I drove out on a gray morning with a thermos of coffee in the cup holder and the keys on the passenger seat beside me. The farther I got from Millbrook, the flatter the roads became. The town thinned into scattered gas stations, feed stores, church signs, and finally the kind of open country where the sky seems too large and every mailbox looks lonely. I followed the handwritten directions Mr. Thompson had tucked into the file folder. The GPS failed twice on the smaller roads. At one point I passed a rusted tractor half-sunk into a field and thought that maybe George had been right all along and the place really would be nothing but rot and danger and old obligations.
Then I turned onto the long gravel lane and saw the property open up around me.
It was beautiful.