All Roads Lead to Roma, Texas (Incipit)

Adele

The Texas sun was a garish asshole, and so were we.

It beat down on the asphalt, boiling the ground beneath us as if to test how long it would take to swallow us whole. My cheap chiffon blouse stuck to the small of my back before we’d even stepped off the courthouse steps. The heavy double doors shut in a metallic thud behind us, cutting off the last bit of air conditioning that had kept my nerves in check all morning.

I held my right hand up as a visor and searched for Eli’s with the left one. He walked a half-step behind me, his hands swinging wildly beside his lanky frame. When we reached the parking spaces on E Lincoln St, Eli tripped on a concrete block at the base of the American flag and caught himself on the back pocket of my jeans. He straightened up and, rubbing the back of his neck, huffed out a deep giggle. I twisted my head over my shoulder but couldn’t see a thing. So I snaked my arms around my waist and rolled my eyes as I felt the loose threads hanging from the pocket’s left-hand corner.

I turned to him, who looked at me with a sheepish grin. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and I knew he was grateful for finally having something to say after the unbearably long minutes that had passed between us in silence. After nine years of marriage, Eli continued to dislike the quiet. Perhaps now he was finally free of my taciturnity. And perhaps those were his very thoughts at the moment.

I softened my scowl—which wasn’t even genuine to begin with—and offered a warm smile. He held my gaze for a few seconds, as his fingers traced my arm downwards to toy with my dark blue Bahia band. Then his eyes trailed away from mine, locking onto something beyond my shoulder. Flushed, he pulled his trucker cap lower until I could no longer see his eyes.

“Eli?” a sweet voice called out. “Well, I’ll be! Eli Cargill!”

Oh.

Realization dawned on me as I spun toward Mrs. Tamra Jean, Mr. Hollinger’s wife. Her husband ran the auto shop on 90, where Eli worked eleven hours a day, six days a week, for nearly as long as we had been married.

“Didn’t expect to see y’all here,” she chirped. “Everything alright?”

She wore brown boots with toes capped in alligator skin and a sundress loud enough to startle birds. Her nails matched her lipstick, which matched nothing else. Placing a folded piece of paper under her armpit, she removed with both hands her massive yellow sunglasses.

Eli’s lips curled into an easygoing smile, though his eyes remained hidden behind his cap. “Just paperwork.”

Tamra Jean tilted her head as if these two measly words had revealed much more. However, I wasn’t so sure that they hadn’t. She searched the bottom half of Eli’s face, then, finally realizing I was there, continued the exercise with me. A cold film of detachment glazed over my eyes as they bore into hers with an intensity that rendered her uncomfortable. She flinched and looked back at Eli. Her smile slowly returned. “Well, you two take care, alright?” she said, fidgeting with her paper. “Don’t be strangers.”

“We won’t,” Eli said, though we both knew we already were.

She walked off toward the courthouse with a kind of bounce that felt foreign to me just then. We stood there for another second too long, watching the woman until she had disappeared inside the building, before Eli cleared his throat and searched his pockets for his truck’s keys.

He unlocked it, and I climbed in on the driver’s side because he had never bothered to fix the passenger lock. Inside, the heat was almost unbearable, far exceeding the temperature on the courthouse’s lawn. The frayed leather seats burned hotter than my own skin, and I nearly incinerated myself when I reached for the belt buckle. With little time to waste, Eli slid the key into the ignition, and a blast of air and country music blew through my hair. He maneuvered out of his parking space and turned onto Highland St.

“You haven’t handed in your resignation yet, have you?” I asked, looking straight ahead.

“One thing at a time.”

The engine sputtered, caught. I turned my face to the window and didn’t speak for the rest of the drive.

We pulled into the driveway of our one-story home.

We had been unable to keep Eli’s truck in the garage for nearly a year, what with the paint buckets and other materials threatening to spill out of there.

We’d started renovations a year ago, back when we foolishly believed we had all the time in the world. But as I walked through the front door and nearly fell onto a stepstool sitting pretty in the entryway, I couldn’t help the bitterness from creeping onto my tongue. I caught myself with a sharp exhale and turned to glare.

Eli shrugged with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Sorry.”

I didn’t answer and resorted to scoffing at the absurdity of our situation. Eli slid past me, his boots shuffling against the tarp that lined the wooden floors. I heard the fridge open a few seconds later. Then the familiar clink of glass against glass.

I headed down the corridor to the bedroom, where the unzipped orange suitcase was the only source of color among stripped white walls. I’d packed most of it over the last few days, but there were still the small things: toothbrush, pajamas, sandals... Oh, and there were Eli’s soft cotton T-shirts, for which I held out hope that they would be mine one day.

I tried folding my last few articles of clothing tightly, then gave up and merely threw them in the luggage. No use pretending I could make it neat.

Behind me, the bed creaked.

“You got your ticket?” Eli asked. He stretched his arms out to place an open beer bottle on my nightstand. He had even brought a coaster.

I didn’t answer right away. I knew he was just trying to fill the silence that had refused to leave us all day, and I’d never been good at letting people try. But this was Eli, and there were very few things under this great blue sky that I could deny him. Even a divorce. Finally, I muttered, “Yes.”

He raised his eyebrows, almost surprised I bothered. He guzzled his own drink before speaking: “When do you need to be at the bus station?”

“5:15.” I held up his 2015 CMA Music Festival T-shirt and shoved it in my suitcase when Eli gave an approbatory nod.

“Sun won’t be up.”

“Good,” I answered, and before he could add anything else, I held up a faded Midland tee and a burnt orange University of Texas football jersey. Eli grabbed the latter. He fingered its number, which had begun to peel off, and my pulse quickened. I was quite partial to his jersey, you see. He slowly folded it and placed it at the top of my pile.

I zipped the suitcase, and it made a satisfyingly clean sound. Eli didn’t say anything else, just rubbed the edge of his jaw like he was trying to think of something. Another question he already had the answer to. But, there wasn’t anything left. Except for one thing.

“Did you mean what you said?” I asked softly.

“Hmm?”

“In front of the judge,” I elaborated, “did you mean it?”

“Oh,” he said, a frown breaking his composure, “no, not at all.”