The Trap

The contract marriage had rules. None of them covered a four-year-old asleep in the back of a rain-slicked car with a unicorn in her arms and a narwhal tucked under her chin. Catherine drove with both hands on the wheel and her eyes moving between the road and the mirrors. I watched the green signs blur past and tried not to count the miles.

“Border’s forty minutes out,” Catherine said. “Once we cross, we don’t stop until Seattle.”