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“Dinner in an hour,” Helen murmured, her hand lingering.
Annie nodded against her fingers.
* * *
They decided to take the Jeep. Helen said it had more space, and Annie couldn’t disagree, so she just nodded dumbly, still too tired and surprised that Helen was even going with her at all. If Helen didn’t mind adding eight hundred miles to her odometer, Annie didn’t either. It was a relief to have Helen driving too, because napping too much during the day meant her sleep suffered at night. Plus, Annie had stayed awake most of the night worrying about getting lost. But when she handed Lori’s address to Helen, scribbled on the back of a paycheck envelope, Helen studied it for a moment and said, “I’m sure we can find this.”
It had put Annie at ease, even if it might only be a confident-sounding lie.
They piled the bags into the cargo area of the Jeep, the kids got in the back, and Annie sat in the front. With a car seat no longer in the back, there was more elbow room, though the kids knewbetter than to point this out to their mother. They would stop at Sal’s, deposit the kids, and then head north on Interstate5 for the next six hours.
Helen asked Ashley and Kevin three times if they would be okay without her, if staying two nights was too many, until finally Kevin leaned forward, put his hand on the center console—the farthest he could reach toward the front of the car—and said, “Mommy, chill out.”
“I’m chill,” Helen said as Annie stifled a laugh. “I’m a chill mommy.”
“Tell you what,” Annie said. “We’ll make sure Aunt Sal has the phone number of where we’re staying, okay?”
“If you miss me, you can call,” Helen added.
“Where are you going again?” Ashley asked.
“Marin County.”
“Yeah, but where exactly?”
“We’re staying with my friend from college and her husband in a town called San Rafael,” Annie said. “She’s got two little girls.”
“Girls?” Kevin asked. “Only girls?”
“Lindsay and…” She stopped. “Oh shoot, I forget the little one’s name. Something with a K, I think.”
“Wait. Your friends Lori and Louis had a baby and named her Lindsay, then had another baby and didn’t give her anLname?” Helen asked.
“I’m, like, seventy percent sure it’s aK.” Annie shrugged. “They didn’t consult me. I haven’t even met the baby yet.”
“Why not?” Ashley asked.
“I was away when she was born.”
“Away where?”
“Somewhere too far to come home to meet a baby.”
“Yeah, but where?” Ashley asked.
“The Soviet Union.”
“Where is that?” Kevin asked.
“It’s nowhere anymore,” Helen said. “Enough questions. We’re almost there, so promise me you’ll behave for your Aunt Sal and be nice to your cousins.”
It took nearly forty-five minutes to unload the suitcases, settle the children, and chitchat with Sal. The first thing Helen said after they pulled away from the house was, “I didn’t know they had such little kids.”
“Lindsay is preschool age. Four? The baby is maybe a year now. Kylie? Krystal? God, what is her name? I really hope it’s not Krystal.”
“Krystal with aKsounds like a stripper name,” Helen said.
“If it is Krystal, maybe we keep that observation to ourselves,” Annie suggested.
