He backed off on the accelerator. “Just so you know, the campground is in the middle of nowhere, the cottages are so old they’re probably in ruins by now, and the place is more boring than elevator music because nobody under the age of seventy ever goes there.” He tilted his head toward the sack of food he’d picked up at the service station. “If you’re done with that orange juice, there are some cheese crackers inside.”

“Yummy, but I think I’ll pass.”

“You seem to have passed on a lot of meals lately.”

“Thanks for noticing. I figure if I lose another sixty pounds, I might be as skinny as some of your chères amies.”

“Feel free to concentrate on that nervous breakdown of yours. At least it’ll keep you quiet.”

She smiled. One thing she’d say for Kevin, he didn’t handle her with kid gloves like Phoebe and Dan. It was nice to be treated as an adult. “Maybe I’ll just take a nap instead.”

“You do that.”

But she didn’t sleep. Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to make herself think about her next book, but her mind refused to take a single step into the cozy byways of Nightingale Woods.

After they got off the interstate, Kevin stopped at a roadside store with a smokehouse attached and returned carrying a brown paper bag that he tossed into her lap. “Michigan lunch. Do you think you can make some sandwiches?”

“Maybe if I concentrate.”

Inside she found a generous piece of smoked whitefish, a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese, and a loaf of dark pumpernickel bread, along with a plastic knife and a few paper napkins. She mustered enough energy to put together two crude, open-faced sandwiches for him and a smaller one for herself, all but a few bites of which she ended up feeding to Roo.

They headed east toward the middle of the state. Through half-closed eyes she saw orchards coming into bloom and neat farms with silos. Then, as the afternoon light began to fade, they made their way north toward I-75, which stretched all the way to Sault Ste. Marie.

They didn’t talk much. Kevin listened to the CDs he’d brought with him. He liked jazz, she discovered, everything from forties bebop to fusion. Unfortunately, he also liked rap, and after fifteen minutes of trying to ignore Tupac’s views of women, she hit the eject button, grabbed the disk, and tossed it out the car window.

His ears turned red, she discovered, when he yelled.

It was getting dark when they reached the northern part of the state. Just beyond the pretty town of Grayling they left the freeway for a two-lane highway that seemed to lead nowhere. Before long they were driving through dense woods.