Page 108 of The Professor's Wife

All I needed fit in this very van: a duffel of clean-enough clothes, my old man’s favorite acoustic guitar, and a stack of hisCDs kept in a worn leather case that still smelled like him. Worn leather and musky cologne.

Music was the closest thing I had to prayer, and not the polished, streaming kind, but the kind scratched into plastic, found in flea-market bins, smelling faintly of dust, rain, and someone else’s basement. Liner notes yellowed with fingerprints and time. Creedence Clearwater Revival. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Steppenwolf and Bob Seger.

When the CD spun, I listened as if it were scripture.

And I hadher.

Daisy was older in ways no one her age should be. She carried what she ran from like a weight on her spine. There was a bruise on her spirit that didn’t show on her face, not anymore. I had a feeling she’d learned to hide it, but there were moments with me. Moments when I caught the despair so clearly in her gaze, so wrought with fresh panic, like the past might jump out in front of her and capture her.

I wouldn’t let it get her.

I’d jump in before it did.

I’d take the bullet, even though I didn’t know who held the fucking gun.

I didn’t ask questions, but they fired through me anyway. I recognized her grief because I carried so much of my own. She kept the map open across her knees. I kept driving. Neither of us asked how many miles it would take before things hurt less.

Maybe distance could blur the ache.

We clung together, moving forward because stopping meant collapsing.

Every time I thought she would leave, she stuck it out. She got in my van. She hadn’t gotten out. I was living day to day like a man in constant suspense, wondering if at any point she would have enough.

I made an oath to myself that if she did—if she decided it wasn’t for her—I’d stop moving, too. I would stay with her anywhere. In a no-hope town. In a cement-jungle city. You name it.

I wanted her, and I didn’t care about the place.

She was my goal.

My final destination.

Fuck, I just wanted her.

Wanted all of her.

“When you know, you know,” Dad would say.

Well, I fucking know, Dad, and she’s it for me.

We passed through towns that were little blips on maps. Places with names worn thin by time and rainy winters. Places where the diner still had a bubble television in the corner, where people didn’t ask where you were from but how long you were staying.

I busked in rustic bars, my voice low and rough like boots on gravel. Some nights I didn’t accept the money. Sometimes I just wanted to sing for her.

Because she was the only one I wanted listening.

Every night, Daisy watched me. I searched for her. Always scanned the crowd, knowing she was there. Knowing we’d lock eyes.

The nights never felt too long with her. The sunrise was always beautiful.

Nature didn’t try to heal us. It just was—vast, callous, breathtaking. The trees didn’t care about human pain, but they offered shade and cleared the mind. On days too hot to enjoy, the rivers gave us cold water to get lost in.

I watched Daze with wonder.

I was undeserving.

How could I keep this flame going?

I tried, and she didn’t leave. She stayed, and I wanted it all. That grief and curious smile. I wanted to erase the fear in her too-large eyes when she thought I might be the thunder to her rain.