You won’t question leaving with him. If he must leave town, you’ll go with him. He’ll drive across plains and rivers and settle you in stark, cold mountains. He’ll hold you so tight. The first time he cheats will shock you. He’ll explain. Other women, sometimes girls, are necessary because you don’t yet love him the way he needs to be loved.

“If you did,” he’ll tell you, “there would be no need for them.”

You’ll wish he’d do something so terrible that you would have to leave him. He’ll do countless things not terrible enough. Many of them, not to you. You will begin to wonder if he needs more than he loves.

You’ll wish you thought he was evil. But your grandmother once explained there was no such thing as evil. A hawk or a coyote isn’t good or bad. They must kill to eat. Expecting different would be foolish. It will take you a long time to see this connection.

The connection will be spotty when you receive the call that your grandmother died. You will know that she was very old and ready to be with your grandfather again. You’ll wish this knowledge softened your hard mountain of grief.

You’ll be curled into a desperate, single knot when the waif, blinking through smudged black eyeliner, lands on your front porch. She’ll tell you he got her pregnant. Though a child herself, she’ll have something you do not. You’ll feel rage and grief. You’ll feel the need to save her. You’ll wrap her in your warmest coat, drive her over snowy roads to the clinic. You’ll pay for her return ticket to her mother.

You’ll tell him you’re going home for your grandmother’s funeral. You’ll ask him—no, you will beg—to come with you.

“Don’t go,” he’ll say. “I’m afraid you won’t come back.” He won’t go with you.

Your bus will travel for days and nights, over mountains, crossing rivers and plains toreturn you to the house you left a year ago. It’s now yours. You’ll expect him to come for you soon.

In the spring, still waiting, you’ll plant beans, zucchini, and potatoes. You’ll plant sunflowers. You will build birdhouses covered with sturdy mesh cages to protect the birds from hawks. You’ll adopt two big dogs in case of coyotes.

You’ll keep asking when he’ll come home. For months, he’ll respond with that same question.

In the fall, you’ll sink tulip bulbs into the red earth your grandmother’s hands knew. You’ll get a job at the library. You’ll still wait for him.

You’ll see your flowers bloom and fade before you receive the call that he died. The newest girl in his passenger seat will live. At his service in the mountains, you’ll touch her shoulder, thin and light as the birds you feed. She’ll have no idea who you are. You’ll wish you hadn’t needed his ashes in the hands of another to know he will never come for you.

You’ll return to your home, your dogs, your garden, and the library where you read to children. You will watch the brilliant orange and yellow of dying leaves as they drift, as they settle upon soft red earth.

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Heather Rutherford has been published in Life in 10 Minutes Online Magazine. She has attended numerous writing workshops, including Teaching Writing in the Community; classes at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum Studio School; and “Life in 10 Minutes,” a Richmond writing school, online magazine, and press. Heather grew up in upstate New York and escaped the cold by attending the University of Richmond to earn an English literature bachelor’s degree. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her family where she is a yoga and meditation instructor and the newsletter writer and editor for the yoga center.