“I woke up early and went for my run. I would have woken you up, but I didn’t think you had your running stuff with you. But you’re all dressed. If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll get a shower and take you to breakfast.”

“Can’t,” she said. “I’ve got to have breakfast with my parents in a little while. If I don’t eat a lot, they get worried about me and say I’m not taking care of myself.” She went up to him and kissed him.

“I’m sorry. I’m all sweaty and you’re so beautiful. I was looking at you while you were asleep and you looked amazing. I almost woke you up, but not for a run.”

“I would have swatted you. But the sweat is okay—good, respectable sweat. In fact, it’s kind of erotic in a cave-dweller sort of way. But I’m off. Don’t forget to call Marcia. She’s probably awake already.” And Leah was out, walking fast to her car in the morning sunshine.

She had gotten through their first morning, not honestly, but successfully. Soon they had begun sleeping overnight regularly, and she became confident enough to stop hiding what she looked like, because she found that he still loved her, and loved her more as time passed.

Leah tried not to let her sequence of thoughts about Mark Ballard complete itself, but it did, as it always did. She saw him lying beside her in the night of July 19. She heard the first shots and got out of bed and listened, and as she did, she looked back at him. That image had been taken into her memory, unchanging and unmoving, and it was still there.

Later, when she was with the other police officers preparing to make their stand on the west side of Main Street, he showed up, pretending he hadn’t been sleeping with her, just a city employee who had heard shots and come to volunteer to help to preserve order. He took a shotgun he had barely known how to use, intending to fight by her and protect her. She had seen the moment when the bullet punched through his head, and left him only a cluster of memories in the heads of two sad women.

She was on the Ohio Turnpike. The map on her phone said there was a service plaza ahead a few miles, so she began to watch for it. A few minutes later, Leah saw the sign and then the sprawling building and vast lots, the gas pumps on the far end, and the long-haul trucks parked in their special area away from the cars, their motors idling. Leah coasted onto the exit drive and parked.