the eighty-four
july 21, 2026
Talia was still on the phone with the shuttle service when Kim took the wrong exit.
“That’s the 84,” Talia said. “You wanted the 61 split.”
“I know.”
“So take the next-”
“I’m not.”
The shuttle person was still asking Talia something about a confirmation code. Talia said one moment and lowered the phone.
They were doing sixty. The exit ramp was already committing them to the interchange. Kim’s hands were high on the wheel, ten and two, tighter than they needed to be.
“Kim.”
“I’m not taking you to the airport.”
The phone said hello? Talia hung up on it.
“You’re not- what?”
“I’m not taking you.”
“I have a flight.”
“I know.”
“In two hours.”
“I know.”
Kim wouldn’t look at her. The road was pulling them west, wrong way, an interchange Talia hadn’t seen in years because she never went that way.
“Pull over.”
“I will in a minute.”
“Pull over NOW.”
Kim pulled over. Not on the shoulder. She took the next off-ramp and rolled them into the parking lot of a Chevron and shut off the engine.
They sat.
“You have to tell me what this is,” Talia said. Her voice came out flat. That was the voice she used past yelling. “You have to tell me why you did that.”
Kim was looking at the steering wheel. Her jaw was doing the thing.
“I have a bad feeling.”
“About what.”
“I don’t know.”
“About what, Kim.”
“I said I don’t know.”
Talia sat back against the seat and closed her eyes. She’d been up since four. She had the interview at three. The folder was in the backseat and the shoes were in the bag and the printout of the hotel address was in the folder in case her phone died. She had prepared for eleven days. Kim had watched her prepare for eleven days.
“You have a bad feeling.”
“Yes.”
“About the flight.”
“About all of it.”
“About - the job, or Boston, or the flight, or what.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve been driving me for an hour and a half and you don’t know what your bad feeling is about.”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“So take me to the airport.”
“No.”
“Kim.”
“I can’t.”
Talia opened her eyes. She looked at her sister. Her sister was still not looking at her. Her sister’s hands were on the wheel of a parked car in a gas station parking lot, still gripping.
“I’ll call an Uber,” Talia said.
“It won’t get you there in time.”
“Then I’ll miss the flight.”
“Talia.”
“What.”
“Please don’t.”
“Please don’t what.”
“Please don’t get on the plane.”
Talia laughed once. It came out mean.
“Then say what you know. If you know something, say it.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Then move the car.”
Kim did not move the car.
Talia got out. She got her bag and her folder from the backseat. She walked into the Chevron. The Uber app said twenty-two minutes to a gas station on the 84. She stood by the coffee anyway for a beat. Then she got back in the car.
“Please tell me what I did,” Kim said.
“Nothing,” Talia said. “You didn’t do anything. That’s the point.”
She said the address of the airport into her phone and put it on speaker so Kim could hear the voice say it. Then she got out of the car again to wait for the Uber outside because she could not sit in the car with her sister for twenty-two more minutes.
The Uber came. She got in it. The driver put on a podcast about a man who had built a boat out of bottles. Talia listened to the podcast all the way to the airport.
She made the flight.
She got the job.
She did not talk to her sister for four years.
At the end of the four years Kim called her and said I still don’t know what I was afraid of, and Talia hung up.