Be Not Far from Me(43)

We meet under the shadow of a spire, the sun breaking out for a moment to show me these people, a woman with a blond ponytail and a man with a red beard. I collapse in front of them, trying to find words to say everything that needs to be said, to explain the woods and the possum, the bag at my side that holds what’s left of my foot, Davey Beet’s bloody sock and how deeply my eyes are sunk into my head.

What I say is:

“My name is Ashley Hawkins, and I need help.”





Part Three


After I Was Found





The man calls 911 as the woman walks by my side, back to the truck, telling me to watch out for things like dips in the ground and the little mound where the extra stone got dumped in a pile when they were putting in the service road. Normally I might be amused at anyone being worried that some gravel might break me in half, but then again, I have no idea what I look like now. And to be honest, it might.

She keeps talking, and I realize that she’s waiting for me to say something more than my name, but I don’t know what else matters. Instead I sit in the grass near the truck, forearms resting on my knees. Then I see the license plate.

“Hey,” I interrupt the woman, who is digging in the truck for something. She turns around, a brown bag in her hand.

“Am I in Georgia or are you in Tennessee?”

Her eyebrows come together, and I know I need to try again, find better words for what I’m asking. It made sense to me in my head, and since I’m the only person I’ve been talking to for a while, I thought it would do the trick.

“Where am I?”

“Georgia,” she answers, handing me a water bottle. “We both are.”

“Huh,” I say, and try to twist the cap off. It won’t move. She reaches for it and cracks the seal, then hands it back to me.

“I got it started for you,” I tell her, and she laughs. It’s a wonderful sound, strong and full, without the edge mine has started to develop.

“So I walked right out of Tennessee?” I ask, taking a drink of water.

“If that’s where you started, then yes,” she says.

The water hits my stomach, and I flinch. I don’t want to puke in front of this woman, don’t want her to know that it doesn’t taste like real water because there’s no dirt trailing on my tongue, or an aftertaste of fish. Everything about it, from the clarity of the plastic to the ridged cap in my hand is off, and I feel an edge of panic when I realize I’m going to have to get into the truck eventually.

“What’s your name?” I ask the woman, taking another experimental sip.

“Tammy,” she says, and holds out her hand for me to shake. I do, noticing how thin my fingers are inside of hers, a scrape the shape of Florida across the top of my left hand, and the filth under my fingernails.

“What’s this?” Tammy asks, reaching out to touch Davey Beet’s hat. I shy away, dumping some of the water in my lap. I can stand to have someone touch me, but Davey’s stuff is another story and not one I’ll tell to just anybody.

“It’s a hat,” I say.

Tammy nods and slowly sits down next to me, propping her elbows on her legs like I do. I pull my blanket closer around me, covering my fireboard and whiskey bottle, like I’m afraid she might try to take them away.

“She’s from where?” the guy’s voice cuts across the space between us, the phone conversation clearly going places he hadn’t expected. Just like I did.

“Hungry?” Tammy asks, reaching into her lunch to pull out a bologna-and-cheese sandwich.

The truth is I’m not. I’m too far gone to consider being hungry. But the sight of the sandwich carefully tucked into a bag with a fold-over top makes me think of Meredith, and all the supposedly extra bologna-and-cheese sandwiches she’d brought to school for years, even though I knew damn well she hated bologna.

I start to cry.

The woman puts her arm around me, and I lean into her, smelling the clean scent of her shampoo and the simple warmth of her and how solid she is. I take a deep breath that feels like it’s scraping the back of my throat clear down to the spine, but it can’t go deep enough, can’t quite reach the place where everything that’s happened to me rests.

I’ve been trying to find words, and I thought I was failing because it’d been so long since I used them, but instead it’s because there aren’t any that’ll work. There’s just crying. Crying ’cause I’m happy to be safe, and terrified to see people again. Crying because even though I said my name when I came out of the woods, I don’t know if that’s who I am anymore. Crying because of Duke and Meredith and Kavita and my dad and how I’ll get to see them again, and crying for my momma and Davey Beet because the same isn’t true for them. There’s lots of reasons to cry, but I’ve got a mouth and it was made for more than just gasping for air in between sobs.

I stop crying.

And I eat.

The truck is going impossibly fast.

I made Tammy sit in the middle, next to Paul—who keeps saying, “Tennessee!” over and over again like it’s a new state or something. I needed to be near the window, and even though it’s still raining I’ve rolled it down, letting the drops hit my face as we speed toward where the squad is going to meet us once we get down out of the hills and off the service roads. I glance over Tammy’s legs at the speedometer, shocked to see it’s barely touching forty.