The reception area of Caroline Briggs’s office in the brick strip mall smelled of lemon polish and old paper. The chair they gave me was covered in green leather, and the soft cushion sank down so low that my lower back began to throb. “Mr. Hayes, thank you for coming,” Caroline said, opening the door to the inner office. She was a tall woman with her dark hair pulled back in a neat clip. She carried a thick manila folder and set it on the desk, immediately aligning three black pens in a perfect row beside her notepad. “We have some legal steps to cover,” she said, sitting down. “This is the official death certificate.” She slid the paper across the desk. I looked at Eleanor’s name printed in cold black ink, and then at the date of her birth, which was only two years before mine. “The property is currently clear of any active mortgages,” Caroline said, watching my face. “But Eleanor was running the bait shop alone for a long time, and her health was failing.”

Mr. Miller stopped tapping his pen and looked at the envelope. “You giving notice?”

“I am,” I said.

“You got another place lined up?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he slid the check into his shirt pocket. “Most places around here want first, last, and a deposit.”

“I have a house,” I said.

He let out a short, dry laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping on concrete. “Sure you do, Walter.”

I walked past him toward the stairs, my knees making a quiet popping sound with every step. He did not follow me, but I could hear him muttering about the boiler draft all the way down to the lobby.

The ticket counter at the Cedar Falls bus depot was separated from the waiting area by a scratched sheet of thick plastic. A woman with grey hair and a blue vest sat behind it, tearing a strip of red tickets.

“One-way to Lake Marlin,” I said, sliding my last twenty-dollar bill through the gap at the bottom.

She did not ask for my name. She just took the bill, stamped a yellow slip of paper, and pushed three dollar coins back to me.

“Bus leaves from bay four in ten minutes,” she said.

I put the coins in my pocket and reached into my coat, my fingers brushing against the heavy ring that held the key to my old Chevrolet truck. The truck had been sitting behind the rental building with a dead transmission for two years, and the city was threatening to tow it by the end of the week.

I walked out to the platform, leaving the truck key on the wooden bench by the vending machines.

The bus ride took forty minutes, the old engine roaring as we crossed the county line into the pine woods. The trees grew thicker and darker near the water, their branches heavy with the first frost of November.