---
The cliff is a turnout I have known about since I was twenty.
It is at the end of a forest service road that comes off the county road at mile fourteen. The road is not paved. It is rutted. The truck takes it. We go a mile and a half and the road ends in a flat clearing of pine needles that opens onto a long fall of valley to the west, and the valley runs out to a ridge of mountains, and behind the ridge of mountains the sun is six fingers off the horizon and going.
I park facing west.
I cut the engine.
We sit.
The valley is gold. The pines below us are black against the gold. A hawk is doing slow circles over the valley. The wind moves the tops of the pines and the pines below the cliff move like a slow tide. The sky is going pink at the rim.
She does not speak.
She watches the sun go.
I watch her watch it.
After a count she says, "I have not seen a sunset in a while. Not properly.”
The sun is lower. The sky is going red along the ridge. The pines are black. The truck is warm.
She unbuckles her seatbelt.
She slides toward me along the bench seat.
She puts her hand on my thigh.
"Max."
"Yes."
"Take me to the bed of the truck."
I look at her.
"You're cold."
"I am not cold."
"It's forty degrees out."
"I have a coat."
"Evangeline."
"There are blankets in the toolbox. I saw them yesterday from the porch when you were unloading."
She has been watching me unload my truck. She has been on the porch watching the woman who took her in unload her truck, which is a thing I did not know until this minute and which is a small bright thing I tuck away.
I look at her.
She is very close. The wool hat is pushed back on her head. Her cheek is pink. Her mouth is the mouth I have been thinking about all day in a meeting room.
"All right."
"Yes."
