She went home that morning and did not sleep. Instead, she took the mailbox key from the hook by the door—the key she hadn’t touched in three years—and walked to the curb. The box was full. Junk mail, past-due notices, a wedding invitation for someone she’d known in high school. At the very bottom, an envelope with no return address. Inside, a single sheet of paper.
“But I’m not staying, either.”
Sheena Ryder Lowtru.
He looked at her then, really looked, the way only someone who has seen the worst of the world and chosen to keep living can look. “Good,” he said. “That’s the hard part. The staying and leaving at the same time. Most people never figure that out.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said.
“Your mother died,” the woman said. Sheena didn’t recognize her. “She wanted you to have these.”
Edgar nodded. “I know.”
“I know what you mean.” He set down his tweezers. “You think leaving is about geography. It’s not. You can drive a thousand miles and still wake up in the same room. The question isn’t where you go. It’s who you stop being when you get there.”