Be Not Far from Me(11)

“Get a grip, Hawkins,” I say, and go back to listing my assets.

Shirt. Bra. Jeans. Underwear.

That’s it. But I can work with that.

I turn my tee inside out, inspecting the seams of the sleeves. Most of my clothes have a few years’ wear on them, and this one is no different. It’s an old softball jersey from a co-ed summer team that I played on with Dad’s bar buddies. They put me on the roster as an alternate until a pregnancy and a breakup wiped some of the ladies off the list. I showed up with my bat and told them I played infield or I didn’t play.

They laughed in a good-natured way, told me of course I’d be in the dirt. They wouldn’t think of putting Vern’s daughter anywhere else. Dad had let his buddies give me a hard time, knowing I’d take care of it myself. So I turned a double play and ran down a tag on a guy who’d been staring at my ass from the other dugout, leaving him with no more catcalls in his mouth, just a bunch of grit in his teeth from where he dove for second. But I beat him there.

I wore this shirt two more seasons, until injuries, new babies, and at least one case of addiction left us with a sad lineup that couldn’t take a trophy in a seniors’ league. We faded out, but I kept the shirt, and now I’m eyeing a loose string I think I can get at with my teeth. It comes away easy enough, so I start picking with my fingers, careful not to break what’s already pulled free.

I get pretty far before I lose too much light. The storm’s rolling in and stealing hours of daylight, bringing in the dark before the sun is actually gone. I’ve got a length of loose thread about as long as my hand, and I might be able to get the sleeve off with a good yank. I’d be smarter to wait until morning, take the time to pull each tedious stitch so that I’d have a bandage for my toes and some string. But I can’t do that.

I can’t do that, because I’m Ashley Hawkins, and I have not accomplished a damn thing today except panic, cry some, and bleed all over myself in more places than one. That is not acceptable, and I will not sleep with no shirt on and nothing covering an open wound in my foot.

“Nope,” I reassert, yanking the sleeve free.

It comes off easier than I expected, and my hand hits the tree trunk hard enough to bring a sting that burns past the cold that’s soaked down to my bones. It’s like stubbing your toe, there’s a moment where it doesn’t quite hurt yet and then . . .

“Fuuuuucccccckkkkk,” I say, cradling my hand to my wet stomach and rocking over it like it’s a baby I’m trying to put to sleep.

But I got what I wanted.

I slip the sleeve over my injured foot, the name of our team—Designated Drinkers—facing up. It’s not much, but it’ll keep dirt out. I squeeze as much water as I can out of what’s left of my shirt and slip it on. It’s cold against my skin, and every inch of me shies away from it. But I’ve got nothing else, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop raining any time soon. I turn on my side, curl into a ball, and, amazingly, fall asleep.





Day Two




I wake up to pain.

My foot throbs with each push of my heart, which I can’t imagine means anything good. And I’m freezing. No. I correct myself, knowing that once I start using words like that I might have to learn a hard lesson about the difference between being cold and actually dying from it. That’s what freezing is. And I’m not dead.

“Nope,” I agree with myself.

A few winters ago we had what the TV weatherman called a polar vortex. It was so cold you had to bring your car battery indoors with you if you wanted to go anywhere in the morning, and you didn’t go outside unless it was worth maybe not coming back in. We didn’t have school for a week, and of course I’d managed to drop my phone in the toilet, so I was cut off from Meredith and Kavita and Duke sure as if I’d died anyway.

But my dad didn’t raise any pansies, so when the garbage can got full I figured it wasn’t so cold that a person couldn’t burn trash. Our cupboards were low, and we’d been eating tuna for two days, so the trash can had a funk about it that filled up the whole trailer. I was done with smelling it, done with staying inside, and done with people on TV telling me I couldn’t go outside. So I bundled up same as I would in any cold, grabbed some matches, and went out to the burn barrel.

The wind cut through my clothes like I might as well have been naked, and by the time I reached the barrel I knew I’d made a bad decision, but I was already out there and I wasn’t leaving a garbage bag with rotting tuna scraps in the yard. We might be poor, but we aren’t trash. The first match I tried to strike blew out. My fingers were already numb when I went for the second one, fumbling and stupid. I dropped it.

My legs were aching when I pulled the third, a steady thrum that had started at my feet and crawled to my knees, already stiff and locked against the wind. I realized too late what was happening and turned back to the trailer only to fall flat on my face into the snow. My legs were useless, dead sticks attached to a living body that wasn’t going to be that much longer if I didn’t figure some shit out, fast.

I managed to get back up, forcing my feet—so heavy, so awkward—to move by sheer willpower. I made it about ten yards before red filled my vision and I went down again, a little oof coming out of my mouth that blew up snow in a tiny blizzard in front of my face.