I didn’t like that I still had no plan as to what I would do if my mom wasn’t at the Kwik Shop. Obviously, she wasn’t the most reliable person. I knew that well by now, and I knew it even as I was running. I imagined me just a few minutes into the future, getting to the Kwik Shop and not seeing her there, and waiting, and waiting, and then realizing she wasn’t coming. Caleb would be in his classroom at the middle school, looking up at the clock, his fingers tapping on his desk as he started to get worried that our mom was worst-case-scenario dead, or bad-case-scenario still not wanting to be our mom. If she wasn’t at the Kwik Shop, if she didn’t come, I would have to head back to Berean Baptist and lie some more about having survived the dentist, which would probably just dig me in deeper, as Aunt Jenny sometimes liked to stay and talk with Mrs. Harrison when she picked me up. And I’d have to face Caleb, and how brokenhearted he’d be.
And on top of all that, I would know I’d been stupid about my mom again, counting on her to do what she’d said.
But when I turned the last corner, breathing hard, she was there, leaning against the wall of the Kwik Shop. Her hair was longer than it had been, and she was wearing a coat I’d never seen, a red ski jacket that curved in at her waist. She was looking at her phone, smiling a little. She didn’t hear me come up.
“Hi there,” I said. I kept my thumbs hooked in the straps of my backpack. I wasn’t going to hug her. I’d already decided.
She looked up, gave a little yelp, and in less than a second her arms were tight around me, squeezing my backpack into my back. She smelled like sunscreen, like lime and coconuts, and her cheek was cold against mine. She kissed the top of my head twice, making a mwah sound each time, and said she couldn’t believe how tall I’d gotten, how I was almost as tall as she was now. I kept my own arms pulled in close to me, like to keep her a little away. But the corners of my mouth tugged up at the sound of her voice. And I didn’t push her off.
When she finally stepped back, she looked me up and down. “You look good.” She took off her sunglasses and squinted. “But my God. What are you wearing? You’re like Sarah-Mary of the Prairie. Are those knee socks?”
“It’s the dress code.” I crossed my arms over my coat. I didn’t appreciate her laughing at me, especially when she was wearing jeans tucked into stylish boots. “I’ve got normal clothes in my backpack. I want to change somewhere after we pick up Caleb. I want to change right away.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. She started walking toward her car, gesturing for me to follow. It was the same old white Subaru she’d had forever, the back door of the driver’s side dented in.
“Where are we going?”
She waited until we were both in the car, buckled in, to answer. “I don’t know,” she said. Her mascara was clumped, and she picked at her lashes, squinting into the rearview mirror. “Where do you want to go?”
I turned to look at her. She’d said it lightly, as if we were taking a spur-of-the-moment day trip, as if it would be fun to decide as we went along. Styrofoam coffee cups and empty candy bar wrappers surrounded my feet, and despite the pine-tree air freshener hanging from the mirror, the car smelled like spoiled milk.
“You don’t have a plan?”
“I meant to eat.” She play-slapped my skirt with the back of her mitten. “And I’ve got a plan, all right.”
We were halfway to Caleb’s school before I realized she wasn’t even getting ready to tell me anything about her plan. She was still just talking about Dan and what a jerk he’d turned out to be.
“He humiliated me,” she said. She’d taken her sunglasses off, and her eyes looked dull, as if she were looking through the windshield at a sad movie instead of the road ahead. She’d taken off her mittens, too. She had red gel paint on her nails, the same color as her coat. “He got me to the point where I didn’t think I was anything.” She glanced at me. “I mean, he was so nice at first, so nice. We’d been shopping for a ring, Sarah-Mary. And he was going to buy me a new car so I could help him show clients around . . . and then all of a sudden”—she threw up her hands but put them back on the wheel fast when the car in front of us slowed—“all of sudden he’s picking at me all the time, and telling me, ‘Oh, those jeans don’t really do anything for you’ and ‘Oh, too bad you didn’t wear more sunscreen when you were younger.’ And then I start finding these texts on his phone from this Lauren person I’ve never heard of. . . .”
