"At least it’s something."
"Is it enough?"
"Dakota. It's the most you've given her since the BBQ. Yeah. It's enough."
I hear her breathing in the doorway. Hear her swallow. Hear her shift her weight from one foot to the other.
"Spur."
"Yeah."
"Don't sleep tonight."
"I wasn't planning on it."
"Okay."
She turns and walks back to her bed.
The light goes off in her room. I hear her settle.
I hear her breathing slow over the next half hour, and then I hear her breathing change into the breathing of a woman who has gone under.
I sit in my chair, don't open the beer. Instead, I watch the parking lot through the gap in the curtains.
There are six cars in the lot. A red Silverado. A white minivan with Oklahoma plates. A black sedan I can't see the plates on from this angle. A Subaru. A blue F-150 with a topper. A brown station wagon that hasn't moved since we got here.
I track them.
I watch the door to the office. I watch the rain. I watch the sodium lights buzz in the parking lot until the rain dies down around two in the morning and the asphalt starts to dry in patches.
A bit after two-forty-five a man walks out of the office and gets into the brown station wagon.
He's heavyset. Mid-fifties. Trucker hat. Not him.
At four the black sedan pulls out and drives away.
At five the sky east of the lot starts to gray and Dakota turns over in her sleep and makes a small sound before settling again.
I don't sleep.
I sit in the chair until the sun comes up over the panhandle and the parking lot fills with the smell of wet pavement and morning, and I think about the man somewhere out there who is going to find out that the woman he has been writing notes to has a man.
And the man she has does not lose.
At six I stand up, walk to the bathroom, and splash cold water on my face.
I look at myself in the mirror, and fuck I look rough.
I haven't slept, but I’ve decided what I’m going to do from here on out.
I dress, pack the truck, and wake her at six-thirty with a coffee in my hand.
"Time to go home."
She blinks at me. Sleep-soft. Unguarded for one second before she remembers where we are and what was on the windshield last night.
Then she's awake. Up. Moving.
