The Last Ordinary Day
Sunlight fell through the gauzy curtains of Lila Thompson's bedroom the way it always did in late September, gold and slanted, pooling across the quilt her grandmother had stitched decades before. For a moment, before her mind caught up with the day, Lila simply lay there, listening to the house wake around her: the creak of floorboards downstairs, the rattle of the old percolator, the faint hum of her mother's radio tuned to the station that played nothing but decades-old country songs. It was a Tuesday like any other, or so it seemed, and there was a strange comfort in that sameness, in the predictable choreography of mornings in the Thompson farmhouse.
She stretched, feeling the pull of sleep still tugging at her limbs, and glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Seven-fifteen. Jake would be there by seven-forty, honking twice like he always did, as though the horn itself could hurry her along. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, feet meeting the cool wood floor, and padded toward the window to look out over the fields that stretched beyond their property, mist still clinging to the low grass in ghostly ribbons.
Millhaven looked especially soft in the early light,…