After checking out of the hotel, I climbed into the car and sat in the back seat without a word.
Paula, seated in the passenger seat, turned her head to look at me.
“Sherrie, don’t forget to fasten your seatbelt,” she said lightly. “There are traffic cops everywhere. You wouldn’t want a ticket.”
Her tone carried casual authority, as if she were the rightful mistress of the car and I was nothing more than an inconvenient guest.
I ignored her and quietly buckled my seatbelt.
As the car sped along the road, I leaned back, exhaustion overtaking me, and drifted off to sleep.
I woke with a jolt, startled by the sudden stop.
The moonlight poured through the window, casting everything outside in a silvery glow. The world was eerily quiet.
“Ian, now that my divorce is public, I can only imagine what people in the village are saying about me.”
Paula’s soft, tearful voice drifted through the open window.
I sat up, looking in the direction of the sound. Ian was standing beneath a tree on the roadside, and Paula was clinging to him, her body pressed close, her eyes glistening with tears.
“Lloyd is still so young,” she whimpered. “I’m terrified people will look down on him.”