The Flow will never replace the Washington Post or the Boston Globe in my heart. Nevertheless, on the morning after I’d assured Hildy I was on her side, I sat alone and bleary-eyed at the breakfast table, drinking a second cup of coffee while I tried to focus on our local headlines. I had slept poorly, thoughts of Hildy in an orange jumpsuit whizzing through my head. By the time the rest of the family got up, I had baked a blueberry coffee cake, cleaned the kitchen again, and made the day’s grocery list. Now they were gone, and I pondered going back to bed. With no enthusiasm, I scanned stories about a summit meeting and a local debate by representatives of our two major political parties on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Debate made me think about Deena and wonder, again, if I was doing the right thing by not confronting the issue of Stephen Collins head-on. At the bottom of the page I zipped through an article about a hit-and-run that had resulted in the death of a former Emerald Springs resident.
