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“I’m really fine,” I said.
“No, you’re not. You got up and walked out. I’ve never seen you do that before. And now you’re upset. I can tell.”
Oh, hell. I felt a twist of panic start up in my chest, somewhere behind my rib cage. “Can we just go? I have nothing to say.”
Eddie sighed and pushed his sunglasses up on his head. He reached to Robbie’s cassette player and pressed the eject button. A cassette popped out of the player like a piece of toast. “Okay. I can listen to some”—he peered at the cassette—“Waylon Jennings while I wait.” He pushed the cassette back in and hit play. The notes of “I’ve Always Been Crazy” wafted through the car.
I clapped my hands over my ears. “Jesus Christ.”
Eddie said nothing. As the air-conditioning cooled us off, he cranked his window closed. That made the music louder.
I gritted my teeth. “Eddie.”
“April.”
We were in a standoff. I could make the music stop, but we weren’t going anywhere until Eddie decided to drive the car. I was strong for a woman, but he outweighed me. We were stuck.
Was this what marriage was going to be like? The two of us in a standoff when we didn’t agree? When I’d dated before, I’d never let a man get this deep. When a man pushed me somewhere I didn’t want to go, I had simply walked away.
The urge to do that now was strong. I could get out of the car and get away from this, from him, from how I was feeling. I could just start walking, like Rhonda Jean had.
But suddenly, that didn’t feel like I would be walking away—it felt like I would be running. This was my life now, this car, this man, this Waylon Jennings music. I’d run for survival before, but this wasn’t survival, and I wasn’t a coward.
“You know what happened when I was twelve,” I said finally, forcing the words out.
Immediately, Eddie reached to the tape deck and turned it off. “You and your mother escaped your father,” he said.
It was the story I’d told him on our fourth date, when he’d cooked me spaghetti and meatballs. The story of the summer I was twelve. I’d told him of the night my mother had awoken me, her cold hand gripping my shoulder as I lay in bed. She’d told me to put my most valued belongings in a bag and get in the car. She’d told me to be quiet.
I’d packed a teddy bear, a copy of My Friend Flicka stolen from the library, underpants, two T-shirts, my favorite bead necklace, a toothbrush, a hairbrush, and the pink wallet I kept hidden under the mattress, which had eighteen dollars in it. Maybe I had predicted this night would come, or maybe I was just the type of girl who was ready to run. I hadn’t bothered to think about the distinction.
I’d forgotten shoes, so I’d gotten into the car barefoot. My mother had coasted slowly down the street with the lights off at first, sneaking away like a thief in the night. Then she’d turned the lights on and started to speed, and I’d begged her, Faster, drive faster. Drive faster.
My name hadn’t been April Delray that night. That girl’s name was long gone, as was my mother’s name. We’d driven away in the stifling California summer night to become other people. It was wildfire season, and when I dreamed about that night, I could smell smoke as we drove away, leaving our old life behind in ashes.
We’d wandered for years, my mother and me. She took waitressing jobs, and I was tall and pretty enough that if I put on makeup and did my hair, I could appear older and work behind the counter at Dairy Queen, using a new ID. We’d stay in one place for a while, and then we’d move. We had to stay safe, she said.
After the first few years, I started taking care of her. Of us. I paid bills and made sure there was gas in the car. I got a driver’s license—I used an identity that was two years older than my real age for a while—and drove my mother to and from her shifts. I got us through one move, then another.
Then, when I was eighteen, my mother was gone and I was on my own. I told Eddie my mother was dead.
“Those kids back there,” I said to Eddie now. “Those girls. They remind me of me. I lived like that for a long time.”
Eddie nodded. “Not exactly like that,” he said reasonably.
“No. I wasn’t on a journey to find myself. I was trying to survive. But those kids are running, just like I was. Rhonda Jean was running. I’ve hitched before. I’ve stayed with strangers. Rhonda Jean could have been me.”
Eddie didn’t answer that. He just took my hand and held it in his. My hand was chilled and clammy, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“This place,” Eddie said, after we’d sat for a moment in silence. “It’s strange, don’t you think? There’s something wrong about it. Something I can’t put my finger on.”
He was right. We were sitting in our borrowed car, looking over the lake, but behind us was Atticus Line, the place where Rhonda Jean had started walking, according to Mitchell. It bothered me that the road was behind us. It was so uncannily quiet. Unless I looked in the rearview mirror, I wasn’t sure if there was something coming our way.
“I don’t want to go back to Rose’s yet,” I said.
Eddie’s voice was calm. “Quentin will be looking for us.”
“I don’t care.”
