travel mugs. "My bag doesn't fit sideways."

"It fits if you angle it."

"It doesn't." She handed him a mug and set her duffel on the pavement, and they both looked at the trunk for a moment like it was a puzzle neither wanted to solve first. Marcus finally slid the cooler left, and the duffel went in, and neither of them said anything about it.

They'd decided on the cabin two weeks ago, mostly because Priya's sister had mentioned it and because they'd realized in August that they hadn't left the county since March. Three hours north. Marcus had printed directions, which Priya teased him about, and then he pointed out the last time they'd lost service on Route 9 and she conceded it wasn't the worst idea.

At the gas station off the highway, she went in for coffee and came out with coffee and a bag of pretzel sticks and a scratch-off ticket.

"You never buy those."

"Vacation rules." She scratched it against the dashboard with a quarter and lost two dollars, which she seemed pleased about anyway.

Around the second hour the trees started closing in and the radio thinned out to static. Priya put on the playlist she'd made, which was mostly songs Marcus had never liked, and he let it run.

"Do we have the key code?" she asked.

"It's in the email."

"Which is on your phone, which is at four percent."

He reached over and opened the glove box, where he'd put the printout, and let her find it herself.


The Friday traffic on I-40 hadn't started yet, which was the whole point of leaving at two.

"You packed the charger?" Denise asked, standing in the doorway with her arms full of pillows.

Marcus patted his back pocket, then his front, then went back inside. She heard the junk drawer rattle.

They'd been planning the trip for three weeks, ever since Denise's sister mentioned the cabin was sitting empty. Two nights in Boone. Nothing elaborate. Marcus had wanted to leave Thursday and take a personal day, but Denise had a dentist appointment she'd already rescheduled twice, so Friday it was.

"Found it." He came out holding the cord like a trophy. "It was under the mail."

"Of course it was."

The cooler went in first, behind the driver's seat where it wouldn't slide. Denise had made turkey sandwiches and cut up a cantaloupe, and Marcus had added a six-pack of the beer he liked, the one she thought tasted like pennies. Neither of them commented on the other's contribution.

"Did you turn the thermostat up?"

"Seventy-eight."

"Seventy-eight's fine."

They pulled out of the driveway at 2:20. Marcus drove the first leg because he always did, and Denise put her feet on the dash until he gave her a look, and she put them down.

Somewhere past Winston-Salem she read him the reviews of a barbecue place off the highway, and he said it sounded fine but he wasn't hungry yet, and forty minutes later he said he was hungry and she said they'd passed it already.

They stopped instead at a gas station with a Bojangles attached. Marcus got chicken. Denise got a biscuit and ate half of his fries.

"This is nice," she said, in the parking lot, sun going orange over the pines.

"We're an hour and a half from home."

"Still."

He handed her the last fry.


Marisol found the cooler in the garage on Thursday night, wedged behind a bin of Christmas lights. She hauled it inside and set it on the kitchen floor, where Dev was scrolling through his phone at the table.

"There's a mildew smell," she said. "Do we have that spray?"

"Under the sink. The blue one." He didn't look up. "The cabin says check-in is after four. So if we leave by ten we'll have time to stop."

"Stop where?"

"That barbecue place. The one off 64 with the pig on the sign."

Marisol scrubbed the cooler lid with a sponge. "You said that was mediocre."

"I said the coleslaw was mediocre."

They packed that night, mostly. Dev put together a bag of things he considered essential: playing cards, a headlamp, the good bottle opener, a paperback he'd been failing to finish since April. Marisol handled food, which meant she stood in front of the open refrigerator for a long time making decisions about eggs.

"Do you want to do breakfast there or find somewhere?"

"There," he said. "I don't want to drive in the morning."

Friday they left at ten forty. Dev drove the first hour with the windows down until Marisol said her hair was becoming a problem, and then they used the air conditioning, which made the car smell faintly like pennies. She read him things off her phone—a story about a mayor, a message from her sister about a birthday party in September.

"Are we going to that?"

"We're going."

They stopped for gas outside Wilkesboro. Marisol went in for coffee and came back with coffee and a bag of peanut M&M's, which she opened without offering, then offered.

The barbecue place had a line. They waited in it, standing close together in the heat, and Dev held her hand loosely, the way he did when he wasn't thinking about it.


Marcus found the road atlas in the hall closet, wedged behind a box of Christmas lights they'd never returned to the attic. He carried it to the kitchen table, where Priya was already scrolling through her phone.

"Rhinebeck," she said. "Two hours, maybe less if we leave before nine."

"We could do Cold Spring instead. Shorter drive."

"You said last time Cold Spring was too crowded."

