Desperation Road(69)

Annalee spent the day feeding the fish and then catching them. Tossing bread to the ducks. Climbing up on the tractor and pretending to drive. Throwing rocks into the pond or at trees or whatever.

Maben was not so easy. Anxious. Jumpy. Ready to go. Overcome by her nomadic nature. She smoked a pack and asked for more. Russell fed them to her like they were french fries. Didn’t matter to him what she did as long as she stayed put and then got on that bus. Once the afternoon passed and the evening came on he figured they were safe. That ten o’clock was going to arrive and she would leave town under the cover of stars and in a few weeks or a month she would be back and then they could go from there. No need to try to figure it all out in one day.

They finished eating a late dinner after it had been difficult to get Annalee to put away her fishing pole and Mitchell and Russell sat outside with coffee while the women sat in the living room watching television. Only the light from the window above the barn interrupted the dark.

“She’s going tonight,” Russell said.

“Going where?”

“She’s not sure.”

“Just she?”

“Yeah. Only the big one.”

“What you gonna do with the little one?”

“Watch her. Give her something to eat every now and then. Can you do that?”

“For how long?”

“Not long.”

“And what are we going to say if someone asks about her?”

“We’ll say she’s visiting Consuela. She’s her niece or something.”

“That don’t sound so great.”

“Well. That’s all I got right now.”

The back door opened and Maben came outside to join the men. She sat down in a rocking chair next to Mitchell.

“We’ll let it get a little darker and then I need to stop by the house before we go to the station,” Russell said to her. “Got some stuff you might need.”

“Fine,” she said.

“When I finish my coffee,” he said.

“Anything you can get here?” Mitchell asked.

Russell shook his head.

The evening sky stretched out in lavenders and pinks. Wisps of bluegray clouds settled along the horizon and the weight of night began to drape the twilight. Mitchell stood and patted Maben’s shoulder and then he left them and took his worry out to the pond.

“So what is it I need exactly?” Maben asked.

“How much money you got?”

“Don’t know. I’ve had less, though.”

“Then that’s what you need. I got some at the house. Not much. Some.”

“You don’t have to give me no money.”

“I know I don’t have to.”

“You don’t have to do none of this.”

“I know,” he said again. “We better go.”

Consuela had packed Maben a bag of clean clothes and a toothbrush and hairbrush. And at Russell’s instruction she had tucked away a pencil and paper and several stamped envelopes. A scrap of paper with Russell’s address paper-clipped to the top envelope. The bag sat at the edge of the porch and Maben rose from the rocker and slung it over her arm. Then she stood in the open door and stared inside at Annalee.

“Do you want to tell her bye?” Russell asked.

“I did. Before I came out here.”

“Do you want to tell her again?”

Maben watched her child. Took one step toward her and stopped. Then she turned and walked past Russell and across the yard to the truck.


Driving through town they crossed the arching bridge that stretched over the railroad tracks and at the height of the bridge she took a quick look down the tracks. “There’s something pretty about that,” she said.

“About what?”

“About the railroad tracks at night. How they go on and on and you can’t see where. But they’re so straight and perfect. Like there’s no way to get lost.”

“There ain’t no way to get lost on a train.”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “Maybe pretty ain’t the word.”

“Maybe.”

“But what if you get on the wrong one?”

“What about it?”

“You’d be lost then.”

“You got me there.”

“Don’t go to your house yet. Let’s ride some,” she said. “We got time?”

“Some.”

She turned on the radio and she didn’t talk anymore. When they passed through town Russell told her to duck down and she kept her head below the dashboard until the lights of town were behind them. They moved along the winding, dark roads. Shades of black through the trees and across the pastures in a moonlit night and then he asked if that was enough and she said no. Keep riding some more.

Later she said if you don’t have to then I don’t understand why you are doing all this. Nobody never helped me or her. They were deep in the country when she asked. Only able to see what the headlights would give them. He didn’t know how to answer. But she waited.

“You’re the one who picked me,” he finally said. He looked at her. At the dim light on her face from the dashboard lights. Her tired face. Her old face. Not yet thirty but the face of the defeated. The face of holding on. “It’s like you got an invisible collar around your neck and so do I. And there’s an invisible rope pulling us together.”