Santa Barbara. The Rattlers. The road that was supposed to end at Abby ends somewhere else entirely, somewhere that requires more violence, more compromise, more of the self being put in service of a purpose that keeps shifting. Dina is gone. JJ is gone. The home that the farm represented is not waiting.

The road further from yourself is not taken in error. It is the road that the logic of the journey required — each step followed from the previous step, each decision was the next decision in a sequence that began with a reasonable premise and arrived here, in a place that is not home and cannot be made into one.