A Solitary Cabin

The highway unreels in the headlights like old film stock, grainy and stuttering. Marcus drives. Amina watches the darkness beyond the glass, their daughter Safiya sleeping in her car seat behind them, thumb finding mouth even in dreams.

The Civic's dashboard glows soft blue, throwing shadows across Marcus's knuckles. White-knuckled, his mother would have said, but his mother isn't speaking to him anymore. Not since the second executive order. Not since he married outside the acceptable parameters of her apocalyptic paranoia.

"How much further to Toledo?" Amina's voice is quiet. She hasn't unwrapped her hijab since they left the apartment, won't until they're across. If they're across.

"Forty minutes. Maybe less." He doesn't mention that forty minutes assumes the checkpoints are still where they were three days ago, when he drove this route alone to scout it. Assumes the National Guard hasn't redeployed. Assumes the semi-autonomous enforcement drones, contracted out to Halcyon Security Solutions after the Pentagon budget cuts, haven't updated their patrol algorithms.

She knows anyway. They've been married seven years. Long enough to speak in ellipses and silence.

In the backseat, Safiya stirs, murmurs something in the private language of child-dreams. Four years old. Old enough to remember this, Marcus thinks. Old enough that it'll scar.

The phone on the dash pings. Not his phone—the burner, a Chinese knockoff they bought for cash at a bodega that still takes cash. Fewer and fewer of those. Most transactions ghost through the Federal Payment System now, every purchase tagged and cataloged and fed into the vast Bayesian engines that predict threat profiles.

ROUTE UPDATE: I-80 CLOSED AT MILE MARKER 47. MILITARY CHECKPOINT.

Marcus's hands tighten on the wheel. The message is from @RailwayUnderground, one of the migration-support networks that sprouted up after the Greenland Crisis. When America annexed Nuuk and triggered the transatlantic economic blockade, when the dollar lost reserve currency status overnight, when the technocratic consensus shattered and the nativists filled the vacuum, these networks appeared. Digital inheritors of older traditions.

"Back roads?" Amina already has her own burner out, pulling up offline maps they downloaded before leaving Cleveland.

"Back roads," he confirms.

They take the next exit. The off-ramp leads to a state route that winds through exurban nowhere, past darkened strip malls and foreclosed houses with plywood windows. A hand-painted sign: GREENLAND WAS OURS FIRST. Another: REAL AMERICANS ONLY.

The Greenland thing. That's what fractured it all.

Marcus remembers watching the live feed. The President stepping off Marine One onto the ice shelf, planting the flag beside the smoldering ruins of the Danish consulate. "Manifest Destiny 2.0," the press secretary called it. The European Union response came within hours: comprehensive sanctions. China followed. Then the Commonwealth nations.

America, the new North Korea. Except with better Special Weapons And Tactics.

The road narrows. No streetlights out here, just the occasional porch light burning like a votive candle in the American dark.

"Mama?" Safiya's voice, small and sleep-rough.

"Shhhh, hooyo, we're just driving. Go back to sleep." Amina's Somali lullaby voice, the one that carried through refugee camps in Kenya before resettlement, before Cleveland, before any of this.

"Are we going to Auntie Rahma's?"

"Something like that, my heart. Sleep now."

Safiya settles. Amina doesn't look at Marcus. They both know Rahma was detained three weeks ago, disappeared into the Federal Compliance And Repatriation Centers. The FeCARCs, people call them. The camps.

No one's been released yet.

The burner pings again. Different sender this time: @MichelinGuidebook. One of the network callsigns.

TOLEDO HOST COMPROMISED. PROCEED DIRECT TO MONROE. SAFE HOUSE AT [COORDINATES]. PASSWORD: UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.

Marcus feels something cold slide down his spine. The Toledo contact (a Unitarian minister named Sarah who'd sheltered seventeen families in her church basement) being compromised meant arrested, or turned, or dead.

"New plan," he says.

Amina nods. She's already entering coordinates.

They drive.

The safe house is a farmhouse ten miles south of Monroe, so far from anything that the GPS signal gets sketchy. The driveway is gravel and mud, and the house itself lists slightly to one side, as if exhausted by the weight of harboring other people's desperate dreams.

