Helen held her pocketbook in her lap until the Lake Norman exit, and then she let it slip down to the floor mat.

Past a bait shop with a hand-painted sign and a church with a gravel parking lot, the road grew narrow.

At four o’clock we pulled into a driveway marked by a mailbox with brass numbers screwed on crooked.

Pollen ran in long yellow streaks along the bottom of the windshield.

Helen leaned forward and laid her hand on the dashboard.

“That’s the house?”