Every Precious Thing

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

The three-hour round trip to Alan’s sister’s house turned into over five.

First Emily had not wanted Alan to leave, so he stayed and played with her, wearing her down until she took a late afternoon nap. Then Rachel had become concerned, saying he was acting strange, and wanting to know what was going on. That wasted another twenty minutes, spent reassuring her that everything was fine and that he was just a little stressed from work. He knew she didn’t completely buy it, but he was able to finally get out of there without further questions.

Unfortunately, this meant he left smack in the middle of rush hour. At one point it got so unbearable, he’d exited the freeway and tried to find a surface-street way around the mess. That turned out to be a horrible idea. Not only was there almost as much traffic off the freeway as on, he didn’t know the area and soon found himself lost. It took him over fifteen minutes just to locate the freeway again, and when he did, he stayed on it this time, not exiting until he reached Riverside just after eight p.m.