We cleared the city limits before the morning commuter rush could choke the interstate. For the first twenty miles, neither of us spoke much. You don’t need small talk when you’ve spent thirty-two years learning how to read the silence in a room. Every rattle of the dashboard, every hum of the dual rear tires against the asphalt felt like clearing out cobwebs that had settled in my soul since Emily passed.
“Dad?” Jason broke the quiet as we crossed over the James River Bridge.
“Yeah?”
“I was looking at the map last night. The real one. The paper one Mom had marked up.” He traced a finger along the dashboard edge. “She had a note circled near Bristol, Tennessee. Something about an old train station turned bakery.”
I glanced sideways at him. A small, genuine smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “The Sweetbrier Bakery. Closed down back in ninety-four, according to the marginalia she left in the back of the atlas. But the building is still there. A family from North Carolina turned it into a roadside coffee stop.”
Jason turned his head sharply, surprise lighting his eyes. “You read her notes already?”
