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I wish I knew. I’m not myself these days. I know that. But it’s like I have this momentum and I don’t know how to stop… whatever direction it is I’m heading.

The plane taxis for another minute and then we stop. I sit quietly as the staff opens things up and then the attendant turns and smiles at me. She has very red lipstick and a tight bun. “You’re all set, Mrs. Asher.”

I hate that they call me that, but I use it myself when I need to get things done. Like taking my husband’s jet for the day.

“Thank you,” I sing back in a cheerful voice. She beams a smile at me like maybe I’m not the damaged freak everyone thinks I am.

You know, it’s funny—I take a few steps off the plane and the wind and cold overtake my thoughts for a second. It’s November in Colorado and I forgot my coat—it’s so easy for me to smile and be fake. I did it so much back when I was a teen. It’s like acting. And that’s what’s funny. Because I married an actor.

Is it this easy for him to hide his true feelings?

I continue with my smile as I walk across the tarmac and go inside the small, but bustling, terminal. The place is abuzz with people. Mostly rich business travelers. None of them pay me any attention as I walk straight across and out the doors to the pickup line.

And stop dead. So I can smile for real. “What are you doing here, bitch?”

Bebe is wrapped up in a stylish red wool coat with a black belt that makes her waist look tiny and her boobs look enormous. She’s got on dark sunglasses and her long, almost-black hair is waving gently around her face in the wind. Bebe looks like a movie star. She slips her sunglasses down her nose and gives me a smirk. “Do you really think I’m going to let you go see those awful people alone?”

I cross the distance between us and she pulls me in for a tight hug. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you so much. I just need to take one more look at them, y know?”

“I know, chica.” And then she pushes me back. “You don’t even limp!”

“I know, thanks to you. I hear you called in for a progress report twice a week.”

“Well,” she says as she puts her arm around me and leads me towards a black car, “it was the least I could do. I wanted to be with you for every second of your recovery.”

“You were, Bebe. You were. I saw your face everywhere as I struggled. I love your fucking face.”

“Right back at you, bitch. Now get in,” she says, opening the passenger side of her black Porsche Macan. “I’ll drive and you talk. Oh,” she says just as my door closes. She jogs around the front of the car and gets in before she picks up her sentence again. “I mapped out all the Starbucks from here to Holyoke!”

“They don’t have Starbucks in eastern Colorado, Bebes.”

“I know,” she pouts. “It’s like the apocalypse already happened out there.”

People make fun of small towns. And I guess they deserve it for being so backwards and slow. But I never minded them. It was nice to be in a place with no traffic and no crime.

Well, I guess that’s not true. My whole family was murdered in our home, so obviously every town has crime.

I still wonder why that freak fixated on me. Why me? I’m not ugly by any means. I’m cute. I have my beautiful moments. But why me?

Bebe chats all the way into Parker to pick up coffee, we use the drive-through, and then we get back on the freeway that will take us out into no-man’s-land. It’s a long drive up. Probably boring for most people. But it’s been while since I saw hay baled up neat and lining fields. And the farther away from Denver we go, the more I feel the tug of home. Whole flocks of turkeys wander around the side of the roads. Herds of antelope stare at us as we pass. Snow begins to fall as we make our way north. And before I know it, Bebe stops talking and we drive into town.

It’s quaint, I’ll give it that. It’s well-kept and colorful with the fall decorations. The downtown is small, just a block really. But it’s bustling with busy people.

No one looks at us and yet… everyone looks at us. I mean, a Porsche SUV is not something you see every day in Holyoke. Luckily it only takes us about thirty seconds to drive through town and then we turn east. I look over at Bebe.

“You want to see the farm, right?”

I nod. She knows me so well. And the fact that she knows how to get there without asking me for directions… well, that’s something too. It’s a maze of dirt roads and dead ends. And every field of winter wheat or fallow ground looks like the next. But sure as shit, she finds the house.

Bebe pulls her e-brake as soon as we stop but she doesn’t turn off the engine. “I’m not going inside.”

I look over at her and she turns her head to meet my gaze.

“I don’t want to go inside,” she repeats.

I swallow down my fear and open my door. I step out into the muddy driveway and close the door quietly behind me and then take a few tentative steps towards my home.

I still own it. Which is why it’s still standing, I suppose. No one farms this land. The barns are all empty and the only sound is the slight hum from Bebe’s car and the wind whistling through the trees.

My courage builds as I take a few more steps and then I’m just walking up to the front stoop. The windows aren’t broken. There’s no graffiti on the white siding that covers the exterior. The curtains are all closed.

It almost looks like someone lives here.