You'd left the back porch light on again.

Your husband warned you about it. "You're gonna attract every damn moth and drunk from here to Stillwater." But he never said it like he cared. Just another thing to scold you for in passing, like the dust on the fan blades or the pie crust you'd overcooked last Thanksgiving. The kitchen smells of burnt coffee and dish soap, the air heavy with the silence of another empty house.

He hadn't been home in three days. Something about a shutdown at the mill. Always something. The clock ticks loudly on the wall, each second stretching into an eternity of loneliness.

So, when the screen door eased open with that soft kree-kreeee, you didn't even turn around. The sound of the rusted hinge is familiar now, a secret code between you and him.

You just kept washing the same coffee cup in the sink—over and over again—watching the suds spiral down the drain like your resolve.

Bootsteps. Heavy. Measured. Then that voice, low and gravelly like it's been dragged through the dirt roads of Stillwater:

"You leave it on for me?" Leland. The way he says your name makes your skin prickle despite yourself. "Or maybe, you's just waitin' on that another man in your life? Y'know he ain't coming home tonight darlin'."