He shrugged and opened the atlas anyway, though he knew it was fifteen years out of date. He liked the paper. Priya reached over and turned it to the New York page, then went back to her phone, comparing two inns with nearly identical photographs of white bedding.

"This one has a bathtub," she said. "This one has breakfast included."

"Bathtub."

"You never take baths."

"You do."

She booked the one with the bathtub. Sixty-eight dollars more, which she mentioned twice, once while entering the credit card number and once while brushing her teeth that night.

Saturday morning they were late, but only by forty minutes. Marcus loaded the car while Priya stood in the kitchen deciding whether to bring the good camera. She brought it. She also brought a canvas bag with two apples, a bag of almonds, and a paperback she'd been carrying to and from work for a month without opening.

At the first gas station past the county line, Marcus filled the tank and Priya went inside for coffee. She came back with two cups and a package of red licorice.

"They didn't have oat milk."

"That's fine."

"It's not fine, it's just what they had."

He pulled onto the highway. Priya put her feet on the dashboard, then took them down when he glanced over. The licorice sat unopened between them for the first thirty miles, and then she opened it, and they ate the whole package before Poughkeepsie.


Marisol found the cooler in the garage behind the Christmas boxes, still smelling faintly of the lake from two summers ago. She hauled it inside and set it by the door.

"We're only going for two nights," Dev said, looking up from his laptop at the kitchen table. "Do we need the big one?"

"We need it if you want beer that isn't warm."

He conceded the point. They had settled on Asheville because it was four hours away and neither of them had to plan much. Dev booked a room at a motel with a decent photo of the pool, though the pool would be closed in October. Marisol wrote a list on the back of an envelope: phone chargers, the good sunscreen, her hiking boots, the aspirin.

"Do we stop in Charlotte or push through?" she asked.

"Push through. I'd rather get there before dark."

"Then we eat before we leave."

They ate leftover chicken and rice standing at the counter, which annoyed Dev, who liked to sit, but he didn't say anything. Marisol texted their neighbor Renata about the mail and got back a thumbs-up and a picture of Renata's cat. Dev carried the cooler out to the trunk, then came back for the duffel bags, then went back a third time because Marisol remembered the pillows.

"You always forget your pillow," she said.

"I forgot it once."

"You forgot it in Savannah and complained for two days."

The car smelled like the pine air freshener that had been hanging there since spring. Dev backed out of the driveway slowly, checking twice for the kid across the street who rode his scooter without looking. Marisol plugged her phone into the aux cord and scrolled without choosing anything for a full mile.

At the light on Beckett Road, she finally picked something old, and Dev laughed once, quietly, and turned it up.


The Friday Before

Renée had the map app open on the kitchen table, though she already knew the route. Two hours forty minutes to Galena, less if they left before four. She'd printed the reservation confirmation anyway, because Marcus always claimed his phone would die.

"We could take 20 instead," Marcus said, standing at the sink with a coffee mug he'd been rinsing for longer than a mug required rinsing. "Avoid the toll."

"It adds thirty-five minutes."

"It adds twenty-five."

She looked up at him. He shrugged and set the mug in the drying rack. "Fine. Toll road."

The bag situation took longer than it should have. Marcus wanted to bring the big duffel; Renée pointed out they'd be gone two nights and the big duffel encouraged overpacking, and then they'd have to haul it up the inn's narrow staircase, the one from the photos with the crooked banister. He conceded but brought his hiking boots anyway, which she didn't argue about, though she noted the forecast said rain Saturday afternoon.

At 3:40 they were in the car. Marcus drove. Renée managed the aux cord and read the inn's confirmation email aloud — check-in until nine, breakfast at eight, no elevator, as she'd said.

"Did we leave the porch light?" he asked at the stop sign.

"I got it."

"The one in the hallway?"

"That one I didn't."

He didn't turn around. It was a hallway light. They merged onto the highway behind a landscaping trailer and stayed there for four miles before Marcus found a gap.

Somewhere past Rockford, Renée fell asleep with her hand still around her phone. Marcus turned the music down two notches and kept driving, and when she woke up an hour later, the sky had gone the color of a peach, and he said, "There's a Culver's at the next exit," and she said, "Yes."


The suitcase lay open on the bed like an argument waiting to happen.

"Two nights," Dana said. "You don't need four shirts."

Marcus held one up, a blue button-down with a small stain near the hem he'd never gotten out. "This one's for dinner Saturday."

"We're eating at a diner on Route 9."

He folded it anyway and set it in the bag. Dana let it go. She was counting phone chargers, which she always did twice, and she'd already decided not to mention that he'd forgotten to cancel the newspaper. She'd done it herself Thursday morning from the parking lot at work.

