The Road Still Worked

The last bus left at 9:40, coughing a cloud of exhaust that hung in the cold like a held breath. Jennifer watched it go until the red lights shrank and vanished around the bend. She checked her phone again even though she knew there’d be no signal this far out. The screen lit her face briefly, pale and unfamiliar, then went dark. She slid the phone back into her pocket and stood there, listening to the quiet close in.

The road was quieter than she remembered. No dogs barking, no distant radio bleeding out of an open window. Or maybe she was remembering it wrong. Memory had started to feel like a room she kept rearranging without noticing, furniture shifting just enough to make her doubt herself. She shouldered her bag and started walking toward the old house, counting steps the way she used to when she was a kid, when counting felt like control and not a habit she couldn’t quite break. One, two, three. She reset at fifty, the way she always had.

Gravel crunched under her boots. The air smelled like damp leaves and something metallic, maybe frost trying to decide if it was ready.

The porch light was on.

That stopped her. She stood there longer than made sense, staring at the small yellow circle in the distance. It felt deliberate, that light. Not welcoming, exactly. Just present. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming. She hadn’t been back in twelve years, not even for the funeral. The house was supposed to be empty, or sold, or turned into something neutral, something that no longer knew her name. She had assumed finished was the same as gone.

As she got closer, she noticed the porch boards had been replaced. New wood, pale and clean, cut against the darker planks like a sentence added years later in a different hand. The railing had been sanded down. The loose step she used to jump over was gone. The wind moved through the trees behind the house, not dramatic, just steady, as if the night had somewhere to be and wasn’t interested in waiting for her.

She stopped at the bottom of the steps. For a moment she considered sitting down, just to prove she could. Instead, she climbed them.

She knocked. Not hard. Enough to say she was real.

No answer.

The quiet pressed in again, thicker this time. She could hear her own pulse in her ears, the faint hum of electricity from the porch light. She tried the door. It opened.

Inside, the air smelled different. Less dust. More soap. Something citrus, faint but intentional. Someone had scrubbed the counters and left a bowl of apples on the table, the kind with small freckles and uneven skins. Real apples, not the waxy kind stacked into pyramids at the store near her apartment. She touched one. It was cool and firm, like it had been waiting. Like someone expected a hand to reach for it.

“Jennifer?” a voice said from somewhere down the hall.

Her name landed wrong, like it belonged to someone else and she’d answered to it by mistake. She didn’t respond at first. She listened. The house made its old noises. Pipes settling. Wood shifting. The refrigerator clicking on. The voice didn’t come again, didn’t call after her or soften itself.

She followed the sound anyway.

The hallway was narrower than she remembered. Or she was wider now, filled with things that hadn’t fit before. The wallpaper had been stripped and painted over, a calm off-white that erased what used to be there. At the end, the bedroom door was half open. Light spilled out, the soft kind meant for evenings when you don’t want to think too hard or see too clearly.

On the bed sat a woman with her back turned, brushing her hair. Slow strokes. Careful, like the motion mattered more than the result. The mirror showed only a slice of her face, an eye and a cheekbone, familiar in a way that made Jennifer's chest tighten before she could stop it.

“You’re early,” the woman said, still not turning around.

“I didn’t say I was coming,” Jennifer said. Her voice sounded thin, like it had traveled a long way to get here.

The brushing stopped.

The woman set the brush down on the dresser and turned. She looked older than Jennifer expected. Or younger. The comparison slipped away as soon as it formed, like it didn’t want to be pinned down. Her mouth was the same. Her eyes were not. They held less sharpness, more patience, and that somehow hurt more.

“I thought you might,” the woman said. “Eventually.”

Jennifer leaned against the doorframe. The wood pressed into her shoulder. Her legs felt unreliable, like they’d forget their job if she asked too much of them. “You left,” she said, because it was the simplest sentence available and she didn’t trust anything more complicated.

The woman nodded once. “I know.”

They stood there, the space between them filled with everything they hadn’t said, and also with the very ordinary fact of two people standing in a room. The ceiling fan ticked softly as it cooled. Somewhere outside, something moved through the brush and then was gone.

“I made tea,” the woman said at last. “If you want.”

In the kitchen, they sat across from each other, hands wrapped around mugs they didn’t drink from. Steam curled up and disappeared. The clock on the wall ticked too loudly, like it was trying to be helpful, like time itself wanted credit for showing up. Jennifer watched the second hand drag its way forward.

“Why now?” Jennifer asked.

The woman shrugged. “Time passed.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” the woman said. “It’s not.”

Jennifer noticed the woman’s hands then. The skin looked thinner. The nails were short, unpainted. The scar near the thumb was gone. In its place, a faint line, like something that had been erased and written over, not quite cleanly.

Outside, headlights swept briefly across the window, then disappeared. Another car passing through, not stopping, not needing anything from this place. The road still worked. People still went places.

“You could stay,” the woman said, not looking up. “Or you could go. I won’t stop you.”

Jennifer thought of the bus schedule folded and unfolded too many times in her pocket. Of her apartment with the radiator that knocked all night like it wanted to be let out. Of the apples, their quiet weight in her hand, the way they didn’t shine.

“Are you—” She stopped. The rest of the question didn’t know how to be spoken. It didn’t want to choose a shape.

The woman met her eyes. There was no challenge there. No reassurance either. Just waiting, which felt heavier than either would have.

Jennifer stood. The chair legs scraped softly against the floor, a sound that felt louder than it was. She picked up her bag, then put it back down, then picked it up again, testing the weight as if it might answer her. The porch light flickered once, steadied, and stayed on.

In the doorway, she paused. She could hear the clock. The wind pressing at the house. Her own breathing, uneven and stubborn. The house didn’t ask anything of her. It just existed, the way it always had.

“I’ll—” she started, and then didn’t finish.

The woman nodded, as if that were enough. As if unfinished things were still things.

Jennifer stepped out into the night. The cold met her immediately, honest and sharp. The door closed behind her — not slammed, not gentle. Just closed.

The road stretched out in both directions, equally dark, equally quiet. She stood there for a moment longer, listening to the wind move through the trees, to the distant hush of nothing in particular.

She started walking. Gravel shifted under her boots, the sound small but certain.

It wasn’t until she’d gone a few steps that she realized she was counting again. One, two, three. She reset at fifty, the way she always had.

The road kept going.