Sheena Ryder Lowtru – No Survey

“I know what you mean.” He set down his tweezers. “You think leaving is about geography. It’s not. You can drive a thousand miles and still wake up in the same room. The question isn’t where you go. It’s who you stop being when you get there.”

He looked at her then, really looked, the way only someone who has seen the worst of the world and chosen to keep living can look. “Good,” he said. “That’s the hard part. The staying and leaving at the same time. Most people never figure that out.” sheena ryder lowtru

Sheena folded the letter, placed it back in the envelope, and tucked it into her pocket. Then she walked to Edgar’s trailer. He was already on the porch, a half-finished clipper ship in his hands. “I know what you mean

“Your mother died,” the woman said. Sheena didn’t recognize her. “She wanted you to have these.” You can drive a thousand miles and still

Sheena thought about that for a long time. She thought about her mother, who stopped being a mother the moment she became a Ryder. She thought about her father, who stopped being a father the moment he became a Lowtru. She wondered what she would have to stop being in order to finally become something.

She lived in a town called Mercy, though no one could remember why. The rusted sign at the city limits said Population 412 , but Sheena suspected that number hadn’t been accurate since the textile mill closed. She worked the night shift at the Circle K, stacking beer coolers and wiping down slushie machines while the rest of Mercy dreamed or drank itself into silence. Her uniform was blue and orange, colors that clashed like the two halves of her life.

After the woman left, Sheena stood behind the counter for the remaining three hours of her shift. She didn’t open the box again. She didn’t cry. She just stood there, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, and felt the weight of four syllables pressing down on her chest.