Envious Moon(48)

I let go of the drapes and quickly joined Hannah on the bed.

“We have to be dead quiet,” I whispered.

She went to speak but I put one hand over her mouth. “Shush,” I said softly.

We lay there and we didn’t move. The minutes ticked by, and then I heard a knock on the sliding glass doors below us, and Hannah stirred beneath my hand, and I knew it was because she had no idea what was going on, but I also knew she needed to trust me here. Another knock came and then silence. I figured he was looking in the window. Don’t go around back, I prayed. If he went around back he would see the truck and he would see the broken window and the glass on the hard dirt and it would all be over.

Time opens up in situations like that. The air was pregnant with each silent beat of it. Any second I was prepared to hear footsteps coming up the basement stairs, perhaps the crack of a radio, or a deep man’s voice telling us to come downstairs, keep our hands where he could see them.

But once again we dodged a bullet. I heard the engine of the police car start up and I left Hannah and crept across the carpet to the window. I parted the narrowest slit between the drapes and I gazed out. I saw him say something into the box he held in his hand and then he did a quick U-turn. He did not look back at the house, back at us. He drove quickly down the still-new road and disappeared below the hill.



We holed up in the house until dark. Then we climbed into the truck with all of our things and the last of the beer from the fridge. We drove slowly through the development and when we reached the main road, I took us past the ski village and out to the state highway. My nerves were frayed from the close call. I opened a beer and kept it between our legs. Hannah and I did not talk. I headed south, toward Massachusetts. The only plan I had was ill formed at best. The truth was, I wanted what Hannah wanted, to go home. I wanted to be back on familiar ground. There might be a hornet’s nest there, but that was my coastline, my village, and I knew it as well as I knew the back of my hand. I thought that we could avoid whatever might be waiting for us. I thought that standing again on that spit of land might clear my head, allow me to figure out how we could be together. For the one thing that rose above all others was that. Hannah and me. Not letting them keep us apart.

The night was clear and bright with a full moon. It rose above the trees in front of us, massive and chalky white, its lakes silvery in the dark. At the Massachusetts border we stopped at a rest stop and ate our sandwiches. Then I peed in the woods and smoked leaning against the truck. I got back in and we stuck to back roads, moving through small towns and back out again, past marshy land and more woods. I didn’t use the map. I drove the truck like it was a boat, pointing it south and just going.

After midnight we crossed into Connecticut. I found another state park and pulled into it. There was a reservoir here and the parking lot was deserted. I put the truck under the trees and we got out. I wanted a motel room but now that I knew we were in the Globe, I figured we were everywhere. Half of New England was probably looking for us. Motel clerks with my image memorized, just waiting for me to walk through their door so they could be a hero. Get their own names in the paper and on television.

We rolled my bedroll out on the wet grass next to the reservoir and in the moonlight its water was glassy and streaked with white. We bundled up against the first cold of autumn as best we could. We made furtive love, not bothering to take our clothes off, and afterwards Hannah cried and I told her it would all work out.

“There’s nowhere for us to go,” she said.

“I won’t let them take you from me,” I said.

“Promise me you won’t do anything crazy.”

“I’ll take care of us,” I said.

We fell asleep with our arms around each other, our faces inches apart, her bangs on my forehead.

A few hours later I woke and it was still dark, though the moon had set. The sky was a pale violet. I heard a loon out on the water. It was time to go.

I woke Hannah and she grumbled, and said, “Let me sleep.”

“You can sleep in the truck.”

And she did, she leaned against the far window and used a sweater as a blanket. I wanted to drive during the night. I didn’t want to be out on those roads in broad daylight, where any cop could see us going by. No doubt they knew the truck. If not from finding Terrence, then from the clerk in Stratton.

I kept the window open and my elbow leaning out it. I opened another beer, just to get rid of the socks on my teeth. I liked the driving, the feeling of movement. That we were doing something.

The day arrived slowly. By dawn we had reached the coast, somewhere in Connecticut. The first of the sun spread across the water. I drove along an ocean road with big houses on one side and it warmed my heart to see the blue-green Atlantic, the birds diving over the rocks and the jetties.

In time we found a public beach and I pulled into its large parking lot. The sun was up now but it was still early. There were a handful of cars and I parked near them. Hannah was awake now, and she said, “Where are we?”

“The beach,” I said.

We got out and walked across the parking lot to the sand. It was a long beach with a quiet stretch of ocean, the waves only small curled whitecaps coming into shore. A few people walked dogs and some others jogged on the harder sand near the water. I took Hannah’s hand in my own and I imagined we looked like one of those older couples you see, still holding hands after forty years of marriage, going for long walks in the morning just to spend time together.