He had met her when he was twenty-three. Back then he was working in a small gas station outside Gary, Indiana, a place that seemed to exist only so people in a hurry to be somewhere else could pass through it. It was winter turning bad, with roads full of gray snow, salt, and black water. She came into the station just before dark. She was wearing a man’s coat too big for her body, muddy boots, and she had on her face that expression people wear when they pretend to know where they are going even though they have only just left somewhere they could not bear any longer.