The visits always end the same. He’s washing dishes in the sink, watching his father chase his four-year-old around the yard, and he starts thinking about her. How she hated Valdosta, but loved his Dad, so she’d make the drive with him just to sit on the front porch, drinking sweet tea and inhaling secondhand smoke from his father’s cigars while listening to stories she’d already heard.

He’s scrubbing tobacco spit out of a Valdosta State mug, the one he brought home for Christmas his only year at the university. Julia had picked it out, liked how crisp and white it was, and it makes him laugh to think about how she would react to the way his father is using it now. Until she left, it was just as crisp and white as the day they bought it.

He takes one last look at the mug, sets it in the dish rack, and steps out onto the back porch, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Dad! We have to go!”

His father laughs. “It’s still light out, Jamie. Stay a while longer.”

“Five more minutes!” His daughter yells, leaping over the old barn cat his father should have stopped feeding years ago. Jamie considers yelling again, but they’re long gone, into the old empty barn that has been on the property since Jamie was a kid but never had any animals in it.

He heads back into the kitchen, pours himself a glass of whiskey, and sits down at the kitchen table. Just five more minutes.