“What’s the plan?” I asked. We passed the Dairy Queen, and I saw my manager’s little hybrid in the parking lot. I felt bad about not telling him I’d miss my shift that night.
She glanced at me again. “What?”
“What’s the plan? How does this fit in with where we’re going?”
She took a little breath before answering.
“Sarah-Mary. I was in the middle of telling you about something really painful that happened to me.” Her eyes went aquamarine. “And I just drove eleven hours, all by myself, feeling so lonely and sad, and then I try to share with you just a little, and you interrupt me like you don’t even care. Like you’re not even listening.”
I looked back out the window. We were already turning into the lot of the middle school. For all I knew, Caleb had been watching out the window and had already seen her car. I didn’t want her to get more upset before we went in to get him. And anyway, it wouldn’t do any good to try to point out which one of us was more self-centered. I knew that by now. It wasn’t even like she was trying to be mean. My mom has her good qualities. I’m aware of them. But trying to get her to not think about herself for more than a minute was like asking her to spell a long word backward. You could see it in her expression, how her brain would just sort of freeze up.
“Sorry,” I said. I turned back to her, my face as sad and serious as I could make it. “I do care.”
It’s probably why I’m so good at lying. I had a lot of practice, growing up with her.
I let Caleb sit up front. As she drove, he leaned across the parking brake, resting his head on her shoulder. She’d nuzzle him at stoplights, saying how much she loved him, and how grown-up and handsome he looked with his haircut, even though she missed his curls. I could see some of her face in the rearview mirror, and for the first time I noticed how much she looked like Aunt Jenny, especially with her sunglasses on. They had the same overbite smile, the same rounded cheeks that Caleb got. But aside from wanting to love on Caleb and fight with me, they didn’t have much in common.
“I’m starving,” she said. She eyed me in the rearview. “But I don’t want to eat in town and risk seeing somebody. I know you’ve both had lunch, but we could get out on the highway and find someplace for a snack.”
“That sounds good,” Caleb said. You could hear in his voice, the happiness in it, that she could have said, “Let’s go stand in the middle of the road together,” and his reply probably would have been the same.
And then we were moving fast, out on the same highway Tess and I took to St. Louis. The sky had clouded over, and the leafless tops of spindly trees waved around in the wind. My mom said something to Caleb I couldn’t hear. They both laughed, and even though I still didn’t know what the plan was, I felt a lightness across my shoulders, as if I’d taken off another backpack. We were leaving Hannibal. I would miss Tess, and some of my coworkers. But nothing else.
We stopped at a McDonald’s next to a truck stop. I took my backpack in with me and said I was going to the bathroom to change. There was a line for the stalls, so when it was finally my turn, I hurried, coming out with the skirt and the knee socks tucked under my arm. I’d been thinking it would be such a pleasure to throw my Berean Baptist clothes away, but then I wondered if someone else would want them. Maybe. After I washed my hands, I folded the skirt and put it on top of the hand dryer, along with the balled-up knee socks. On my way out, one of the women in line said, “Honey, you forgot something,” and I said, “Nope. It’s free for the taking,” and walked out of the bathroom feeling great.
&nbs
p; They were already eating by the time I got to their table. I’d had lunch just a few hours earlier, but the cheeseburger my mom was eating looked and smelled pretty good. Caleb had chicken nuggets, which he’d almost completely covered in ketchup.
“I guess I am hungry,” I said.
My mom nodded and covered her mouth. “You should get something.”
I waited, but she just sat there and took another bite. It seemed to me she might offer me some money, but I wasn’t going to ask for it. I unzipped my backpack and got my purse out.
“Will you watch this?” I asked, passing my backpack over to Caleb.
He nodded. He looked dazed with joy, sitting with my mom and eating chicken nuggets in the middle of a school day. But I knew he’d heard me.
