In Robert’s office, the fish is waiting for him. Silver lip protruding, it stares him down. Not swimming. Lance wonders how the fish catches the monkeys it eats, then wonders if the aquarium lid is on. He takes a step backward, and the office door bursts open.

“She’s ready!” Robert says. He smiles at Lance. Scowls at the fish. “Be nice.”

“Is the Buick really fixed?”

He puts his hands on his hips. “Would I bullshit you?”

“Sorry. It’s just that so many people have tried to fix it.”

“Yeah,” Robert says. “But only one mechanic. C’mon.”

Back in the garage, a fleet of gleaming hot rods surrounds the Buick like the setup for a joke. But Robert greets Lance’s car as respectfully as a gentleman taking a lady’s hand. He pops the hood and props it open with a rubber-tipped rod, opens the door with a gentle pull, and gets inside. He points to the engine and turns the key.

It starts.

The boom of the engine fills the space like a song in a cathedral. Robert revs the engine, grinning, raising his wild eyebrows. Lance’s jaw locks, eyes stinging, shaking his head. Robert shuts off the engine and gets out. He squares his shoulders with Lance. Looks him up and down. Robert is very tall. Lance steps backward.

“It runs,” Robert says. “Now let’s get down to business. Analysis, parts, and labor.”

“Okay,” Lance says, doing his own calculations. He had Goodview Towing’s $187 invoice plus whatever he still owed at Macland’s, plus four nights at the Trainsong. That, taken with 11 unheard voice messages on his phone and 4 minus 1 people returning to Bend would leave him with exactly $0 of his mother’s money to spend.

“Ready?” Robert asks.

“Ready.”

“First: analysis!” he says. “This. Well, this was a special case.” He paces, circling the Buick like a detective. “Quite a story, too. You’ve been here how long? Four days?”

“Five.”

“Five.” Robert whistles. “You know a little about cars, Lance. Is that right?”

He starts to say no, then stops himself. “Yeah. A little.”

“So you know as a mechanic, you apply logic first. Then equipment. Then skill. In that order. Understand?” Lance nods.

“First!” Robert lifts his index finger like a struck match. “Logic. Your dash was failing. That’s electrical. So that’s where we start. Follow the path, my friend. Electricity comes from the battery. It goes where first?”

“I don’t know.”

“The starter, Lance. The starter. This will be important later. You need two things to start an engine. Spark and fuel. Remember that. So I check your starter, and there’s a spark. That means your battery is functional. And your starter is functional. Not a long walk to the dashboard from there, but a couple fuses along the way. And there, we find culprit number one!”

Robert plucks a fuse from his shirt pocket and throws it at Lance’s chest. Red plastic with metal buckteeth. It bounces off him, plinks onto concrete.

“Blown fuses?” Lance says. “But I changed—”

“One problem was the fuses,” Robert says. “One. But like people, it’s never just one thing, Lance. Cars are complex. See, when the fuse to your speedometer blew, it spiked your needle right up the center. Like you told me, remember?”

“Yes.”

“But there were two blown fuses.” Robert throws another one, and Lance catches it this time. “And whereas a speedometer might give you a flashy show before it dies, a fuel gauge will just plain freeze.”

“Freeze,” Lance repeats. Eyes narrowing to a squint.

“I’m guessing that happened back in Seattle,” Robert says, circling closer. He holds up two fingers. “Two things to run an engine, Lance. Spark and fuel. Spark you had. But fuel? Well.” He steps so close Lance can feel his breath. “You were just. Plain. Out.”

“Out?” Lance says. “I was out of gas?”

“Case closed!” Robert claps his hands.

“Out of gas,” Lance repeats.

“Now back to parts and labor. This job took me exactly half an hour. I installed two 20A fuses in your vehicle. And two gallons of premium-grade American gasoline.” A plastic gas container appears in Robert’s hands. He drums the hollow side with his fingers. “And you, my friend, are as good as new. Or as good as 1993. But that was a good year, son. A damn good year. Now let’s get you squared away.”

Back in the office, Robert pulls out his calculator. Two fuses at two dollars each. Eight dollars for gas. Sixty-five dollars for diagnostics. Robert charges Lance’s card a total of seventy-seven dollars.

“Thank you,” Lance says.

“Just doing my job,” Robert says. “Bea tells me you’re off to graduation.”

“Yeah. On Friday.”

“So what happens after that?”

Lance had a scripted answer to this question. But his script is gone, and pressure is building behind his eyes. He stares at Robert’s desk.

“It’s okay. You don’t need a plan,” Robert says, tossing him the keys. “You got a car.”

Lance catches the keys. Heavier than he remembers. Robert rockets up from his chair and by the time Lance is in the Buick, he’s already back to work. Cursing and shaking his head. Pacing his concrete palace left to right, right to left.

The Buick’s engine fires.

Lance lifts his foot off the brake and is in charge of three thousand pounds of steel. The upholstery, embedded with 156,000 miles of memories. Dried mud from a hundred trails worked into floor mats. The cling of stale cigarette smoke, winning its battle with Febreze. And swinging from the rearview mirror, the brass treble clef his grandmother gave him on his twelfth birthday.

Twenty miles an hour feels fast.

The forest rushes around him. Strange to sit and move so quickly, choosing your direction with a flick of the wrist. Back on Highway 2, the feeling is so surreal he almost forgets to stop for more gas. He sits for five minutes, but no one comes out. He’s in Washington. He’ll have to pump his own.

The road back to the Trainsong motel feels too steep and fast, like driving down the side of a mountain. He bombs over hills, slips around greased curves. When the road straightens out, the clouds and pavement join into a single silver chute and there is no stopping him. He learned to drive on a country road like this, and can see his father chewing on an apple in the passenger seat, tapping the dashboard to Jethro Tull. Rolling papers, flapping in the wind.