A woman meets them at the door. Sixties, gray hair in a bun, eyes that have seen enough to stop being surprised. "You're the Cleveland family." Not a question.

"Yes, ma'am." Marcus feels Amina tense beside him, Safiya clutched against her chest.

"Come in. Quickly."

Inside: peeling wallpaper, wood stove radiating heat, three other families huddled on mismatched furniture. Marcus clocks the demographics immediately. Two Mexican couples, young, probably agricultural workers who overstayed visas. One white woman with three children, no wedding ring, haunted eyes that say domestic violence finally got too domestic. Everyone running from something.

"You can rest here until dark tomorrow," the gray-haired woman (she introduces herself only as Jane) tells them. "Then we move you north. There's a crossing point near Detroit that's still good. Maybe."

"Maybe?" Amina asks.

Jane shrugs. "Everything's maybe now, honey. They closed the Ambassador Bridge last Tuesday. Officially for 'infrastructure maintenance.' We've got alternative routes, but they're riskier."

"How risky?"

"The drones patrol the river. Thermal imaging. If they spot you crossing illegally..." Jane stops, glances at Safiya. "Well. Let's just say the border's hot right now."

Marcus thinks about turning back. They could return to Cleveland, keep their heads down, hope the enforcement sweeps miss them. He still has his IT job at the medical supply company. Steady paycheck. Employer-sponsored health insurance.

Then he remembers the knock at their neighbor's door. The Abdullahs, from Yemen. How the Halcyon contractors came at 4 AM, doors battered down, children screaming. How Marcus stood at his window and did nothing because doing something meant becoming a target.

How Amina looked at him afterward. Not accusation. Worse. Understanding.

They're not going back.

Night pools in the farmhouse. Jane brings them soup—Campbell's, American classic, probably expired but who's checking. The Mexican couples speak softly in Spanish, rosaries clicking between their fingers. The white woman's children sleep piled together on a couch like puppies, seeking warmth and safety in proximity.

Amina feeds Safiya, then settles her on a makeshift bed of couch cushions. "Tell me a story, Mama," Safiya whispers.

"Once there was a girl who traveled across the great water," Amina begins, her voice sliding into the rhythms of her grandmother's tales, stories that crossed the Horn of Africa and the Atlantic and the years. "She had to leave her home, but she carried it inside her, here." She touches Safiya's chest. "Where homes really live."

Marcus watches from across the room. He's never felt more useless. His whiteness, his maleness, his American citizenship, all the things that were supposed to be advantages, they're just camouflage now. Amina is the hunted one. Safiya, with her beautiful hybrid features, her light brown skin, her father's eyes and mother's cheekbones, she's the trophy they'll use for the propaganda videos.

REPATRIATED TO RIGHTFUL NATIONS, the banners will say.

His daughter is American. Born at MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio. But in the new cartography of belonging, birth certificates are just paper.

Jane appears beside him, offers him coffee in a chipped mug. "You know you could stay," she says quietly. "Just you. They'd probably let you. Eventually."

"I know."

"But you won't."

"No."

She nods. "Good. Too many men choose wrong when the choosing comes."

They sip coffee in silence. Outside, the Michigan darkness is absolute. No light pollution out here, no glow from cities or highways. Just stars scattered like spilled salt across black cloth.

Marcus thinks about Greenland. About the Arctic oil fields they promised would "energy-independence" America back to greatness. About the Inuit populations they relocated to "temporary housing" that everyone knows is permanent. About how empires always tell the same lies, generation after generation, and how people always believe them because the alternative is looking at what you've become.

"What's Canada like?" he asks.

Jane laughs, short and bitter. "Cold. Expensive. They're not exactly thrilled about the refugee crisis we're sending them. But they're still accepting applications. Still processing asylum claims. Still pretending the world hasn't completely imploded."

"That's something."

"That's something," she agrees.

Dawn comes gray and reluctant. Jane wakes them early, feeds them oatmeal and powdered eggs, then shows them the route on a paper map. No digital, nothing trackable.

"Follow Route 125 north to Grosse Isle. There's a marina there—closed for the season, fence cut here." She indicates a spot on the map. "Boat launch on the Detroit River. Cross to Boblo Island—Canadian side. From there, you find Highway 18 and flag down the first Royal Canadian Mounted Police patrol you see."

