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"It was Murdock Helms, of course, and he drove by the clinic every day on his way to the bake shop where he made the yeast cakes and the little loaves of dense bread that could fit in the palm of a hand. Before deployment Murdock had looked like Sibyl’s late father and that’s why she had liked him, and afterward he’d looked like a soldier and she had liked him less. Sibyl liked things that were soft the way she was, or at the very least kind, and that’s why she raised rabbits and called Marge to pick her up at the gas station when Murdock drank, and he drank often, and Sibyl spent many mornings sitting on Marge’s porch sipping Earl Grey and watching the highway. In the autumn the mornings were dark and foggy and Sibyl could only see headlights. She would wonder where the vehicles were going. She would try to guess which one was Murdock on his way to the bake shop. There were few headlights on the road very early in the morning, and this far out of town besides, and sometimes Sibyl thought she guessed right."

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