"Put it on the corner."
I put it on the corner.
She does not look up.
"Go home, Hale."
"Chief."
"Go."
I stand at the door. She does not look up.
I go.
The drive out is forty-two minutes. I do not put the radio on. The road past the on-ramp is empty at midnight. The moon is a thin slice over the foothills. I count the mile markers between the highway and the cabin road and I do not count anything else,and I pull into the drive at twelve-forty-one with the headlights on the porch.
The lamp in the kitchen window is on at low.
I sit in the truck for a count of four with my hands on the wheel.
The lamp is on.
She left the lamp on for me.
I get out.
I take the steps two at a time the way I take them every time. The porch boards are cold under my boots. The screen door has been latched. I open the screen. I open the inside door. The cabin is warm at the edge of the door and it smells of rosemary and butter and bread, and the front room is dim and the fire is out, and there is a quilt on the corner of the sofa with a book face-down on it.
"Evangeline."
I do not call her loud.
I call her once.
The cabin does not answer.
I stand in the front room with the door open behind me and the cold coming in around my boots, and I look at the quilt on the corner of the sofa, and I look at the book face-down on the cushion, and I look at the wine glass on the side table half-full, and I look at the fire in the front room that is out, and I look at the lamp in the kitchen window, and the lamp in the kitchen window is on at low.
"Evangeline."
I close the door behind me.
"Evangeline."
I cross the front room into the kitchen.
The chicken is on the counter beside the bread. The chicken is cold. The skin is set. There is a knife on the cutting board beside the bread that has not been used. The note I wrote to herat five in the morning is on the table by the window, folded twice, the way I left it.
She has not opened it.
She has not opened the note.
For a beat I do not understand.
Then I do.
She did not need to open the note to know I was coming home tonight.