They left at 6:40, twenty minutes later than planned, because Marcus wanted to water the tomatoes and Dana couldn't find her sunglasses, which turned out to be in the car, in the cupholder, where she'd left them.

The route to the cabin took them through three towns that all looked the same: a gas station, a hardware store, a church with a marquee sign. At the second gas station Marcus filled the tank while Dana went inside and came back with coffee, two waters, and a bag of pretzels.

"You got the sourdough kind," he said.

"They didn't have the other kind."

"They always have the other kind."

"They didn't today."

He ate them anyway, driving with his left hand, holding the bag against the steering wheel. Dana put her feet on the dash, then took them down because he hated that, then put them back up when he changed lanes and didn't notice.

Around nine the trees closed in on both sides of the road and the radio turned to static. Dana found a playlist on her phone from a trip they'd taken years ago and didn't say anything about it, just pressed play.

Marcus recognized the third song. He turned it up a little.


Marcy had the road atlas open on the kitchen table, though her phone sat right there with maps on it. She liked the paper, the way you could see how far away things were without pinching and dragging.

"Two hours to Galena," she said. "Maybe two and a half if we stop."

Dan was going through the fridge, holding a container of leftover rice, deciding. "We'll stop. You always want coffee at Rockford."

"That's once. That happened once."

"It's happened plenty." He put the rice back and closed the door. "What time do we want to get there? Because check-in's four, and if we leave at noon—"

"Then we're sitting in a parking lot for an hour and a half."

"Right. So one o'clock."

She wrote *1:00* on the corner of a grocery receipt, which was how they kept track of things. Dan went upstairs to find the good duffel, the one with the wheels, and came back with the wrong one.

"That's the gym bag."

"The gym bag's fine for two nights."

"It smells like the gym."

He sniffed it and conceded. Upstairs again. Marcy took the trash out while he was gone, and when she came back he'd laid out two shirts on the bed and was asking her opinion, which she gave — the blue one — knowing he'd pack both anyway.

They loaded the car Saturday morning: the duffel, her tote, a paper bag with pretzels and two bananas, a cooler with waters even though they'd buy more waters. Dan checked the back door twice. Marcy checked it once more after him, not because she doubted him but because that was the ritual.

At the corner he asked, "Left or the highway?"

"Highway."

"Highway," he agreed, and turned left, because there was a gas station that way and they'd need gas eventually, and neither of them said anything about it.


The suitcase lay open on the bed, and Dana was losing an argument with herself about whether to bring the good hiking boots.

"It's two nights," Marcus said from the doorway, holding two travel mugs. "You're not summiting anything."

"There's a trail near the cabin. The listing said moderate."

"The listing said 'nature adjacent.'" He set her mug on the dresser, where it left a ring on the wood they'd both stopped apologizing for years ago. "Bring the boots. Just don't make me carry them."

She packed them anyway, wedged against a paperback she probably wouldn't open. Marcus had been ready since seven, which annoyed her slightly, though she knew it shouldn't. He'd already loaded the cooler, checked the tire pressure, and printed the directions because the mountains ate cell service.

"Did you cancel the Sunday thing with your brother?"

"Moved it to Tuesday." He zipped his duffel. "He wasn't thrilled."

"He's never thrilled."

They locked up at 8:40, twenty minutes later than Marcus wanted and forty minutes earlier than Dana thought reasonable. She went back inside once for the phone charger and once more because she couldn't remember turning off the coffee maker. It was off.

The first hour on the interstate passed mostly in silence, the comfortable kind. Dana controlled the radio and settled on a station that faded out near Millersburg. Marcus drove with one hand and ate almonds from a bag in the console.

"Gas or breakfast first?" he asked at the exit.

"Both. There's a Sheetz."

They split a hash brown neither of them had planned to buy. Dana wiped her hands on a napkin and looked at the mountains ahead, blue and hazy and closer than they'd been an hour ago.

"Two nights," she said, testing it.

"Two nights," Marcus agreed, and merged back onto the highway.


The Friday traffic on I-40 hadn't started yet, which was the whole point of leaving at two.

"Did you pack the charger?" Marcus asked, standing in the kitchen with a grocery bag of snacks he'd assembled without much strategy—pretzels, two apples, a sleeve of chocolate donuts he knew Dana would pretend to disapprove of and then eat half of.

"Which charger?"

"The one for your headphones. Because last time you complained the entire way to Asheville."

"I complained for maybe ten minutes." Dana came down the hall with the duffel, testing its weight against her hip. "Also I packed it. It's in the side pocket."

