I grabbed my keys and was headed out the door when I spotted Heather’s phone in the charger. If she didn’t have her alarm set beside her, how did she expect she’d get Em to school on time?

I grabbed her phone and walked upstairs. Heather and Emily were nestled in Emily’s twin bed, their legs tangled, Em’s arm flung across Heather’s chest.

Funny that Heather hadn’t wanted kids. I mean, it made sense. She didn’t like her parents; why would she want to become one? She had a bunch of rabid, dangerous siblings. She hadn’t even liked kids when she was a kid.

I had to talk her into it. Beg a little.

And look at her now. She loved this kid so much. She was good to Sawyer too. Being a stepmom to a teenager was tricky, but Heather was managing it gracefully. She wasn’t meddlesome or overbearing; she was hands-off. She was just there. Sometimes that was all a teen needed: the sturdiness of an unreactive, mellow, barely parenting parent. And maybe, just maybe, this twenty-four-seven time together would be good for Heather and Sawyer.

I placed her phone beside Emily’s bed and crept out. Closed the door quietly behind me.

Driving away from our house in the cool dark with my window down, I swore I heard a deep, rumbling growl. It stirred something deep inside my brain, waking me up. It pissed me off too. On top of everything I was trying to manage, now I had to worry about the actual safety of my family because there were cougars down the street.

Hey, what do you say if you were to drive south, past work, past Chicago, and head for The Keys? Leave this headache behind.

I imagined a modest boat, a cooler of beer, and my fishing pole. Oh, God, fishing sounded good. Fishing all day long, all week long, was the polar opposite of my current situation.

You can’t leave. You have loose ends to knot. If you can make it through this brief rough patch, life will settle back into place. This is temporary.

I stopped at a gas station on the south side of Hunther. Set up my pump, and leaned against my door while my car guzzled gas.

The sun peeked over the east horizon like the tip of a fingernail, bathing everything in soft bluish light. A semi idled at a pump nearby. I inhaled the morning air, the dirty smell of diesel and the cow manure that I did love, God’s honest. It smelled of wide-open freedom and riding my ten-speed fast and, years later, driving my pickup truck with the windows down, tires kicking up dust, music so loud I couldn’t think straight.