As soon as I got in the van on the church corner, I used Birdie’s phone — my first time using a cellphone — to book a ticket. “I want to go to Europe, anywhere in Europe,” I told the airline guy. “Halifax to Europe. Right now. Right now.” I gave Elizabeth’s credit card number. She was crying. She took the phone from me and called her cousin Cindy and told her to go to my mother’s house at the top of the Mountain on the Lupin Cove Road. She should pack me a bag, the old black hat-box suitcase. We would meet her at my house as soon as we could.

“The key is in the outhouse out back. Just get there as fast as you can and pack. Put anything in the suitcase,” Elizabeth yells into the phone. “Some shorts, a bathing suit. Just go through Serrie’s drawers.” She turns red as she listens. “Don’t ask questions. Just pack it,” she screams, “and don’t ask me why. And don’t call me Bethie. My name is Elizabeth.”

We don’t talk while Birdie drives us all the way over the Valley floor and up the Mountain to my rundown house. Elizabeth will deal with my mother after I’m gone. She’ll tell her I wasn’t ready for marriage. Elizabeth understands wanting to leave the past behind. I won’t speak to my mother for months. Elizabeth suspects. She remembers high school. She knows I can’t stay in the Valley. Best-friend intuition. And then there is Seneca. Go away, Seneca, I whisper, but he holds up his hand and speaks: A change of character, not a change of air, is what you need. Though you cross the countless ocean; though, to use the words of our poet Virgil, “Lands and towns are left astern,” whatever your destination, you will be followed by your failings.

The van hits a bump. I close my eyes and when I open them, Seneca is gone.

Cindy is standing on the rotting verandah with the old hat-box suitcase when we get to my house. We screech to a stop. Elizabeth slides the van door open. Cindy’s eyes pop wide open when she sees me dangling there. I laugh. Her shock delights me. She opens her mouth but says nothing as Elizabeth leans out and grabs the case, sliding the door shut as she leans back in.

“How about another smoke?” I ask once we’re roaring on the highway to the airport.

“How about shutting up, Serrie? Who is Seneca?” Elizabeth’s face is still red.

Birdie stomps the brakes. “Let it go, Elizabeth.”

I snap like undies on a clothesline. Elizabeth jerks forward.

Birdie floors it now and yells over her shoulder, “Shut up, Elizabeth. It’s over now. Just shut up. Seneca is probably just some idiot Serrie met in a bar.” She hands another lighter back to Elizabeth who lights me another cigarette and sticks it in my mouth. She leaves me hanging there in the bra and digs through the black case, looking for something for me to wear.