"What if they send us back?" Amina asks.

"They won't. Canada suspended the Safe Third Country Agreement after Greenland. They know what's happening here, even if they can't do anything about it."

The other families are preparing to leave too, different routes, different destinations. The Mexican couples are heading west, aiming for the Pacific crossing to Vancouver Island. The white woman and her children are going east, toward Maine, hoping the northeastern states' "sanctuary" policies still mean something.

Everyone hugs like old friends, even though they just met. Shared trauma is the fastest bonding agent.

Then they're back in the Civic, heading north.

The drone finds them outside Flat Rock.

Marcus sees it first. A dark cross against the pale sky, too geometric to be a bird. It hovers, descends, the thrumming rotor-buzz filling the car.

"Don't stop," Amina says.

"If I run—"

"Then run."

He floors it. The Civic's four-cylinder engine whines protest, but they accelerate. The drone keeps pace easily, matching their speed, ten feet above and behind them.

Marcus's burner starts ringing. Not pinging—actually ringing, which means someone's calling. He jabs the speaker button.

"Vehicle occupants, this is Halcyon Security Solutions operating under federal authority. You are in violation of Transportation Security Directive 89-B. Pull over immediately."

The voice is synthetic, AI-generated. Probably processed through some server farm in Virginia, or maybe Greenland now, Arctic data centers cooled by glacial melt.

Marcus keeps driving.

"Vehicle occupants, failure to comply will result in escalated enforcement. This is your final warning."

"What do we do?" His voice cracks. He hates how scared he sounds.

Amina reaches over, squeezes his hand. "We don't stop."

Behind them, Safiya starts crying. "Mama, what's that noise?"

"Just a bee, hooyo. A big bee."

The drone drops lower. Through the rearview mirror, Marcus sees the weapons pod deploy. Non-lethal, probably. Tear gas or flash-bangs or the sonic disruptors they used during the Portland uprising. They don't want to kill citizens. Just make examples.

Then the drone veers off, climbing rapidly, disappearing north.

Marcus doesn't understand until Amina points at the horizon.

The river. The Detroit River, gun-metal gray under winter clouds. And beyond it, the smudge of Canadian shore.

The drone crossed the border. Someone (Canadian air traffic control, probably) must have warned it off. International incident protocols. Even now, even in collapse, some rules still hold.

They've reached the edge of one jurisdiction. The beginning of another.

The marina is exactly where Jane said, chain-link fence with a gap cut Pentagon-neat, just wide enough for a person to slip through. Marcus parks the Civic behind an abandoned bait shop, kills the engine.

Silence rushes in.

"We walk from here," he says.

They gather their backpacks—clothes, documents, the few precious things you can carry when you carry your whole life. Marcus hoists Safiya onto his shoulders. She's getting heavy, growing so fast, and he realizes with sudden vertigo that he's been measuring her childhood in increments of fear.

The marina is dead and frozen. Boats wrapped in blue tarps, docks slick with ice. The river stretches before them, maybe two hundred yards across, gray water moving sluggish and cold.

No boat. Jane said there would be a boat.

"There." Amina points.

A kayak, bright orange, pulled up on the muddy shore. Two paddles. And—Marcus's heart sinks—one adult life jacket.

They stare at it for a long moment.

"It's not enough," Marcus says.

"It's what we have."

"The current. The cold. If we capsize—"

"Then we capsize." Amina's voice is steel. "But we go."

She's already moving, dragging the kayak toward the water. Marcus follows, helps her push it into the shallows. The cold bites through his boots immediately.

They load their backpacks, secure Safiya in the middle with the life jacket cinched tight. She's still crying, quiet and continuous, a soundtrack of terror.

"Mama will paddle in front," Amina says. "Baba in back. We go straight across, no matter what. You understand?"

Marcus nods. His hands are already numb.

They push off.

The river takes them immediately, current stronger than expected. Marcus digs his paddle in, straining. Amina sets the rhythm, stroke after stroke, her movements economical and certain. She learned to swim in refugee camp pools. He learned at suburban rec centers, summer leagues for middle-class kids.

Different waters. Different stakes.

Halfway across, Safiya screams.

