There are old farmhouses and new brick houses and trailers with no underpinning. A woman hanging clothes out on the line, her skirt flapping around her legs. An old man picking tomatoes and holding them in a line on his other arm against his chest. An old woman sweeping her front porch, which is covered in that scratchy green indoor-outdoor carpet. Asher will remember all of this.

They pass people on the side of the road selling green beans and jars of honey and collards from the tailgates of their pickups or on folding tables. One woman has laid out a bunch of clothes to sell right on the shoulder of the road. She’s sitting in the shade in a pink plastic chair, smoking a cigarette and staring with menace at every passing car.

Always there is the Cumberland River alongside the road, twisting and curving along with them. Asher recalls a time that he and Justin were walking along the river in the cool of the day and they saw a huge, straight beam of golden light falling from the trees and onto the water. Justin had asked him why the air always felt so much better down by the river. Asher had told him it was because of how the light filtered through the leaves and because water made everything better. “That’s why people always go to it, any chance they get,” he had said. He would give anything to have that day back.

“Why don’t you just let me out up here at the store?” Justin asks, one more desperate attempt. Already Asher can see the tall sign, hoskins’ grocery, above the trees, even though the building is still out of sight. “Cherry will probably be working,” Justin says. “She’ll watch me until Granny comes.”

Luke and Asher keep their eyes on the road and don’t reply, as if they haven’t even heard him. Asher can’t bear to speak. Not right now. Luke has left the radio on low and Asher can just barely hear Jason Isbell singing about not chopping wood. Shady eases up between the seats and puts his wet nose against Asher’s hand like he’s reminding him he’s there.

Luke drives on by Hoskins’ Grocery and Asher watches it go past, just a little rectangle made out of concrete blocks with a row of red buggies out front, a woman carrying her baby on her hip as she comes out the sliding glass doors, and it’s just a flash but he is sure he sees Cherry and Kathi standing at the side door by the stockroom, smoking cigarettes.