Fresh Oil, Loose Stone

by Heather Rolland

The tar spreader lumbered up the hill, spraying a thin film of blackness on all in its path: road bed, weeds, and the occasional careless worker’s feet or Gatorade bottle. The dump truck’s gates clanged, followed by the shush of gravel, flowing like water out the back and onto the waiting tar. Raked and rolled and rolled again, inch by inch, mile by mile, the rutted old dirt road received its makeover. Julia watched from the picture window of her doublewide’s living room—the one Bruno had installed during the first decade of their tenure on the mountain.

The […]