Marcus twists, sees the patrol boat, Canadian Coast Guard, red and white paint, spotlight already swinging toward them. His heart hammers. They're going to send us back, they're going to...

The spotlight finds them. Holds.

Then a voice over a loudspeaker, accented English: "Remain calm. We are approaching to assist. Do not attempt to paddle away."

The boat cuts its engine, drifts closer. Two figures in cold-weather gear lean over the rail.

"How many?" one calls.

"Three," Marcus shouts back. "Man, woman, child."

"You're seeking asylum?"

"Yes."

"You understand you'll be processed according to Immigration and Refugee Protection Act protocols? That you may be detained pending review?"

"Yes."

A pause. Then: "All right. We're bringing you aboard."

They throw a line. Marcus catches it, holds while they pull the kayak alongside the patrol boat. The officers help Amina up first, then Safiya, then Marcus. The kayak drifts away, orange against gray water, heading downstream toward Lake Erie and eventually the Atlantic.

On the deck, Marcus's legs shake. Amina holds Safiya, both of them shivering violently. One of the officers wraps them in thermal blankets.

"Welcome to Canada," the officer says. It doesn't sound ironic.

They motor toward the Canadian shore, toward Windsor rising industrial and indifferent on the horizon. Behind them, the American side recedes. Detroit's abandoned towers, the empty factories, the whole wounded geography of American decline.

Marcus looks at Amina. She's crying, silent tears tracking down her face. Not relief. Not yet. Something more complicated. Grief, maybe. For the country they're leaving, the one that was supposed to be better than this.

Or maybe just exhaustion.

"We made it," he says.

She doesn't answer. Safiya burrows deeper into her mother's arms, seeking warmth, safety, home in the only place it's ever really existed—other bodies, held close.

The processing center is industrial neutral: fluorescent lights, plastic chairs, forms in triplicate. They're separated. Marcus to one room, Amina and Safiya to another. Standard procedure, the officer explains. Cross-reference stories, check for human trafficking, make sure everyone's here voluntarily.

Marcus sits across from a tired-looking woman with a Canadian Security Intelligence Service badge. She asks him questions: How did you leave? Who helped you? Are you involved in any extremist organizations?

He answers honestly. What else can he do?

After an hour, she closes her laptop. "You'll be granted temporary protected status pending your full asylum hearing. That's typically six to eight months. You'll be housed in a resettlement facility in Toronto. You can work, your daughter can attend school. But you can't leave the country, and if your claim is denied..."

"We'll be sent back."

"Yes."

He nods. Six to eight months. Not safety, not yet. Just a different kind of waiting.

They reunite him with Amina and Safiya in a holding area. Other families cluster around them, all the same haunted look, all the same desperate hope.

"What now?" Amina asks.

"Now we wait," Marcus says.

"For what?"

He doesn't know how to answer. For the hearing? For America to change? For Safiya to grow up in a world where this is just a story she tells, barely believed?

Through the window, Canadian snow is falling, soft and persistent. Marcus has never been good at waiting. But he's learning.

Amina takes his hand. Safiya sits between them, drawing pictures on a pad the officers gave her. Houses with chimneys, trees, stick-figure families holding hands.

"Tell her," Amina says quietly. "Tell her it's going to be okay."

Marcus knows he shouldn't lie. But he also knows that hope is a kind of truth, even when evidence suggests otherwise. Especially then.

"It's going to be okay, kiddo," he says, pulling Safiya close. "We're going to be okay."

She looks up at him, four-year-old eyes that have seen too much, and maybe she believes him. Or maybe she just needs him to believe himself.

Children are good at forgiving adult failures, Marcus thinks. Good at building new homes from ruins.

Outside, the snow keeps falling, erasing borders, smoothing everything into one continuous white. The great forgetting of winter. The promise of thaw.

But not yet. Not tonight.

Tonight they sit in plastic chairs under fluorescent lights, waiting for someone else to decide their fate. Tonight they are refugees, stateless, in-between. Tonight America is behind them and Canada is before them and they exist in the liminal space where borders blur and dissolve and nothing is certain except the weight of a child's body against your chest, warm and breathing and alive.

It's not an ending. Not really.

But it's not not an ending either.

It's just the next part.

The rest remains unwritten.