Carrie called me to let me know she was on the train home, and I offered to come and pick her up. She was gone before I got up, but she left me a scribbled note on the kitchen table. If she were staying at home—her home, the house she grew up in—would she be calling Pete instead? Or her mother? I can picture her on the train, reaching for her phone to call Karen, then catching herself with a sharp intake of breath, and calling me instead. I find myself aching for her despite the fact that I have no evidence at all of this happening.

In any case, I’m leaning against the bonnet of my car, having climbed out to better appreciate the environment. It’s actually a breathtaking waypost for a traveler to alight into. If it weren’t for the thrum of traffic from the nearby A9, this could be the middle of nowhere—which, technically, I suppose it is. The road I drove in on stretches away from the low gray stone station building in both directions with only the odd fence or drystone wall to suggest that mankind has ever actually settled here. I try to trace the road with my eyes in the failing light, but it’s impossible—my eyes are dragged to the craggy peaks which are darkening by the second, the definition vanishing until they become merely looming dark presences. I feel the weight of time here, of the years that have passed. This landscape has been old for a very long time.

By the time the train arrives, darkness has truly fallen. From a distance, I see the lights of the train and it’s a jolt, a jarring thrust back into the twenty-first century. The metal-on-metal scrape of the train wheels whips through the rails ahead of the train itself, and for a moment I fancy the rails are alive, buckling and dancing with the intensity of the energy funneling through them. But the noise is changing; the train itself is drawing in. Seconds later Carrie steps out onto the platform, her black biker boots easily eliminating the ground between us with her long strides, and her hands thrust into the pockets of the open long gray coat whose tails are flapping behind her in the breeze. Individually everything she’s wearing looks like it came from a jumble sale, but somehow when settled on her frame it becomes imbued with a slouchy elegance I could never hope to find. Perhaps I was already aware of it, but I feel like I’m recognizing it anew: Carrie is seriously cool.

We say our hellos and climb into the car. Carrie is already yawning. “Were you back late last night? I didn’t hear you come in.”