— Twenty years, Richard… I spent twenty years building this life with a man I never actually knew.
Eleanor blinked and opened her eyes. She had drifted off on the porch. She hadn’t thought about that conversation in years. She tried not to remember the life where she was the city’s top trauma surgeon, the life where she had a home and a future. For three years now, she had lived on the edge of the woods in a dying town in the Ozarks.
There were fewer than twenty people left in the hollow, mostly retirees. The nearest “real” town was five miles away, and the city she fled was a three-hour drive. It was the city where her husband, the hospital director, had decided to trade her in for a newer model.
The first year had been brutal. Eleanor, a woman of high-rises and sterile scrubs, had to learn how to survive in a drafty cabin. But she adapted. If the locals could do it, she could too.
Over time, she’d formed a bond with the few neighbors she had. She helped them with their aches and pains, and they looked after her. Now, Eleanor had a few chickens, a vegetable garden, and a freezer full of venison thanks to the local hunters. They taught her how to live, and she kept them healthy.
She stretched, looking at the treeline. It was quiet here. She missed the adrenaline of the OR, but she had found a different kind of peace.
Suddenly, a strange sound broke the silence—a low, sputtering drone that grew into a roar. A shadow swept over the roof. Then, a sickening crash echoed from the ridge behind the village. Eleanor stood up, her heart racing. Someone had just gone down.