When I was standing in line, I could see one of the big TVs. The sound was turned off, or maybe turned low, so it was just annoying to see a newscaster with shiny lip gloss talking. But then there was a picture of a Muslim woman with a rose-colored headscarf, just dark bangs showing. She had high, wide cheekbones, and the hollows underneath looked real, not just contouring, though she did have on lipstick that was the same color as the scarf. She looked like a normal person except for the scarf, but below her picture was REWARD $10,000. I glanced around at the other people, in line and at tables, who were watching the screen too. Some of them were probably getting excited, thinking they were going to go out and catch themselves a Muslim and pay off their Visa bill. But looking up at the woman’s face just made me anxious. If they were willing to pay that much to find her, they must have been worried about the fact that she was out running around. I was thinking that anybody who found her should just do the right thing and turn her in for free. Have some honor, for God’s sake. As much as I liked money, that’s what I would have done.
When I got back to the table with my burger, both my mom and Caleb were hunched over, looking at something in her hand.
“So you buy this ticket, and it attaches to the zipper of your coat like this,” she was saying. “And then you can ride the chairlifts as many times as you want for the whole day.”
“Wow,” Caleb said. “Is it scary?”
“Oh, no, it’s fun.” She had a smear of ketchup on her chin. “I mean, I started out on the bunny slope, and that’s what you’ll do too. I’ll teach you.”
“Really?”
She nodded, but by then I’d shrugged off my coat, and she’d looked up and noticed my watch. “Oooh,” she said, reaching over to rub her fingertip along the metal band. “I guess you’ve been making good money at your job, Sarah-Mary. I know those aren’t cheap.”
“My friend gave it to me,” I said, turning my wrist so she could see the face better. Tess had given it to me when she got a new model. She’d switched her contract over to her new watch, so this one didn’t work as a phone anymore. But it still had all Tess’s music on it, over five hundred songs, and little wireless earbuds that snapped right out of the band. Her trash was definitely my treasure.
“No friend like a rich friend,” my mother said, nudging Caleb.
I didn’t like that so much. I didn’t like it when she acted like I thought the same way she did about people, or about anything. But it was fine. Wherever we were going, I’d probably be able to talk to Tess more than I did living right in Hannibal. Maybe she could come visit.
I put my purse in my lap and unwrapped my burger. “So you’re taking us back to Colorado?” I was up for it. I’d only seen mountains in pictures, but I thought I’d like living around them. I could learn to ski. Tess knew how to ski already. Her family had gone out to Breckenridge over Christmas.
My mom looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would I take you to Colorado? There’s nothing for me there.”
I had to wait to chew and swallow. “Okay. Then where are we going?”
She only hesitated for a moment. But I felt the heat in my arms, the anger bright in me right away. I knew it then. Wherever she was headed, we weren’t going with her. I looked out the window, where a woman in a white coat was jogging to her car.
“Where are we going?” I asked again, because stupid me, I was still hoping. I couldn’t go back to Berean Baptist. I couldn’t.
She wiped the ketchup off her chin with her napkin. “Sarah-Mary. I don’t have any money. I can’t take you anywhere just yet.” She said it with a little laugh, like I’d had the nerve to ask when our limo was arriving.
I put down my burger and stared at her. If she noticed my distress, you couldn’t tell.
“Are we going to stay in Hannibal?” Caleb asked. He was still munching on the last of his nuggets, not even looking upset yet. But I already knew that wasn’t happening either. Only two of us would be staying in Hannibal. Our mom already had a sad look on her face, or rather, a look she hoped made her seem sad. She wasn’t good at faking.
“I don’t have a job in Hannibal.” She sighed with puffed cheeks. “I don’t have anywhere for us to stay.”
“I’ve got money,” I said, patting my purse like a gun in a holster. “I’ve got enough to rent a place for a month, in Hannibal or about anywhere. That should give you time to find a job.”
She leaned forward on the table. “You’ve got it with you?”
“Yeah,” I said, a little surprised. I didn’t think she’d take me up on it. Not just like that. All those hours at Dairy Queen. But it would be worth it to keep her from doing what I worried she was getting ready to do to Caleb. And to me.
She squinted. “You have a checking account?”
