The car is the first thing to go.

Sia’s face lit up with joy when I said the word honeymoon, and even though I have no fucking clue how we’re going to pull this off long-term, that joy is enough of a path for me to follow.

Not like I have another choice. Being this divided from my family is like being dumped into the middle of the ocean without a life preserver. We have to find some solid ground before we can make any other decisions.

But first—the car.

I choose a random lot on the outskirts of the city and trade it for a blue Ford Focus that Sia, for whatever reason, loves. “Oh, my god,” she says, stroking the roof. “Such a pretty blue!”

“It’s like the dress you wore at the wedding.” It comes to me while we’re packing the new car with our things. Her face was so dark and despairing until we made this plan that I am desperate for more happiness. Honestly, if we’re going to be followed, if they’re going to find us anyway, we might as well not spend what’s left of our lives dreading it.

Not that I intend to die. No fucking way.

We drive away from the city as the sun wheels toward the horizon, the light orange and expansive.

“Follow the lake?” Sia asks, and I don’ t know whether it’s a question or a command. It doesn’t matter. The lake—that’s permanent enough. I follow it.

We drive and drive, all the way around the bottom curve of the lake and into Michigan.

It’s fucking farmland.

Farmland, broken up by cities. Something about the cities makes me want to keep driving do. Six hours in, Sia decides to hold my hand and stroke her fingers through mine. I tell her to stop. She doesn’t. I tell her she’s in for it if she doesn’t stop. She keeps going. In the end, I fuck her against the back wall of a rest area, my hand over her mouth, her pussy hot and tight on my cock.

I almost believe it’s a honeymoon.

It’s dark when we cruise into a town called Torch Lake. A tourist place. Small, and absolutely nothing is slick like it is in downtown Chicago. It’s the kind of place I’d never go. It’s the kind of place Sia would never go. Sia grins at the sign welcoming us to the town. We get a room that costs way too much, and I sleep all night, never waking once.

The next morning we wander into the local grocery. Sia takes a deep breath and looks around.

It’s small-town as shit. I can’t picture anyone I know from the city here. Not even for vacation.

“Stay or keep going?”

I take her hand in mine and kiss her knuckles. “Let’s see what happens.”

At the checkout, an old woman ahead of us in line eyes our wedding rings. “Oh, congratulations,” she says, sounding like she really means it. “Are you in town long?”

“If we can find a place to stay,” Sia says with a wide smile. Anybody could trust that smile.

The woman’s mouth breaks into sheer surprise. “Are you looking for a rental?”

“Yes. I just love the lake,” Sia adds.

I don’t know how the hell she does it, but by the time we help this woman—Hannah Johnson—load her bags into her car, she’s agreed to rent us her place. “I need someone who can keep it up,” she frets. “My last renter—I had to hire a company. He couldn’t keep it up.”

“It won’t be a problem,” I reassure her, and she blushes. That sounds fucking wonderful. Tending to some old woman’s beach house could be the perfect summer activity. I’ve already given up on the class I was taking. I don’t want to call and withdraw, not yet, becuase that’ll tip off everybody back home.

Wait. What am I thinking? They already know. Luca.

Sia can hardly contain her excitement. First on our new agenda: pick up the keys to the new and ridiculously cheap rental. After what the night in the hotel cost, I’m shocked at how low this woman’s going. But Sia has that smile.

Less than an hour later, we’re standing on the rental property, looking across the street. The lakefront lot there has two houses, one on either side of a wide lawn. While we watch, a toddler tumbles out the back door of the one on the left.

“January!” A woman sprints out after her, hair the color of sand, and scoops her up. “You can’t go in the water without Mama. Let’s get Daddy, too. Day!” She calls toward the house. “Day, come on, this girl’s dying to swim!” The little girl giggles, her laugh high and pure.

There’s the rumble of a male voice from inside the cabin and then a man, tall and broad and strong, walks out.

“Oh, wow,” Sia says.

“Wow, what?” I feel a strange, hot flash of jealousy, like a fever.

“He’s got a prosthetic foot.”

I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I do. The three of them walk toward the shore together, the man swinging the little girl up into his arms. It’s almost a hallucination, imagining Sia with a little baby cradled in her arms, and it makes me even hotter to think about it. Too hot.

