MICHAEL WINSTEAD

I saw her at a campground. It doesn’t matter where. It was a place to which I’d fled an hour after signing my divorce papers, after taking a long last look at the sullen wife I thought would be my partner for life, though she was the third.

As such things often do, our marriage had ended after a slow dissolve, accelerated by drinking and gambling on my side. On hers, it was infidelity, the kind intended to inflict long-lasting wounds beneath the skin.

Even though I was surrounded by buses and fifth-wheels at the campsite, I was alone. Mobile houses tucked side-by-side on gravel lots beneath the pines are still their own enclaves. Invisible borders enwrap them. Casual waves from those outside are not true greetings. Certainly not invitations.

She nestled on a railroad tie that buttressed the empty camp pad one lot over, staring at me. Green eyes with a tint of yellow, exhibiting a trepidation layered over a yearning for trust.

I waved. It was my invitation. She ignored me.

I lit the camp stove with a long-nosed lighter and laid out strips of bacon on the iron griddle. If there’s an aroma better than campfire bacon, I don’t know it. I set the bacon aside and followed it with eggs. Today I’d chosen scrambled. I could have made an omelette, or fried the eggs sunny side up, but scrambled it was, as if that somehow exemplified what my life had become.

I had bought the camper on a whim. No, that’s not right. I had a fervent need to escape. The whole transaction had taken less than an hour, and then I was hooked up and on the road, going north from Jacksonville because it held too many haunting memories to sleep.

I loaded the eggs on a paper plate, next to the crispy bacon, and sat at the picnic table crisscrossed with names. Like ancient hieroglyphs that had begun to dissolve in the weather. I saw James ♡ Amanda. I pulled my pocket knife from its sheath on my belt and flicked it open. But I knew there would be no name on the other side of the heart from mine. Not now. Maybe not ever.

As I ate, she watched me from her position. Close enough to observe. Not close enough to be trapped. Beyond her intense eyes, she looked gaunt.

“Want some breakfast?” I called. These were the first words I had spoken in more than a day, as if monastic silence had become my sentence. The words were gravelly, sounding like they’d come from a man I didn’t know.

She didn’t respond. She didn’t move.

I slid the plate with the remaining eggs to the other side of the marred picnic table. “Come on, it’s okay.” As I cleaned up, I kept an eye on her.

Only after I went inside and had finished washing my silverware did she come slowly from her post to the picnic table. I watched her from the window over the sink. Then through the screen on the camper door.

She ate. A timid bite, followed by a long look around. Then another bite. She did not eat ravenously.

I eased my way out of the camper and down the metal step and sat on top of my plastic cooler. A few feet away.

“Eat all you want. I can cook more.”

Her green eyes focused on me, as though she could not decide whether the offer of breakfast made me friend or foe. As if I might be just another predator who could come for her in the night.

As I watched the slow sweep of her orange-ringed tale, I wondered if someone had abandoned her, or if she had escaped because she no longer fit inside the family to whom she had been cast. Her coat was frazzled, all four paws the pristine white of my wife’s favorite leather boots. Former wife.

She let me sit on the bench, more than an arm’s length away. But when I reached out to pet her, she backed away, unsure of my intentions, unsure of her own.