They'd booked the cabin three weeks ago, half on impulse, after a Tuesday when Dana came home from the clinic and said she needed to be somewhere with no cell service, and Marcus, who worked from the second bedroom and had gotten strange about the sound of his own keyboard, agreed too fast.

He carried the duffel out. She locked the back door, checked it, unlocked and relocked it, then set the thermostat to sixty-eight and stood a moment in the quiet.

In the car, the argument was about the route. Marcus wanted the highway. Dana wanted the smaller road through Hillsborough because of a bakery she remembered, which Marcus pointed out had closed, which Dana disputed, and then confirmed on her phone, and then went silent about for eleven miles.

"We could stop at that place with the pie," he offered eventually.

"It's fine. I wasn't even that hungry."

"Dana."

"Okay, the pie place."

He put his hand on her knee, briefly, and put it back on the wheel. The pines started thickening past Durham. She turned the radio down to something she could talk over, and asked whether he'd remembered to email his brother back, and he said no, and she said that was probably fine for two days.


On Thursday night, Priya spread the road atlas across the kitchen table, even though Daniel had already pulled the route up on his phone.

"Four hours if we leave by seven," he said. "Five if we leave at nine and hit Richmond traffic."

"Seven means packing tonight."

"Seven means packing tonight," he agreed, and neither of them moved. The dishwasher churned through its cycle. Priya turned a page and looked at the little green blot of the state park, the campground symbols, the blue thread of the river.

They compromised on seven-thirty. Daniel took the cooler out to the garage and rinsed it with the hose, and Priya laid out clothes on the guest bed—two sweatshirts, because she knew he'd forget his and take hers. She debated the hiking boots and packed sneakers instead. Their reservation was for a cabin, not a tent. She reminded herself of that twice while looking at the sleeping bags.

Friday morning ran late, as it always did. Daniel couldn't find the good sunglasses. Priya stood in the driveway holding two travel mugs while he checked under the couch cushions, then gave up and wore the scratched pair from the glove box.

They stopped for gas at the Wawa on Route 1. Priya went in for ice and came out with ice, beef jerky, and a bag of sour candy she claimed was for later.

"You said no gas station food."

"I said no gas station *hot* food."

Daniel merged onto the highway and set the cruise control. Somewhere past Fredericksburg, Priya put her feet on the dash, which he hated, and he didn't say anything, which she noticed. The radio faded into static and she scanned for something else and found nothing and turned it off, and they drove a while in the quiet, the fields going yellow-brown outside, the exit signs counting down.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a question neither of them wanted to answer first.

"Two nights," Dana said. "How many shirts is that?"

"Three," Marcus said from the closet. "One extra in case something happens."

"What's going to happen?"

"Barbecue sauce. Rain. I don't know. That's why it's extra."

She folded a sweater and set it in the case. Outside, the maple in the front yard had started turning, and she'd been the one to point out that they should see it somewhere else, somewhere with actual hills. Marcus had agreed faster than she'd expected. They hadn't left the county since May.

He came out holding two pairs of hiking boots. "Yours have that split in the sole."

"They're fine for a mile."

"It's four miles."

"Then I'll bring the sneakers." She took the boots from him and put them back anyway, because he'd bothered to check.

They argued mildly about the cooler—whether it was worth packing sandwiches when the drive was only three hours and there were exits. Marcus won by pointing out that the exits had gas station sandwiches. Dana made turkey and swiss and cut them diagonally, which he noticed and didn't comment on.

At seven-forty they locked up. She checked the stove twice. He backed the car out, then stopped and went back inside for the phone charger.

"Got it," he said, buckling in.

"Did you lock it again?"

"Yes."

"Marcus."

He got out, checked the door, gave her a thumbs-up through the windshield.

The interstate was clear. Dana put her feet on the dash, which he'd asked her not to do, and he let it go this time. Somewhere past the second toll she found a radio station playing songs from before they'd met, and neither of them changed it for forty miles.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like an accusation, and Dana kept walking past it, carrying things she wasn't sure she needed.

"Two nights," Marcus called from the kitchen. "Two nights, Dana."

"I know how many nights it is."

He came in with a travel mug in each hand, one of them already filled. "You're bringing the hiking boots?"

"The trail by the lake. You said you wanted to do the trail by the lake."

"I said maybe." He set the mugs on the dresser and sat on the edge of the bed, pressing his palms flat against the comforter. He'd been up since five-thirty, which was not unusual, and had already checked the tire pressure, which was.

They had booked the cabin in April, when February had felt impossibly far away. Now it was here, gray and unremarkable, and there was a strange awkwardness to actually going, like arriving at a party they'd only half meant to RSVP to.

"Did you cancel the mail?"

"You can't cancel mail for two days, Marcus."

"You can hold it."

"For two days."

