Chapter 3: Early Morning in Maple Heights

At first light, Mrs. Barnes got up.

The older you get, the less you sleep; once you’re awake, there’s no drifting back.

She shuffled out the door, her slippers whispering on the linoleum, and headed straight to the chicken coop.

When folks open their doors, the chickens’ doors have to open, too.

Mrs. Barnes’s coop had two levels: the bottom was the chickens’ bedroom, with its own little door; the top was where they laid their eggs, open to the air.

She swung open the coop’s door and, out of habit, reached up to the second level.

Her fingers brushed something that shouldn’t have been there—a roll of cash, cool and rubber-banded, tucked in among the straw.

The bills were crisp—twenties and fives mostly, bound together with a faded rubber band. She squinted at the bundle in the gray morning, her breath puffing just a little in the chilly air, then stuffed it into her blouse, heart racing like a squirrel caught in a corncrib.

Mrs. Barnes clutched the bundle close and hurried back inside, peeking over her shoulder as she closed the door behind her…

“My Joey came to give me money again. My poor boy—who knows where he’s hiding, whether he has enough to eat, whether he’s warm enough…”

Mrs. Barnes sobbed in broken whispers, her voice cracking as she tried not to let the neighbors hear. Every shadow outside the window felt like a pair of watching eyes; every passing car made her flinch, half certain the police would burst in at any moment.

She couldn’t let anyone know—if word got out, it’d be a disaster.

Her son was a fugitive.

The police had cast a wide net to catch him.

She’d left the TV off for years, too scared that a news bulletin or the scream of sirens would give her away. Every knock at the door made her heart hammer against her ribs like a trapped bird desperate for escape.