“April 12th. We drove 4.12 miles off the main road and found this place. She said if we ever got lost, we should come back here. She said laughter is the opposite of gravity. She said bury something here, and it’ll turn into a star. I’m burying this note. I love you, you impossible woman. — J.”
“Your daddy came through here twenty years ago,” Sal said, wiping the counter with a rag that was gray with age. “Had a girl with him. Long black hair. She laughed at my jokes. He looked at her like she was the whole damn sky.”
“See?” Maya said, a strange softness in her voice. “Gas cap.”
“He wanted us to walk west,” he said. “Toward the dark. That’s the opposite of gravity.”
They stayed until the sky turned black and the stars punched through—thousands of them, more than any city could steal. Then they walked back to the Subaru, the odometer now reading miles, and turned toward home.