Three months since the layoff. I still drive County Road 7 every afternoon.
Forty-seven minutes, no traffic. The only quiet hour I have these days.
My aunt’s house has a jar of buttons on the windowsill. Sorted by no one, she says, just dumped in.
My younger cousin asked me yesterday why I still go that way. 'There’s nothing out there.'
I told her about the light at the curve, how the hayfields catch it just right.
But the truth is, I think I’m driving toward something. I just don’t know what yet.
Maybe these empty back roads are the door that never closed. Just waiting for me to turn in.