Envious Moon(41)

I didn’t see Hannah right away. Then I heard her, on the other side of Victor’s car, entering the woods. I found her at the edge of the brook and took her hand and led her back. Her eyes were wide and her hands were sweaty. She shook a little. I knew this was a lot for her at once and so I stopped and I hugged her. She hugged me back and in her arms I felt her return my love. “It’s okay,” I said. “This is going to get easier.”

I picked up my oilskin bag and we went for Terrence’s truck. Before we got in, I took Victor’s keys and flung them as far as I could into the woods. The last thing we needed was Terrence trying to follow us.

We climbed into the truck and the upholstery was torn and the cab reeked of stale cigarettes. A milk crate on the passenger side floor overflowed with mushrooms. But it started right up and Hannah moved close to me on the bench seat and I steered us through the pine trees and out of the campground.





I just drove. I had no plan and no destination. I took a right turn in Litchfield and just followed the country highway in the dark. The old truck took us up and over hills and through black woods and past darkened houses. The night was cool but I kept my window rolled down so I could smoke. Hannah fell asleep shortly after we left, her face pushed into my right shoulder, one hand draped lazily across my thigh. Now and again I looked at her. At her beautiful sleeping face, the soft eyelids. It made me so happy to have her back that sometimes my hands left the wheel like some kind of spasm, the feeling threatening to spill out of me. I didn’t know what direction we were going. It didn’t matter. The only sense I had was of the curvature of the earth, us crawling along its spine.

I knew we were heading north when we crossed into Massachusetts. I had figured we would go west, to California maybe, but suddenly north felt right. Maybe we’d go to Canada, cross into another country. Truly begin anew.

Meanwhile Hannah slept on. She slept so well. The cool night came into the cab and she moved closer to me against it and I smoked with one arm out the window. We had the road to ourselves. There were the headlights moving across the trees and over the crest of hills. Hannah’s easy breath of sleep. The nutty taste of tobacco in my mouth. I was not the least bit tired. I thought that as long as there was night, I could drive.

Sometime before dawn, the first blue light visible to the east, we crossed into Vermont. The woods were dense here and right to the edge of the road. The night began to lift and we followed a rocky stream. We went through small New England villages and then back into a forest. I passed a sign that said COZY CORNER CABINS and underneath it, VACANCY. I pulled into a turnoff and Hannah woke when I did and she said, “Where are we?”

“I think I found a place,” I said, turning the truck around.





The office was a log cabin, someone’s home. I knocked on the door and it took a while but a tall bearded man finally answered. He was still tugging on a pair of jeans and his flannel shirt was unbuttoned, his hairless chest at eye level and as white as paper.

“I saw vacancy on the sign,” I said.

He looked me up and down. It had to be five in the morning but if he thought anything of this, he either didn’t care or chose not to say anything. “Thirty-five bucks a night,” he said, starting to button his shirt. “No maid service.”

“Cash okay?” I said.

“Cash is king,” he said.

I took bills out of my pocket and peeled off three twenties and a ten. “That’s for two nights,” I said.

He got me the key and stepped out onto the porch and pointed back into the woods to where I was to go. I saw him take in the old truck and Hannah in it, awake now, staring up at us.

The cabin was not much to speak of. There were six of them, identical, and in a row, with great pines looming over them like sentinels. In the early-morning light they looked like they had been dropped there, on top of the pine needles, almost as if they were for sale. They were shingled and had tiny front porches, not really serviceable, with just an overhang to keep you from the elements. There were no other cars in front of them.

Hannah and I walked like dead people. I was so tired. I looped my bag over my shoulder and we climbed out of the truck and up the one step and I keyed the door and stepped into the room. I flicked on the light and it was grim, a sad bed in the artificial overhead light, the musty odor of mothballs, a carpet with a deep pattern that you couldn’t tell where the stains stopped and the checks started. Hannah went for the bathroom and I flopped right onto the bed.

With the shades drawn there was no telling if it was night or day. I don’t remember Hannah killing the light. I slept like I had never slept before, without dreams, and the only thing I remember is her lying next to me, the rough feel of the comforter against my skin, and the smell of Hannah, that beautiful smell, her soap and her sweat, this girl that I had already given my life up for.

I woke in a near panic. I looked around. Hannah was on the edge of the bed. She looked back at me and in her look I saw the guilt and then I saw the phone in her hand.

“What did you do?” I said.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Did you call somebody?”

“No,” she said softly.

“Did you?”

“No,” she said again.

“They won’t understand,” I said.

“I know.”