For six months, Frank and Cora fight about whether they should run away together. He wants to leave the state as soon as Cora’s suspended sentence is up because “I didn’t trust her for a minute” (79). Frank believes that Cora might get mad and him and tell someone the whole truth about Nick’s murder again. Eventually, Frank realizes that Cora is more interested in running the diner successfully than she is in running away. Cora wants to create a beer garden and expand the business, but Frank desperately wants to leave, saying, “I want to get out of it, not get in deeper” (81). Their fights about staying versus running away happen “two or three times a week” (83).

When Cora gets a telegram explaining that her mother is sick, she leaves to take care of her. While Cora is away, Frank says, “I felt free. For a week, anyway, I wouldn’t have to wrangle, or fight off dreams, or nurse a woman back to a good humor with a bottle of liquor” (83). Almost as soon as Cora leaves, Frank sees a young woman who is having car trouble in the diner’s parking lot, and he offers to drive her anywhere, no matter how far away.