"Valentine?"
Valentine Russel looked up from newspaper he was reading from behind the counter he presided over. I swallowed in my desert-dry throat. He scrunched up his forehead and looked at me. It had been a long time.
"Judah?"
I nodded.
"Judah!" he exclaimed and stood up. "Where's your brother and Early?"
"I'm alone," I said.
"You're alone?"
How could this be. I know. Times had gotten long and short so that I measured time in the thickness of dust on the dashboard. People grew up after all, and now I was doing mine.
"I'm alone. Phin's somewhere on the road. Early is, too."
Valentine looked me over for a minute and tried to read me but I was my mother's son after all. When the door was shut, no one could open it.