Aberdeen, Maryland, to New York City, January 2, 2017

★ The car-share key card clung to the wet windshield in the drizzly morning. Raindrops tadpoled away on the passenger windows as the car got going. On the road’s descent to Cranberry Run, a flock of wild turkeys was crossing, lean and tall and dour-looking, the males’ heads dark scarlet against the gray-brown woods. The parking lots of the shopping centers each had their own streamlets and puddles. At the gas station, the identification number on the key card’s paper sticker turned out to be nearly unreadable. The concrete island was raw, the inside of the car cozily warm and damp. The Turnpike was undifferentiated gray, broken only where tires had cut darker tracks into the water on the roadway. More cars than usual were off on the shoulder in distress. The clouds were high enough above Manhattan for almost all of the skyline to present itself. Pigeons huddled in the wide, gloomy shelter of the Port Authority bus ramp, on a sidewalk fuzzy with droppings and detritus.