Don’t ever do this, okay? Don’t ever do this.

The Trainsong comes into view, and Lance pulls into the parking lot. The breeze through the window dies. The Buick bakes in the sun, and Dakota’s front door is closed. He moves fast.

His motel room is still a wreck. His life in folders and suitcases, strewn over the carpet. An unmade bed with dents in the sheets. He imagines the bed cordoned off with yellow tape. A crime scene. The things he’s done. When he leaves, this room will be cleaned and used by someone else. They will have no idea what happened here. What could’ve happened.

But there is no Seattle. There is no other option. Never was.

An animal jolts awake in the cage of his chest.

Run, the animal shrieks. RUN.

Things and memories. He will stuff them all into bags and throw them in the trunk. Dark and safe and all locked up.

Plastic folders bend and crack as he shoves them in the duffel. A fat ball of dirty clothes. The suitcase zipper will not swallow the lump. Cram it in. Stomp it down. Too much to fit. These khakis won’t fit. These jeans won’t fit. Stone’s body will not fit. Goodbye, Dakota will not fit. And he’s breathing hard, he is wiping his face and the room is neat with a suitcase, a trumpet case, an orange duffel bag.

He looks over the walls. The cats stare back, trying to tell him something.

The bathroom!

A massacre of toiletries. Squashed tubes, plastic bottles. Evidence of last night, staring up from a wicker trash can. Obscene. He unspools a glove of toilet paper and piles it on top. He slips a finger under the bathroom mirror and it opens. Empty.

He remembers gaps in a medicine cabinet.

The morning he found the letter there was a missing comb, toothpaste, razor, aftershave. His father’s lines of absence were sharp and clear in cupboards and shelves, in the tools missing from the outlined Peg-Board in the garage. Lance closes the medicine cabinet. There is still a wineglass under the sink.

Outlets clear.

Nothing under the bed but a wooden block.

The parts of the room that belong to him all have handles. He hangs everything on his arms and shoulders. He can barely carry it all. Grip, slipping. One trip to the car. He’ll reverse out of the parking lot, reverse down the highway, reverse this trip all the way back to Bend, all the way to last Saturday.

NOW! RUN!

Alarms, air-raid sirens. He’s out the door and moving too fast. He might spill headfirst down painted steps. He makes it to the car. He shuts the trunk and is in the Buick with locked doors and all is still.

Something jabs his thigh.

A room key anchored to a broken plastic train and a conversation with Cheri and hundreds of dollars he does not have. Cheri is in her office, a horizon of frizzy hair over her monitor. No time for Cheri. Lance starts the car. He pulls forward, rolls down the passenger window, and tosses the key. It lands on the wicker mat with a bounce. Ha! Perfect! His engine purrs, carrying him to the edge of the highway. One right turn and he’ll be gone.

Blinking, clicking. As soon as this white pickup passes.

C’mon, white pickup!

In the rearview mirror, a parking lot. No one chasing him. He can do this.

You are valedictorian.

You are the first-chair trumpet player.

You jumped a train.

Dakota is in love with you.

He could’ve said something. Left a note.

Or a letter.

He could’ve left a letter.

Lance’s foot flattens the brake.

“No,” he says. “No, no, no.”

He jerks open the glove box: starlight mints, registration, receipts, a small flashlight, two rubber rings, crumpled carbon copies—and he heaves them onto the floor. Please just be here! Can you just be here?

There is no letter in the car. The highway is clear. Turn signal, clicking.

He could go. Can’t go. Lance makes a tight U-turn. He pulls back into his space. He’s out of the car, heaving himself up by the handrail, a balcony sprint to his room. A stone doorknob. Locked. He pats his pockets. He curses, turns around.

His room key is on the mat downstairs.

Lance makes it down around the corner and—no—Cheri is standing up. Rising from behind her computer. She never stands up. Why is she standing up? Slowly, she moves toward him. He’ll be caught. He runs faster but his legs are moving at slow-nightmare speed and he can’t go fast enough, can’t get there until she’s at the door, scowling behind glass.

He smiles, lifting his key.

She opens the door and he’s already halfway up the stairs.

“Breakdown!” she yells. “Hey Breakdown! What the heck are you doing?” He slams the door to his room and bounces off the corner of the mattress, hand closing on the nightstand drawer. He jerks it open, contents slamming forward: Bible, phone book, letter. The letter. He pulls out the envelope that says lance. He breathes, holds it to his chest.

Across the room, there is a pad of paper on the small desk. A blue pen.

Could he do it? Could he lift that pen? Could he write the name Dakota?

Now there are footsteps, coming up the stairs. Cheri is after her money. He walks to the door, hoping to beat her to the knock. If he can open the door and smile and say Hey there, she won’t be suspicious.

But when he opens the door he is not smiling at Cheri.

It’s Dakota. Dakota, climbing out of memory. With a scent and a body and a sour, electric feeling between them. Red-rimmed eyes. Eyes that have cried all day wrap themselves around him and his packed bags and an empty motel room.

“I’m glad I caught you,” she says.

“Caught me?”

“Before you left. You were moving pretty fast.”

She comes in and sits on the bed. Their bed.

“They want to see you before you go,” she says.

“Dakota.”

She’s staring at the sailboat. “Just say the words. If you have to go, just say the words.”

“Which words?”

“‘I truly appreciated our time together. And I must ask that you please don’t follow me home.’” She looks at him with glassy eyes. He can’t look back.

“I’m not leaving,” he says.

“Okay.”

“Who wants to see me?”

“Everyone,” she says. “They need your story.”