Contents (85)
- Contents
- Part I
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Part II
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Part III
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Seventy-One
- Seventy-Two
- One
- Two
- Reading Group Guide
- A Conversation with the Author
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
Fifty-One
Boston, Massachusetts
4:15 p.m.
Colin navigated his rental car out of the facility and did everything the woman inside the Google Maps app told him to do. Turn right, turn left. Merge onto the highway, continue for five miles. He happily relinquished all decision-making to her.
The last decision Colin had actively made was this morning when he booked a last-minute flight to Boston. After that, the rest of the day he’d spent in a trance.
He was exhausted and headed directly into a brutal snowstorm, not a good combination. He’d driven through some bad storms in Wisconsin, surely worse than what he’d encounter here, but his fatigue was probably the equivalent of blowing a point-oh-seven on the breathalyzer. Not legally impaired but enough where a responsible citizen wouldn’t have driven.
One hour, seven minutes to Bury. Eight-minute slowdown twenty miles ahead due to road conditions.
Colin had slept perhaps an hour after he talked to Rose last night, a conversation he struggled to recall. And sleep wasn’t even the right word for it. It was more like his brain just overloaded and shut off, a circuit breaker flipping. But after that hour of sleep, his brain went straight back into panic-and-desperation mode. He’d lain in bed all night, praying for more rest, finding none.
Instead, a singular thought had begun looping in his mind.
Go back to Bury.
There was no context for the thought. No plan. Nothing other than a sense he had to return and confront Rose. That she wasn’t allowed to get away with what she did, even if Colin didn’t know what exactly that was. But she was guilty of something. Rose. Her sister. Her father.
Someone had to pay for something. For all the shit in the world. Someone had to pay.
By four in the morning, Colin gave up, turned on the bedroom light, then downed the first of many cups of black coffee as he searched for flights to Boston. There were a few options, none of them cheap, which was to be expected when booking to leave the same day. Boston had gotten snow last night with more to come later in the day, and while some flights had been canceled, there was one option available. Seven hundred bucks got him a direct flight on one of those little Embraer jets, landing at three in the afternoon. Seven hundred goddamned bucks. That was what tragedy did for you; you lost all perspective.
He hadn’t known what to put in for the return date, so he just made it for a few days later, giving it little serious thought. Maybe he’d want to come home tomorrow, maybe never. Perhaps Bury was supposed to be his final destination in life. After all, Bury called to him. He cared about nothing else. Not his mother (who’d left him several voicemails), not his job, and certainly not the surprising amount of paperwork generated by the death of a spouse.
He’d get to those things. Probably. His mom had to be cared for. It was time for a nurse, and Colin would have to be the one to make those arrangements. But she’d have to drink alone and tuck herself in at least another night, because Colin was singularly focused.