The Drive Back

The passenger seat held a granola bar wrapper she'd left

and he didn't throw it out.

He merged onto 95.

The radio was preset to her station and he let it play —
something with too much bass —

and he drove with both hands on the wheel
the way they'd taught him to when he was sixteen.

He stopped for gas he didn't need
and stood at the pump watching the numbers.

He'd told her to text when she arrived.
That was six hundred miles from now.

He'd be home in four hours
and she wouldn't text for another eight.

When he got home the house was the right temperature.

That was the first thing he noticed —
not the quiet, but the temperature.

She always ran hot, kept the thermostat up,
and he'd complained, he couldn't say how many times,

and now it was exactly what he'd always wanted,
and the precision of it felt wrong.

He went to the kitchen.
He opened the refrigerator. He closed it.

He sat in his chair and the house was so quiet
he could hear the refrigerator's hum from across the room,

which meant it had always been humming.

He thought about calling someone, just to say:
I dropped her off and now I'm sitting here.

But he didn't know what they would say back,

and he didn't call.