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“Why’d you really come back?” she spits. “Forget something?” her eyes move to the lounge room, the suitcase under the table in plain sight from where we’re standing.
Furrowing my brow, I remind her, “I didn’t leave in the first place, Faith. I was across the road fixing my truck.”
But I can see that once she’s wound up like this, just like the weather, she’ll have to blow herself out.
I can only do the best I can, be here for her until she calms down.
But boy, she really is wound up.
I wonder what happened since I went out.
She has another round of words for me before she starts to calm down a little.
“Why are you all covered in grease?” she asks. “You smell like oil and gasoline.”
Trying not to roll my eyes, I calmly re-tell her how I was across the road, fixing my truck. I hadn’t left, only gone over to repair the truck and put some gas in it.
The change in her is instant.
“So, you didn’t leave me?”
“No,” I say calmly. “I left the house, but only to fix my truck.”
For the tenth time, Faith, I didn’t leave you!
“Faith, what happened, tell me,” I ask her again in a more commanding tone.
“It’s my Dad, he’s coming back. He said… The sheriff…”
She starts to sob again, wringing her hands as she starts to pace.
“Faith, you’re not making any sense, what the hell happened?” I demand from her, gripping her by the elbows, almost shouting at her now.
“They’re coming for you… they’ll find you and they’ll take you away...” she says softly, her voice trailing off as her eyes move past me, staring blankly at the case in the lounge room.
She looks alright, but I’m wondering if something happened, maybe she fell or has something wrong with her I don’t know about yet.
Either way, we’ll get through it, Faith. I promise.
Taking a different tactic, I move us both into the kitchen and sit her down, getting her a glass of water I sit opposite her, quiet for a while until I ask her slowly but firmly to tell me what she means.
“What’s in that case?” she asks me, point-blank.
I swallow hard, not knowing why she’d even ask. I thought it was just a plain old suitcase.
Unless she looked inside.
Can’t. I have the key right here.
I thumb the key in my jeans, I still have something going right.
“Is that what this is all about?” I ask her, worried how or even why she’d be so concerned about the case.
“What’s in it, Noah?” she asks again, an edge to her voice I don’t like.
Like she’s asking for someone else.
“Something I have to deliver,” I tell her truthfully.
“So, it doesn’t belong to you?” she asks, her eyes changing again, her shoulders sagging.
“No. No, it doesn’t. I’m delivering it for someone. A promise I made them if you must know,” I tell her, not minding I’m showing my own irritation now.
“Faith, I don’t know what’s happened since I went outside, but like I told you earlier, I have to go soon. I have something I need to do and I thought you were going to come with me.”
I can’t see it, but can sure as hell feel it.
An invisible wedge between us.
If it had a shape or a face, oh, I’d say it was part Preacher part Sheriff and maybe even part pig-nosed repairman.
I could tell her everything, but I don’t know if we’ve even got that much time.
Plus, my past, both recent and ancient isn’t a place I like to revisit.
“I mean it, Faith,” I tell her. “I want you with me, but I’ll have to be on the road and soon.”Chapter ElevenFaithSeeing Noah again, his truck behind him, and weighing it up against all the emotions of the past few hours.
I freak out.
I don’t know what happens, but I’m suddenly so mad with him and at the same time, I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my whole life.
I thought that truck was a stranger’s, that it was those fugitives my Dad was talking about. I thought they’d come to-
I don’t want to ever think like that again.
Trouble is, I end up coming off like a psycho witch from hell. But Noah’s so sweet, he puts up with all of it, sits me down until I can try to explain, but I can’t.
It’s all too much for me to deal with.
I don’t believe he’s a criminal, I don’t believe he’s stolen anything. And yet there it is, that case he takes everywhere.
And now he won’t tell me what’s in it.
Only tells me he has to go and he wants me with him.
I ask him what’s in the case a third and final time. He doesn’t get mad, just looks hurt.
“Faith, do you trust me?” he asks, those dark brooding eyes suddenly calm and clear looking.
