19. Andrew
Andrew
Mary Jo’s dust had settled before Andrew moved.
He turned toward the house because there was nowhere else to look. The porch steps took him up through the cold. At the top, his hand went to the rail.
Her gloves lay there.
Brown leather, stiff with frost, curled at the fingers. The right one had split below the thumb where Mandy had worked through the skin and kept working.
She had left them before Elk Park.
Set down between chores. A thing she expected to pick up later.
Andrew took the right glove from the rail.
It held the shape of her hand.
He worked it open with both thumbs. The leather resisted, then gave. The palm had gone dark from reins and sweat. Straw clung to one seam.
She had not packed.
The thought arrived cleanly.
She had ridden down expecting another evening. Lucky’s bottle. Junebug’s tack. Coffee before daylight.
She had left the gloves where the next job would find them.
Andrew had watched a man arrive and turn that future into a departure.
He folded one glove into the other and put them inside his coat.
The house stood behind him with one window lit. Somewhere inside, the wrong mug hung from its hook. The green dress remained in the spare room. He did not need more time to think.
He had done enough thinking.
By the time the sun cleared the ridge, his truck was pointed south.
Stillwater fell behind him by degrees. The home road gave way to the county road. The valley narrowed in the mirrors and disappeared at the first long climb.
He drove past the turnout where he had pulled over with Amanda in the green dress.
His foot eased from the accelerator before he caught it.
The gravel entrance opened beside him. Empty. Dark under the firs.
He kept driving.
The gloves shifted against his ribs when the truck crossed a seam in the highway.
At the top of the pass, the road divided around a stand of pine. North went back toward everything he knew how to hold. South ran toward Dallas and a woman who had every reason to close the door in his face.
Andrew turned south.
The highway opened ahead.
He drove.