He laughed, and something loosened. She threw a sweatshirt at him and he caught it and folded it, badly, and put it in the suitcase anyway.

They left at nine-forty, twenty minutes later than planned. Marcus drove the first hour while Dana read aloud from her phone about a restaurant near the cabin that had closed in 2019, according to a review, and also had excellent trout, according to a different review from last month.

"We'll find out," he said.

At the gas station outside Millersburg she bought sunflower seeds and a bag of the terrible red licorice he liked, and did not mention buying it, just set it on the console between them. He glanced down at it and then at the road and said nothing either, and they drove north into flat, bright, unpromising country.


The forecast said rain Saturday morning, clearing by noon. Dana read it aloud from her phone while Marcus stood at the closet, holding two shirts he'd already decided between.

"So we leave early or we leave late," he said.

"We leave early. Then we're driving through it instead of sitting in it."

They were going to Asheville, three hours northwest, because Dana's coworker had mentioned a bookstore with a cat and Marcus had wanted an excuse to try the barbecue place his brother wouldn't shut up about. Two nights. They'd booked the hotel on Wednesday after twenty minutes of comparing photos of bathrooms.

Marcus packed the car Friday night. He was the kind of person who liked the trunk arranged, duffels flat, the cooler wedged behind the passenger seat where it wouldn't slide. Dana came out in socks and slippers and handed him a paper bag of granola bars and two bananas.

"Bananas will get bruised," he said.

"Then they'll be bruised bananas."

They left at six-fifteen, twenty minutes later than planned, because Dana couldn't find the phone charger that worked and Marcus had to go back inside to check the stove. The rain started outside Charlotte, hard enough that he slowed to sixty and turned the radio down, which he always did in bad weather, which Dana had stopped teasing him about years ago.

She read him the reviews of the barbecue place. Four point six stars. Someone had written a paragraph about the coleslaw.

"That's a lot of feeling about coleslaw," Marcus said.

"People contain multitudes."

They stopped in Marion for gas and terrible coffee. Dana bought a bag of peanut M&M's and didn't offer him any until they were back on 40, and then she held one out on her palm without looking over, and he took it without saying thanks, and the rain thinned out around ten, right on schedule.


The Friday traffic on I-40 hadn't started yet, which was the whole reason Dana had insisted they leave by three.

"You packed the good pillow?" she asked, standing in the doorway with her keys already in hand.

Marcus was in the bedroom, wrestling a duffel bag zipper closed. "I packed *a* pillow. I'm not sure it's the good one."

"It's the one with the blue case. The other one's flat."

He unzipped the bag, checked, and found the blue case. Small victory. He carried it out to the driveway while Dana went back inside twice — once for her phone charger, once because she couldn't remember whether she'd unplugged the iron. She hadn't used the iron in three weeks, but she checked anyway.

The cabin was outside Asheville, a two-night rental Dana had found in February when the winter had gotten unbearable and she needed something on the calendar. It had a woodstove and a photograph of a hot tub that Marcus suspected was several years out of date.

"Do we need to stop for groceries here or up there?" he asked, backing out.

"Here. Everything's a gas station up there."

They stopped at the Kroger on Sixth. Marcus pushed the cart while Dana worked from a list on her phone — coffee, eggs, a package of bacon, bread, the pasta she liked, a jar of sauce, two bottles of wine. Marcus added a bag of pretzels without asking and she gave him a look but didn't put them back.

At the register, she said, "We forgot butter."

"For what?"

"For the eggs. For toast."

He went back and got butter. It took ninety seconds, and when he returned she'd already paid and was loading the bags.

They were on the highway by 3:40. Dana put her feet on the dashboard, which he hated, and he said nothing about it.


The rain started Thursday night, and by Friday morning Dana had already decided it wouldn't stop them.

"We could reschedule," Marcus said, standing in the kitchen with his phone open to the weather app. "Sunday looks better."

"Sunday we have Elena's thing." Dana was pouring coffee into two travel mugs, the ones from the gas station in Flagstaff, mismatched but sturdy. "Besides, it's the coast. It's supposed to be gray."

He conceded with a shrug and went to find the good rain jacket, the one he'd bought after complaining about the cheap one for two winters straight.

Packing took longer than it should have. Marcus wanted to bring the cooler; Dana pointed out they were staying at a place with a kitchen, and that the last time they'd brought the cooler, they'd eaten in the car twice and thrown out most of a rotisserie chicken. He took the cooler out to the garage. Then he brought it back in, empty, and put two waters and a bag of pretzels in it, and she let it go.

