Carpenter's Farm

Seven friends drive seven hundred miles to check on an eighth. That’s how it’s told to me. The wording is important. They’re not paying a visit. They’re not catching up. My best friends left New York City to check on Oliver Carpenter, our troubled friend who traded the Big Apple for a farm in the middle of the mitten of Michigan. I’m in St. Louis when this happens. A conference for a temp job, of all things. I shouldn’t be there. I don’t belong there. I should be with them.