She typed, "Taking tomorrow to back Monday. Hold everything that can hold. " She sent it before she could revise it. She held the business card from Carter's auto in her other hand. Carter's auto in red letters, the A slightly larger than the rest. The shop number, the address, and in Marcus' handwriting at the bottom, his cell, which he'd written in while she watched.
Before she'd driven away from the Trump shop that morning, before she'd told him the truth, before he'd told her he'd already known, she turned the card over. On the back, in the same handwriting, were three words she hadn't noticed until now. It took her a moment to understand that he'd written it before she'd told him. He'd written it this morning when she'd picked up the card from the counter and she hadn't thought to turn it over. The three words said, "Don't go yet. " She sat on the edge of the bed and held that card in both hands.
She thought about a man who had known exactly who she was since 11:00 last night, had spent the entire day saying nothing and had written those three words but on the back of a business card without knowing whether she'd ever find them. She thought he wasn't waiting for her to prove something. He was waiting for her to be ready. She turned the card over once, then back. She picked up her phone.
She typed a text to the number he'd written. She typed, "I found what you wrote. " She looked at it for a moment. She sent it. She put the phone down and brushed her teeth and changed into the sleep shirt she'd packed and lay down in the dark. And at 11:47, her phone lit up once on the nightstand.
She reached over and looked at it. He'd sent one word back. It said, "Good. " She put the phone down. She turned off the light. She slept like something that had been holding its breath for a very long time had finally remembered how to breathe.
She left Milhaven at 9:17 on Sunday morning. She'd gone back downstairs for coffee and found Susan Greer already at the kitchen counter and Susan had handed her a paper bag without being asked. Inside was a container of the leftover pecan waffle batter and a handwritten note that said cast iron pan, medium heat, 4 minutes each side. Don't rush them. Victoria had stood there holding that bag and felt something in her throat that she did not allow to become anything further.
You'll come back, Susan said. It wasn't a question. I think I will, Victoria said. Good, Susan said. Same word she'd used before.
Same uncomplicated meaning. She drove out of Mil Haven with the windows down and the paper bag on the passenger seat and Marcus's business card in the console where she could see it. And she did not look at her phone for the first 40 minutes of the drive, which was its own kind of achievement. When she finally did look, there were 53 notifications. She put it back down.
She thought instead about what he'd said. 5 hours of highway between two people and no fake breakdown to start from. She turned that over in her mind. The way you turn a stone that you've picked up because it caught the light. Trying to understand exactly what made it catch.