I put my arm around Sia and she leans in, then pulls back. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

It’s a lie.

She knows it.

Sia presses a hand to the back of mu neck and it makes an echo of my mother when I was very, very small. “You’re burning up,” she says, concern echoing in her voice. “Come on, come on, let’s go in.”

I’m sicker than I’ve ever been.

The fever burns, starting at the top of my head and working its way down, and it’s like I’m caught under a magnifying glass, bearing the brunt of all the sun’s energy.

And my throat.

Jesus, my throat. It hurts like knives, it hurts like a jagged blade centered in the back of my throat. My cheeks smart with the effort of not swallowing. God, I don’t want to do it. I don’t.

I can’t swallow. It hurts so fucking terribly. And I can’t go to the doctor. There’s no hospital in town, for one thing. I don’t know where the nearest hospital is. Sia watches me, her eyes clouded with worry. She forces me into bed, and the moment the covers touch my skin, I’m shivering. What the fuck is this?

She crawls in next to me when the sun sets and I throw off the blanket. I can’t get comfortable. My forehead burns. Then—cool. Sia presses a damp cloth against my forehead.

“Husband,” she says, and I open my eyes. “I’ve got Tylenol.” I press the washcloth to my forehead and crane my neck. She has a glass of water in one hand, a pill pinched between the fingers of the other.

“No,” I whisper. “No.” Not water. Not swallowing.

In the morning, I can’t whisper.

“Your throat must be killing you,” she says, stroking my hair.

I shake my head.

“I can see the pain in your eyes when you swallow.”

I must look like shit, but I try anyway. I work up the courage and the effort and force it, trying to keep a straight face. I want to be the strong one. I have always been the strong one.

Sia’s forehead wrinkles, and she shakes her head. “This is crazy.” She tips the covers off her knees and stands up, scrabbling in a dresser drawer for a sports bra. She whips off the t-shirt she’s wearing and tugs on the bra, then a tank. A pair of shorts. She shoves her blonde hair into a messy bun. “Get up. We’re going.”

I gather all my strength. “I’m not—”

She whirls on me, and the next instant the bed dips with her weight. “Get up, Gio.”

I can’t speak anymore.

And fighting her, I know, is a fool’s errand.

“Do you want a shower before we go?”

I nod.

She’s already dressed but she starts the shower for me. I must look pathetic as fuck because as soon as I’m standing under the water she strips off her own clothes.

It’s too small, this shower, but I want her close.

I don’t say a word—it would be a waste of voice—but it’s killer to wash my hair. Everything is killer.

I rinse the shampoo out of my hair and brace a hand against the shower wall to steady myself.

Sia brushes her fingertips down my back, and even in her silence, I can feel her caring for me. Maybe it’s the fever, but my heart is ready to splinter in two at this gentle touch, expecting nothing, taking nothing. When the washcloth meets my back I drop my head. She doesn’t say a word, only presses her hand to the back of my neck and her lips to my shoulder.

There are no words for this pain, for the stab in my throat and the ache in my chest. I’ve wanted this forever. That’s what it feels like. I’ve wanted someone to touch me like this for ages, for eons, and I never knew there was anything missing. How did I not know?

I force another swallow so I can breathe. That’s not true, is it? I did know it was missing. I always knew she was missing. I felt her absense as keenly as I can feel Sia’s presence next to me in the shower right now. And no, no, I do not want Sia to be my mother. Jesus Christ. That’s the last thing I want. But I imagine that in those murky childhood days before she died, I didn’t question her presence. It must have been like the sun. Always there. Now Sia is the sun, and moon, and the universe. I’ve come home.

I only wish it didn’t hurt so badly.

She rubs the washcloth over my skin, careful to get every inch, and when she dips it down to my cock I can’t help getting hard.

“You’re sick,” she reprimands me, but the blood rushing between my legs gives me a second wind. I grab her hand and press it against my cock. She gasps a little, because fuck, it’s hard, and squeezes it tentatively.

“Make me feel better.” The whisper takes everything I have left.

But it’s worth it, because Sia sinks down to her knees.

She makes me feel more than better.