The Mothers(8)

“Just cramps,” she said.

“Oh. Your . . .” He gestured to his stomach. “Need anything?”

“No,” she said. “Wait. Can I use your truck later?”

“For what?”

“To drive.”

“Where are you going, I mean.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Ask where I’m going. I’m almost eighteen.”

“I can’t ask where you’re taking my truck?”

“Where do you think I’m taking it?” she said. “The border?”

Her father never cared about where she went, except when she asked to borrow his precious truck. He spent evenings circling the truck in the driveway, dipping a red velvet square into a tub of wax until the paint shone like glass. Then as soon as someone from Upper Room called for a favor, he jogged out the door, always running to his truck, as if it were the only child, needy and demanding of his love. Her father sighed, running a hand over the graying hair she cut every two weeks, the way her mother used to, her father sitting in the backyard with a towel draped around his neck, her hands guiding the clippers. Cutting his hair was the only time she felt close to him.

“Downtown, okay?” she said. “Can I borrow your truck, please?”

Another wave of cramps gripped her, and she flinched, pulling her blanket tighter around herself. Her father lingered in the doorway a moment before dropping his keys on her dresser.

“I can make you some tea,” he said. “It’s supposed to—your aunts, they’d drink it, you know, when—”

“You can just leave the keys,” she said.

—

THE DAY AFTER she was accepted into Michigan, Luke brought Nadia to the Wave Waterpark, where they rode inner tubes down the Slide Tower and the Flow Rider until they were soaked and tired. At first, she’d worried that he’d suggested a water park because he thought she was childish. But he had as much fun as she did, yelping as they splashed into pools, or dragging her to the next ride, water beads clinging to his chest, his wet sideburns glinting in the sun. After, they ate corn dogs and churros at the tables outside Rippity’s Rainforest, where kids too small for the slides padded in floaties. She licked cinnamon sugar off her fingers, sun-heavy and happy, the type of happiness that before might have felt ordinary, but now seemed fragile, like if she stood too quickly, it might slide off her shoulders and break.

She hadn’t expected a gift from Luke, not when her father had barely congratulated her. Look at that, he’d said when she showed him the e-mail, offering her a side hug. Then he’d passed her in the kitchen later that night, eyes glazing over her as if she were a once-interesting piece of furniture he’d since tired of. She tried not to take it personally—he wasn’t happy about anything these days—but she still teared up in the bathroom while brushing her teeth. The next morning, she awoke to a congratulations card on her nightstand with twenty dollars folded inside. I’m sorry, her father had written, I’m trying. Trying what? Trying to love her?

She stretched her legs across Luke’s lap and he kneaded the smooth skin near her ankles while he finished his corn dog. He’d never seen her like this before—hair wet and kinky, her face clean of makeup—but she felt pretty as he smiled at her across the table, touching her ankle, and she wondered if his gentle touch meant more, if he might even be in love with her a little bit. Before they left, she tried to take a picture of the two of them but Luke cupped his hand around her phone. He wanted to keep their relationship a secret.

“Not a secret,” he said. “Just private.”

“‘That’s the same thing,” she said.

“It’s not. I just think we should be low-key about this. That’s all.”

“Why?”

“I mean, the age thing.”

“I’m almost eighteen.”

“‘Almost’ ain’t eighteen.”

“I wouldn’t get you in trouble. Don’t you know that?”

“It’s not just that,” he said. “You don’t know how it is. You’re not a pastor’s kid. The whole church in my business all the time. They’ll be up in your business too. Let’s just be smart, that’s all I’m saying.”

Maybe there was a difference. You hid a secret relationship out of shame, but you might keep a relationship private for any number of reasons. All relationships, in some way, were private—why did anyone else need to know as long as you were happy? So she learned how to be private. She didn’t reach for his hand in public or post photos of them online. She even stopped going to Fat Charlie’s after school every day, in case one of his coworkers began to wonder about them. But after Luke had left her at the abortion clinic, she forgot about being private and drove her father’s truck to Fat Charlie’s. She knew he closed on Thursday nights, but when she arrived, she didn’t see him on the floor. At the bar, she waved down Pepe, a burly Mexican bartender with a graying ponytail. He glanced up from drying a glass with a brown rag.

“Go ahead and put that cheap-ass fake away,” he said. “You know I ain’t serving you.”

“Where’s Luke?” she asked.

“Hell if I know.”

“Doesn’t he get off soon?”