Eli blinked. “What?” “Let the chickens go. Maybe the goats. Just let them wander around the cars. No one’ll stick around if a few goats start climbing their windshields.” Eli smiled faintly but shook his head. “Too risky. What if someone hits one? What if they get hurt?”
Margaret said nothing more. She simply reached into her basket and began to sort the herbs again. Eli sat beside her, staring at the horizon. And then, slowly, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. A plan had begun to form. Eli didn’t sleep much that night.
He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the slow, rhythmic breaths of his wife beside him. His mind was turning over possibilities, refining details, weighing outcomes. By dawn, he had everything he needed: a clear head, an early start, and a simple plan rooted in common sense and poetic justice.
He dressed quietly and sipped his coffee on the porch, watching the mist roll low over the fields. The flowerbed remained crushed. The pink forget-me-nots now looked like damp tissue in the mud.