Here and Gone(10)

‘All right, then,’ he said, and he turned back to the desert beyond his windshield.

Quiet now, just the rumble of the idling engine, and Audra was swamped with a feeling of unreality, as if all of this was a fever dream, that she was a witness to someone else’s nightmare.

But really, hadn’t the last eighteen months been like that?

Since she had fled from Patrick, taking Sean and Louise with her, it had been day after week after month of worry. The specter of her husband always looming beyond her vision; the knowledge of him, of what he wanted to take from her, hanging like a constant veil across her mind.

As soon as Patrick knew he had lost her, that she would no longer subject herself to him, he had been circling, seeking the one thing he knew could destroy her. He didn’t love their children, just like he had never loved Audra. They were possessions to him, like a car, or a good watch. A symbol to everyone around him, saying, look at me, I am succeeding, I am living a life like real people do. Audra had realized too late that she and the children were simply pieces of the fa?ade he had built around himself to create the illusion of a decent man.

When she had finally broken free, the embarrassment caused a rage in him that had not faded since. And he had so many dirty strings to pull. The alcohol, the prescription drugs, the cocaine, all of it. Even though he had nurtured those weaknesses in her as ways to keep her tame – an enabler, the counsellor had called him – he now used those as weapons to pry her children away. He had shown the proof to the lawyers, to the judge, and then Children’s Services had come calling, interviewed her in the small Brooklyn apartment she had moved to. Such spiteful, hurtful questions.

The last interview had broken her. The concerned man and woman, their kind voices, asking was it true what they’d been told, and wouldn’t the children be better off with their father, even for a few weeks until she got herself straight?

‘I am straight,’ she had said. ‘I’ve been straight for nearly two years.’

And it was the truth. She wouldn’t have had the strength to leave her husband, taking the children, if she hadn’t got herself clean first. The eighteen months since then had been a struggle, certainly, but she hadn’t once fallen back into the habits that almost killed her. She had made a life for herself and the kids, got a steady waitressing job in a coffee shop. It didn’t pay much, but she had a little money put away that she’d taken from her and Patrick’s joint account before she left. She had even started painting again.

But the concerned man and woman hadn’t seemed to care about any of that. They had looked at each other, pity on their faces, and Audra had asked them to please leave.

And the man and woman had said, ‘We’d rather it didn’t have to go to court. It’s always better to settle things between the parents.’

So Audra had screamed at them to get the hell out of her home and never come back.

She spent the rest of the day in a state of frenzied agitation, shaking, craving something, anything to smooth the edges of her fear. In the end she called her friend Mel, the only friend she’d kept since college, and Mel had said, come out, come to San Diego, just for a few days, we’ve got room.

Audra began packing the moment she hung up the phone. It started as just enough clothes for her and the kids to last the few days, then she wondered about toys, and if they would want their favorite bedding, so the bags became boxes, and she knew she couldn’t fly, it would have to be the aging station wagon she had bought last year, and then it wasn’t going to be a few days, it was going to be forever.

She didn’t stop to think about what she was doing until she was halfway across New Jersey. Four days ago, morning, she had pulled onto the shoulder of the highway, beset by a panic that seemed to explode from somewhere inside her. While Sean asked over and over why she had stopped, Audra sat there, hands on the wheel, chest heaving as she fought for breath.

It was Sean who calmed her down. He undid his seat belt, climbed through into the passenger seat, and held her hand while he talked to her in a warm and smooth voice. Within a few minutes, she had gotten herself under control, and Sean sat with her as they figured out what to do, where they were going, and how they were going to get there.

Smaller roads, she had decided. She didn’t know what would happen when Children’s Services realized she had gone and taken the kids with her, but it was possible they would alert the police and they would be looking for her and the station wagon. So it had been narrow twisting paths to here, countless small towns along the way. And no trouble with the police. Until now.

‘Here we go,’ Whiteside said, pulling Audra from her thoughts.

Up ahead, a tow truck exited the Silver Water Road and steered toward them. It slowed a few yards away, and the driver set about turning it until its bed faced Audra’s car, a warning beep as it reversed. The driver, a scrawny man in stained blue overalls, jumped down from the cab. Whiteside climbed out of the cruiser and met him at the rear of the truck.

Audra watched as the two men spoke, the driver holding out a docket book for Whiteside to sign, before tearing off the top copy and handing it over. Then the driver took a good long look back at her, and she felt like an ape in a zoo exhibit, an irrational anger at his intrusion making her want to spit at him.

As the driver went about his work, attaching a winch line to the front of her car, Whiteside came back to the cruiser. He didn’t speak as he lowered himself inside and put the car in drive. He waved to the tow-truck driver as he passed. The driver took the opportunity to have another look at Audra, and his attention made her turn her face away.