Cooper Maul

For the first time in months, no clanging doors.

Just the hope of a trucker's promise and the thin walls of a borrowed night.

The next morning, the trucker came back just like he said.

He thought they were sisters.

And before long, the two women were rolling into Baltimore, trusting that Faye's relatives would welcome them with open arms.

Showing up out of the blue with some random new friend?

That's a situation with no polite script.

I don't even think they knew we had been in prison.

The Copelands let the two ladies stay, no questions asked.

Margo kept her distance.

This wasn't home, and she didn't plan on staying long.

If she was going to make it out from under their roof, she needed cash, fast.

And within a week, she found her solution.

I had gotten a job selling encyclopedias.

The door-to-door gig got her out from under the Copeland roof during the day, but it also meant seeing strangers, face-to-face, all day long.

Sounds like risky work for someone trying not to be recognized.

I would go to the post office because they'd have wanted posters up, but I never saw anything for me.

Still, she knew she was working on borrowed time, and eventually, Margo told a co-worker her future plan.

This single connection opened a narrow path westward, a lifeline that looked just stable enough to trust.

And that was the plan.