They’d had so much more to do together, so much more to learn. Ground to cover and inches to grow. Secrets to share. Memories to make and keep safe. It isn’t his fault. He’d needed so little but asked for too much. It is all his fault. He’d had so little to give but would surrender it all, every last cent and scrap for just one more chance. One last chance. Maybe he’d already been given one, so perhaps this is it. And so there’s nothing left to bargain with, nothing left to offer. No more promises or tomorrows. No more stories or hugs. No more failures, disappointments, or dreams. No more lies. Not even the one he’s muttering right now, aiming it past the cage to his son outside, out there.

“I’m right here,” Henry tells him. “I’m right here.”

$195.70

The end of one thing just meant the start of something else. It’d taken years for Henry to come to terms with this apparent truth. Back when he’d been an angsty, bereaved teen, the fact that motion continued (nor ever paused) during his fits of despair always seemed such an insensitive, even cruel perpetuation, as if the world owed him a moment of stillness and silence to accommodate his personal tragedies. Still though, no matter how dark it got, the sun always turned up. Eventually. Just like it had the morning after Mom passed. Like it had after every death-tempting bender. Like it had after his first night in county, and then every following morning over the next five years in the state pen. There in his cell, he used to start each day the same way, craning off the top bunk to peer through that envelope-sized slot in the concrete, double-checking the world was still there, still going, and of course it was. Even that morning after the plant closed and he hit Michelle and ended their family—there it was, right there, grinning gold and new in the east, crawling imperceptibly higher by the minute.

What today’s end might be the beginning of was as uncertain as any. All he knew was that it was coming soon. Any minute now it would be kicked off with a knock on the front door. Then, as soon as it opened, and he and Junior stepped out of their home and into the truck, that something else would begin.

For the time being, though, all Henry could do was wait.

All he knew about Michelle’s disappearance was that, one, it was his fault and, two, she’d withdrawn every last penny from their shared account, before going off to wherever she’d gone.

And motion resumed.