They argued mildly about the route. Dana's phone said 101 was faster. Marcus liked the inland road, said the trucks were worse on the highway. Dana didn't care enough to push, so they took his way, and he drove the first two hours while she read street names aloud from signs and asked questions about towns neither of them knew anything about.

Somewhere past Willits they stopped for gas and used the bathroom and bought a coffee neither of them needed. Dana came back to the car with a bag of sunflower seeds.

"You hate those."

"You like them."

He took them, cracked one, and pulled back onto the road. The rain thinned to mist. Dana put her feet on the dash, which he didn't like, and said nothing about, and they drove west toward the water.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like an accusation, and Maya kept walking past it.

"You're going to forget your toothbrush again," Daniel said from the doorway. He had already packed—one duffel, rolled clothes, the charger cables coiled with a rubber band. Two years of marriage and she still found this slightly maddening.

"I'm going to forget my toothbrush *on purpose*," she said, "so we have to stop at that pharmacy in Weaverville. I liked the pharmacy in Weaverville."

"It was a CVS."

"It had character."

They were driving up to the lake for two nights. Her sister's cabin, technically, though her sister hadn't used it since August and had told them to just take the key from the planter. Daniel had checked the weather four times. Rain Saturday afternoon, clearing by evening.

The debate about groceries lasted from the bedroom to the car. Daniel wanted to shop up there, at the little market by the marina; Maya pointed out that the market by the marina charged nine dollars for a box of crackers.

"It's two nights," he said.

"It's the *principle* of nine dollars."

They compromised, which meant they stopped at the Safeway on Route 9 and bought coffee, eggs, a loaf of sourdough, and a bottle of wine that Maya chose because she liked the label, and then Daniel bought crackers at the marina anyway, later, and didn't tell her the price.

At 9:40 they pulled out of the driveway. Maya took the first shift behind the wheel because Daniel got sleepy on the highway before ten. He put on the podcast they'd been saving—the one about the shipwreck—and she reached over without looking and turned the volume down two notches, and he let her.

Twenty minutes in, she said, "I did actually pack my toothbrush."

"I know," he said. "I saw it. I put mine in the other pocket."


The forecast said rain Saturday, so Dana pushed the drive up to Friday evening. She texted Marcus from her desk at 4:12: *leave by 6? beat the worst of it.* He wrote back a thumbs-up and then, a minute later, *do we need to stop for gas or did you fill up*.

She had not filled up. She typed *no* and left it at that.

At home, Marcus was already pulling the duffel from the closet shelf, the blue one with the broken zipper pull they kept meaning to replace. He packed the way he always did, in one pass, socks rolled and shoved into shoes. Dana stood in front of the dresser holding two sweaters, trying to remember whether the cabin had a wood stove or just baseboard heat.

"Baseboard," Marcus said, without looking up. "Remember, you were cold."

"That was the one in Virginia."

"Was it?" He considered this. "Bring both."

They argued mildly about the cooler—whether it was worth packing food when there was a Kroger twenty minutes from the rental. Dana won by pointing out the Kroger closed at nine. So they made sandwiches at the counter, turkey and provolone, and Marcus cut them diagonally because that was how his mother had done it and Dana had stopped teasing him about it years ago.

At 6:40 they were in the car. Marcus drove. Dana held the phone up to check the route, then set it in the cupholder and let it talk.

"Did you lock the back door?"

"Yes." He paused. "Probably."

She unbuckled, went inside, came back out. "It was locked."

"I know."

Rain started somewhere past the county line, earlier than promised, and Marcus turned the wipers to intermittent. Dana found a station playing something from the nineties and left it there, and neither of them said much for a while, which was fine.


The Friday Departure

The cooler was the last thing, and Marcus couldn't get it into the trunk sideways.

"Try it the other way," Dana said from the driveway, holding two coffee thermoses and her phone. "Lid facing you."

He rotated it. It slid in with an inch to spare. "You could have just said that ten minutes ago."

"I did say that ten minutes ago. You were busy with the sleeping bags."

They had decided on Wednesday, over reheated lasagna, that they should get out of the house. Dana's sister had mentioned a cabin near Lake Barkley, two hours west, and the October forecast promised low sixties and no rain. Marcus had wanted to leave Friday after work. Dana had wanted to leave Saturday morning, when they'd be less exhausted, but she'd given in because Marcus pointed out they'd lose half a day.

Now it was 5:40 and traffic on the interstate was already thickening.

"Did you unplug the toaster?" she asked.

"The toaster doesn't need to be unplugged."

"You always say that."

"Because it's always true." He merged left. "I turned off the water heater, though. And I locked the back door twice."

She scrolled her phone. "There's a barbecue place in Cadiz that's open till nine. Four point six stars."

"That's a good rating."

"Four hundred reviews, too. Not just a family thing."

