I drove east for almost two hours.
No destination.
Just roads.
The city thinned.
Streetlights disappeared.
Then returned around small towns.
I stopped once at a gas station and bought coffee I didn’t drink.
At midnight, I checked into a motel.
The next morning, I woke with my clothes still on.
For perhaps five seconds, I didn’t remember.
Then I did.
Rebecca had sent three messages.
Did you get somewhere safe?
Please answer that one thing.
Owen.
I wrote:
I’m safe.
Almost immediately:
Where are you?
I stared.
Then put the phone down.
I stayed in the motel two nights.
On Friday, I called Hollis & Reed.
Told my boss I needed personal leave.
He knew something was wrong but didn’t push.
I had accumulated vacation.
“Take two weeks.”
“I may need longer.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
I thanked him.
Then I kept driving.
That was how I found Riverside.
I had passed the exit because I needed gas.
That was all.
Riverside was the kind of town people from larger places called quaint because they didn’t have to live there.
Brick downtown.
Two traffic lights.
Old movie theater converted into a community center.
One diner.
A hardware store.
Small public library built with money from someone whose family name appeared on half the buildings.
A river cutting through the eastern side of town.
I ate lunch at the diner.
The waitress called me honey.
Nobody knew me.
That felt extraordinary.
I saw a handwritten card pinned beside the cash register.
ROOM FOR RENT
PRIVATE ENTRY
ABOVE WHITAKER PRINT & COPY
ASK GEORGE
I asked.
George Whitaker turned out to be seventy-two, thin, white-haired and suspicious of almost everyone.
He owned the print shop next door.
The room above it was actually a small apartment.
Bedroom.
Bathroom.
Kitchenette.
Sloped ceiling.
Windows overlooking Main Street.
“How long?” George asked.
“I don’t know.”
He stared.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Month to month?”
“Why?”
I hesitated.
“My wife and I separated.”
George nodded as though I had told him the weather.
“Smoke?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Parties?”
“No.”
“Play music?”
I looked at the guitar case.
“Badly.”
“After ten, play badly quietly.”
That was our lease negotiation.
I moved in that afternoon.
The first night, I slept nine hours.
The second night, eight.
By the fourth day, I realized I had been sleeping badly for months without knowing it.
Riverside gave me anonymity.
I turned off location sharing permanently.
Changed my phone password.
Opened a separate bank account after transferring only my own paycheck and leaving the joint account untouched.
I contacted a divorce attorney back home.
Her name was Helen Crawford.
She told me not to make major financial moves without documentation.
“Are you sure she wants divorce?”
“She said she doesn’t love me.”
“That is not legally the same question.”
“I think she does.”
“Think less. Document more.”
I liked Helen immediately.
I told my employer I would be away for several more weeks.
George discovered I could repair things.
That led to the library.
The Riverside Public Library had a basement storage room with two broken shelves and a door that would not latch.