“No. I’ve been saving cash. But we could just open an account and deposit it. I’m sure we could find something.”
“That’s a good idea,” she said, like she was really impressed. “But you know, if you hear me out, I’ve got a better plan.”
“You can stay with Aunt Jenny,” Caleb said. He was already frantic, talking too fast. His hands were flexed on the table. “We can all stay there together.”
She reached over and smoothed his short hair. “I said I’ve got a better plan, honey. You’ll just have to hold on a little longer.”
I could see he’d started breathing hard, his narrow shoulders moving up and down under his gray coat. My own heart started to pound. She was doing this. She was really doing this to us again. I wanted to reach across the table and shake her. I wanted to pick up the plastic fork on the table and stab it into her cheek.
“The thing is,” she said in a low voice, “I’ve been chatting with this man in Virginia. He’s a little older than I am, and he’s not in the best shape physically.” She held up her palms as if calming a crowd. “But he’s extremely nice. Extremely nice. And he’s already crazy about me.” Clearly, she didn’t understand that she was in imminent danger, the plastic fork lying close to my hand. She smiled, leaning back in her chair. “And he’s got so much money that if I can pull this off, we’ll all be vacationing in the Bahamas next Christmas.”
“You’re leaving again?” Caleb shook his head, like he was trying to answer the question the way he wanted. “Virginia? We’re not going with you?”
“Just for a little while.” When she saw his face, she clicked her tongue. “Come on. This is an exploratory visit. I can’t exactly show up with the kids in the back of the car. You know what I’m saying? I don’t want to scare him. I’m trying to keep things casual for now. I told him I was going to be out there anyway. On a business trip.”
“Well, you kind of are,” I said. I meant it mean. But she only tilted her head for a moment, as if I’d helped her see the situation in a new light. She nodded thoughtfully.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Caleb mumbled. He kept his head down as he got up, and I knew he was trying not to cry. My mom frowned as he walked away, then popped another fry into her mouth.
“Why’d you even come here?” I whispered, surprised by how calm I sounded. “Why’d you even call?” I knew this was the most I might get out of her. You couldn’t ask her questions like How can you do this? or What??
?s wrong with you? She didn’t know. “I mean, we’re not even on the interstate. This is out of your way.”
“I wanted to see you.” She tucked her chin in like she was hurt. “I wanted to see my kids. Is that so strange?”
“Mm-hmm.” I glanced back up at one of the big TVs, which now showed an overturned semi under a bridge. “Well. It probably would have been better if you hadn’t called at all.”
Caleb would have been better off for sure. And me too, though my concerns for myself were more practical. I was going to get spanked with that damn paddle over this. I was going to have to hold on to my ankles and pray.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and right then, she sounded like she meant it. I don’t know. Maybe some part of her was truly sorry. It was confusing. She’d taken care of us when we were little. She’d changed our diapers, I guess, and gotten us both through fevers and colds, and at least four incidences of head lice. I had a memory of her singing “Dream a Little Dream” to me, when I was little enough to sit in her lap.
“To tell you the truth”—she half smiled—“I was hoping you could help me out a bit.”
I shook my head. Whatever she wanted, no way.
“I’ll pay you back. Every penny.”
I shook my head again, laughing a little, though I could feel the pressure of tears. But it was funny. Really. That’s all it was. This didn’t have anything to do with me. She was just a woman who’d happened to give birth to me, and she was even more out of her mind than I’d thought. I held tight to my purse. I wanted to put it away, to zip it back in my backpack, but my backpack was still over by Caleb’s chair. I put my purse on the floor and leaned my chair to one side so I could loop the strap under one of the legs. Out of sight probably wasn’t out of mind. Not for her. But I’d made my point.
“Please,” she said. “I’ll pay you back with interest. How much do you have? Let me make you a deal. A good one.”
“No.” I looked past her. The big clock on the wall read 3:25. Aunt Jenny would be at Caleb’s school to pick him up in five minutes. I was trying to think of what I could say to her, and to Mrs. Harrison, if there was any way to still fix this. But there was nothing but consequence in my future.