This Is Where We Stop novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Where We Stop
The divorce became final on Friday at nine in the morning, and I read the email at the departure gate.
I was single.
I waited for the feeling to come, and it did, and it was only relief.
The window seat was mine. Padraig sat on the aisle with his long legs folded and slept for most of the Pacific.
I watched the clouds.
I thought about the girl at a restaurant table, eight years ago, who had said yes to a man in a good suit and a boyish grin and believed it was enough.
I did not feel sorry for her.
I felt like I should introduce her to the woman in the window, so she could see how it turned out.
The last stretch was a jeep on a road cut into the side of a mountain.
The earthquake had left the valley scarred, and in the weeks since we had left, people had put it back together.
New roofs. Green tarps. A schoolyard full of children in clean shirts, shouting.
The driver was a boy of nineteen who chewed gum and sang along to the radio.
At the top of the last switchback the road flattened and a white gate came into view.
Behind it stood the tents, the gym, and the stone clinic with its flag.
Someone on the porch lifted an arm.
It was a short figure in reading glasses, and she began to run.
"Stop here," Padraig said to the driver.
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