They agreed on it without much discussion, which was how most of their agreements happened after eleven years. Dana turned on the radio, then off, then found a podcast about a shipwreck. Marcus said he'd rather have music. She switched to a country station he tolerated.

Somewhere past Hopkinsville the sun went orange and low, right in their eyes, and Dana handed him his sunglasses from the glove box without being asked. He put them on and said thanks. She rested her feet on the cooler and watched the fields go by, mile after mile of harvested corn, and neither of them said anything for a long while.


The Friday-night forecast said rain in Asheville, so Dana pulled up a second tab and started reading about Savannah instead.

"It's eight hours," Marcus said from the kitchen, where he was scraping the last of the rice into a container. "We'd get there at midnight."

"We could leave at six tomorrow morning."

"You will not be awake at six."

She didn't argue, because he was right. They settled on the mountains anyway, rain or not, because the cabin was already paid for and nonrefundable, a detail Dana had discovered while looking for the confirmation email.

Packing took longer than it should have. Marcus wanted to bring the good coffee and the pour-over cone; Dana pointed out that the listing said the kitchen was fully equipped. He brought them anyway, wrapped in a dish towel. She packed three sweaters for two days and one pair of shoes, then went back for boots.

"Do we need the cooler?"

"We're stopping at a grocery store when we get there."

"So no cooler."

"We can bring the cooler," she said, in a tone that meant she'd already decided.

They left at nine-fifteen Saturday morning, twenty minutes later than planned, because Marcus remembered the plants and stood at the sink filling a watering can while Dana waited in the passenger seat with her seatbelt on. He got in, apologized, and put his phone in the cupholder for directions.

The first hour was quiet in a comfortable way. She drank her gas station coffee and complained about it. He merged badly and she said nothing, which he noticed.

Around Statesville the sky went the color of a nickel and stayed that way.

"Rain," Marcus said.

"Told you."

"You wanted to go anyway."

"I did," Dana said, and reached over to turn up the radio, some song neither of them liked but both knew all the words to.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like an accusation. Marisol had packed hers Thursday night; Dev's was still empty Friday morning, and he was standing in front of it holding two nearly identical gray sweaters.

"It's the mountains," she said, pulling her hair up. "It'll be forty degrees at night."

"So both?"

"So the fleece."

He put the sweaters down and dug the fleece out of the closet, where it had been since March. It smelled like the closet. He decided that was fine.

They'd chosen Asheville because it was four hours away and because Marisol's cousin had mentioned a bookstore with a cat in it. The cabin was cheaper than a hotel and had a hot tub in the listing photos, though Dev had noticed in the reviews that the hot tub was sometimes "seasonally unavailable," a phrase he found ominous.

At nine they argued mildly about the cooler. Dev thought they should buy food when they got there. Marisol pointed out that they'd arrive at three, starving, and would end up at a gas station eating something beige. She won by packing the cooler herself: two sandwiches, grapes, a bag of pretzels, the good mustard in a small jar.

He carried it to the car. She locked the back door, then unlocked it to check the stove, then locked it again.

"Did you water the fern?"

"The fern is beyond help."

They pulled out at 9:40, which Dev noted aloud was only forty minutes past their target. Marisol connected her phone and put on a podcast about a shipwreck. Twenty minutes in she paused it to say she'd forgotten her book, and he offered to turn around, and she said no, absolutely not, there was a bookstore with a cat.

Outside Greensboro they stopped for gas and he bought her a coffee without asking how she wanted it, and got it right.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like an accusation, half-filled with clothes Mira kept rearranging.

"Two nights," Daniel said from the doorway. "You've packed four sweaters."

"It's October in Vermont. It could be sixty or it could snow."

He didn't argue. He'd learned, in eleven years, which battles produced results and which produced only a longer conversation about the battle itself. He went downstairs to check the oil in the car, because his father had checked the oil before every trip and the habit had transferred like a birthmark.

The dipstick showed fine. He topped off the washer fluid anyway.

Inside, Mira was writing a note for the neighbor about the cat. *Two scoops, morning and night. She'll pretend she hasn't been fed.* She stuck it to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lobster, from a trip to Maine they'd taken before the kids were a possibility they'd stopped discussing.

"Do we want to leave now or eat first?" she called.

"Now. We can stop at that place off 91, the one with the pie."

"That place closed."

"It did not."

"Danny. It closed in the spring. There was a sign."

He came into the kitchen holding his phone, already looking it up, and she watched him find the confirmation and absorb it with a small nod, the way he took bad news about anything—a resignation so quick it was almost cheerful.

"Then we'll find another place," he said.

