The North Fork valley fell away in my mirror and the parcel sat on the passenger seat and got heavier the farther I drove from the woman who made it.
That's not physics. I know it isn't. But I've spent my whole life reading weight — a portafilter that's tamped right, a box that holds more than its label claims, a folder set on a brunch table in Vail — and the butcher-paper package Margaret Ashford had tied with orchard twine weighed more with every mile of Highway 133, the way a promise does when you're driving away from the person you made it to. Open it when you're over the pass. Not before. I kept both hands on the wheel and my eyes off the seat and I climbed toward McClure with the radio off because some silences want to stay silences.
