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silhouette out of her sharp features.
    “Tell Chris I’ll be home tomorrow.”

Chapter Four
    The next morning, Joanna e-mailed her professors and her advisor, explaining that her husband was seriously ill, and that she might have to put her studies on hold temporarily.
    Then she packed her laptop and set it in the passenger seat of her car. The backseat and trunk were loaded down with the suitcases she’d been living out of all this time. She’d packed those last night before collapsing for a few hours of restless sleep, and now…now it was time to go.
    She didn’t look in the rearview as she drove away from the cabin. She just gripped the wheel for dear life, stared straight ahead and followed the familiar roads on autopilot. When she turned onto the highway that would take her north to Astoria, and from there to the bridge from Oregon into Washington, her stomach threatened to turn inside out. She hadn’t been this queasy since the first time a doctor had walked her and Chris through options, risks and prognoses.
    More than once, she debated turning around, but as much as she hated to admit it, David was right. No matter how broken her marriage was, she had made those sacred vows to Chris, and as long as the marriage existed on paper, she needed to stick to them. She should’ve divorced him when she had the chance, but that window had closed.
    Till death do we part, it is.
    She could’ve sworn Highway 101 was longer. That the stretch between Tillamook and Astoria was at least thirty or forty minutes more, and that it was at least another hour along Highway 30 to the bridge. But before she knew it, Astoria had long since disappeared in the rearview, and she was cresting the massive bridge over the Columbia from Oregon into the town of Longview.
    At the crest of the high bridge, the sign made her heart sink:
    Welcome to Washington.
    Acid crawled up her throat.
    From Longview, the highway took her to I-5. I-5 took her north at way too many miles per hour. Every time she passed a milepost, the sick feeling in her stomach grew. In Olympia, still a couple of hours south of Seattle, she stopped for lunch. She wasn’t hungry at all, but damn, she needed to get out of the car for a few minutes. Even if it was just delaying the inevitable, it needed to be done.
    In the corner booth of a chain family restaurant, she stared down a burger and fries. It wasn’t the kind of thing she usually ate, just something she liked to have once in a while because sometimes a greasy cheeseburger and steak fries were exactly what the doctor ordered. Especially when she knew it would be the last time she could get away with eating something like this guilt free.
    “I’m already paying for Kevin to train you three times a week.” Chris’s voice echoed inside her head, and she could almost see a specter of him eyeing her from across the table. That look, that smirk, that head tilt—that certainty she’d be hearing about this cheeseburger the next time a dress fit a little too snugly before some charity event she was required to attend.
    She eyed the burger. Part of her wanted to inhale the fucking thing and order that six-layer chocolate cake just for spite. Part of her was pretty sure if she took more than a few bites while her stomach was this queasy, she’d regret it. Even if it didn’t come back up, she’d regret it when she was face-to-face with Chris. The man was like a bloodhound when it came to busting her for eating anything she shouldn’t.
    Goddammit. And David had the nerve to wonder why she didn’t want to go back. She’d never really had to work hard to keep a reasonably slim figure, and food had never been an emotional thing with her. She ate when she was hungry, balanced the good stuff with the bad stuff, and didn’t think much of it. Fifteen years and an eating disorder later, every meal was a battle. A slice of pizza was an act of rebellion. An undressed salad, an act of contrition.
    And the gym. God. Fuck the