They locked the back door, checked it, locked the front. Mira sat in the passenger seat holding two travel mugs while Daniel backed down the driveway, one hand on the wheel, the other braced against her headrest, the way he always did.

"Did I turn off the upstairs light?"

"You did."

"You saw me?"

"I saw you," he lied, and pulled onto the road.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like an accusation. Neither of them had put anything in it yet.

"Portland or the coast?" Dana asked. She was standing at the dresser, holding two pairs of jeans and evaluating them against some private standard.

"Coast," Marcus said. "We did Portland in March."

"We did Portland in March because you said you wanted coffee."

"I did want coffee. I still want coffee. There's coffee on the coast."

She put both pairs of jeans in the suitcase, which he noted but did not comment on. He was in charge of the cooler, which felt like the better assignment until he opened the refrigerator and found the deli drawer nearly empty. He held up a package with four slices of turkey left.

"Do we stop at the Safeway in Tillamook or the one here?"

"Here. The one in Tillamook is always out of the good bread."

"You've been to the Safeway in Tillamook once."

"Once was enough."

He took the turkey anyway, plus mustard, plus the block of cheddar that was heading toward the end of its useful life. Dana came in with her toothbrush and a paperback she'd been not-reading since February.

They left at 9:40, which was later than Marcus wanted and earlier than Dana had expected, so it counted as a compromise. He drove. She controlled the radio and settled on a station out of Astoria that faded in and out through the hills.

Around Banks she said, "I forgot my sunglasses."

"There's a pair in the glovebox."

"Those are your sunglasses."

"They're sunglasses."

She put them on. They were too big for her face and she knew it, and she left them on anyway, and he glanced over and saw her looking out the window at the fields going by, and he decided not to say anything about it.


The alarm went off at five-fifteen, which Dana had insisted on and Marcus had argued against, and now that it was ringing he pressed his face into the pillow while she swung her legs out of bed.

"You said you wanted to beat the traffic on 95," she reminded him.

"I said a lot of things at nine o'clock last night."

By six he was carrying the duffel bag down the porch steps while Dana stood in the kitchen debating the cooler. They were only going two nights, up to a cabin outside Luray that her coworker had recommended, but she couldn't decide whether to bring the eggs or trust that the town had a grocery store.

"Bring them," Marcus called through the screen door. "You'll be annoyed if there's no store."

"There's definitely a store. I looked."

"Then don't bring them."

She brought them, packed in the carton inside a plastic bag, which took another four minutes. Marcus checked the back door twice and asked if she'd turned off the coffee maker. She had. He checked anyway.

In the car she took the first shift driving because she liked the early highway, empty and gray, and he liked being allowed to fall asleep. He didn't, though. He scrolled through the playlist she'd made and vetoed three songs, and they talked about whether her brother was actually going to move to Denver or was just saying it again.

At a Sheetz outside Front Royal they got gas and coffee and a bag of pretzels that Marcus opened before they were out of the parking lot. Dana asked for the map on his phone and he read the directions out loud, one turn at a time, which annoyed her but she didn't say so.

The mountains came up green and hazy on their left. She rolled her window down two inches. He turned the volume up.


The suitcase lay open on the bed for two days before either of them put anything in it.

"Do you want the good pillow or should we just use the ones at the cabin?" Nadia asked, holding it under her chin like a violin.

"The cabin ones smell like a basement," Marcus said. He was on the floor testing the flashlight, which worked, and then testing it again, which it also did. "Bring it. Bring both, actually. I'll drive."

They left at four-thirty on Friday to beat the traffic and did not beat the traffic. On I-84 they inched past a jackknifed box truck and Nadia read aloud from the reviews she'd found, the ones that mentioned mice, and the ones that mentioned the hot tub being lukewarm, and the one that just said *fine.*

"Mice are fine," Marcus said. "Mice are honest."

They stopped at a Wawa outside Danbury because Nadia wanted iced tea and Marcus wanted to look at the sandwiches without buying one, which was a thing he did. She bought him a bag of pretzels anyway and set it in his lap, and he ate them one at a time with his left hand for the next forty miles.

The turnoff came up faster than the GPS suggested. Gravel road, no streetlights, the headlights catching the reflective eyes of something in the ditch.

"Deer," she said.

"Possum."

The key was under the flowerpot, exactly as promised, which surprised them both. Inside, the air was cold and smelled like woodsmoke and Pine-Sol. Marcus found the thermostat. Nadia found the light switch, then the second light switch, then a lamp with a shade shaped like a pheasant.

"Oh, that's terrible," she said, delighted.

"We're keeping it on all weekend."

He carried in the bags. She unwrapped the sandwiches they'd bought after all, and they ate standing at the counter, still in their coats.