Sadie(40)

Yes. Please.


WEST McCRAY [PHONE]:

Okay, then that’s what we’ll do.





sadie

Greetings from Sunny L.A.! Wish you were here!

I’m parked on the shoulder, almost clear of Montgomery.

I just needed to stop a minute.

I stare at the postcard, palm trees lining its front.

I turn it over slowly.

Be my good girl, Mats.

The night before Mom left, I was sleeping on the couch. I can’t remember why I wasn’t in my bed, but I wasn’t, and I couldn’t have been waiting up for her because I never did. I was just there, stretched out all wrong, my feet hanging over the arm, my head sunk in the middle of the cushions. She’d been out with one of those men she liked to keep in her back pocket, the kind she could get a drink or a dime from, but didn’t necessarily have to bring home. I woke up to the feel of her fingers lightly petting my hair and I felt so small, like I never did, like I imagine Mattie must have often felt having always been Mom’s favorite.

She reached for the remote and turned the TV on low, going through the channels until she finally gave up. She bent her head close to mine and twisted a strand of my hair around her finger, tucking it absently behind my ear. I remember my muscles tensing at her touch, giving me away, and being so afraid she would stop because of it. She didn’t; we continued the charade. Me, pretending to sleep. Her hands against my forehead, then the soothing carefulness of her fingers combing through my hair. We stayed like that for … it must have been an hour, maybe a little less.

I thought, this is what it feels like to be a daughter.

I thought, God, no wonder Mattie loves Mom.

Then she brought her face close to mine and whispered, “I made you,” in my ear.

That’s when I realized she was sober. My mother wasted was the default. Her sobriety was like a punch in the stomach in the rare event I witnessed it. I wanted her sober all the time, even if she didn’t like me better for it. We stayed like that until I fell asleep for real and in the morning she was gone and I knew. I knew it was forever and I knew there was no way I could explain it to Mattie. She almost didn’t survive it.

But then this … I trace the edges of the postcard.

Just delayed the inevitable.

I was sixteen. I dropped out of high school, which was a lot less complicated than I thought it would be. I remember standing outside of Parkdale, waiting for someone to stop me, to tell me I was throwing my future away, but I didn’t live in a place that possessed that kind of imagination. For some people, the future ahead is opportunity. For others, it’s only time you haven’t met and where I lived, it was only time. You don’t waste your breath trying to protect it. You just try to survive it until one day, you don’t.

I rest my head against the seat and breathe. I slip out of my shirt and the air turns my skin to gooseflesh. The front of my shirt looks like a crime scene. I grab a bottle of water from my bag and wet the clean back of the shirt. I use it to wipe off my face, my beat-up elbows. I go through my things again, grab the cleanest shirt I can find and put it on. I shove the bloodstained one under the backseat so I don’t have to look at it and check my face in the mirror. The scrape on my chin looks ugly. My nose is swollen, achy and tender to the touch. I don’t know if it’s broken. I don’t know what I’d do if it was.

At least I have somewhere new to go, so it wasn’t for nothing. I drag my hand across my face and it fucking hurts, and it feels … heavy. I’m so tired. I need to really stop. I need to get farther away before I think about doing that. I lean forward, peering out the windshield. The sky has gone gray, a thunderstorm on the horizon. It’s already raining by the time I pull away from the shoulder. I watch the road disappear under the car. I feel like I’m teetering on some kind of edge I can’t see over.

451 Twining Street. Langford.

If I had a phone, I could figure out where the fuck that is and how far away. Next town … next town I’ll find another library. I glance at the gas gauge. Half empty. My eyes close. No. I rub them open, blinking against the flare of oncoming headlights.

Javi. I make myself think of him because thinking of him makes my blood burn hot enough to wake me up a little. I was weak about Javi, too desperate for a taste of some other life. Too hungry and too tired to think it through clearly. I tried, I tell myself. At least I tried. As if it counts for anything when Silas Baker is still out there, still alive. Fuck you, Javi. I squeeze my eyes shut briefly and what I found in that house— My knife against Silas Baker’s abdomen.

I tried.

What good is trying when you fail.

I push it all from my mind and ease the car to a stop because there’s a red light in front of me. I stare at it, watch as it blurs around the edges before turning green. A moment later, I finally pass the YOU ARE NOW LEAVING MONTGOMERY sign.

It rains harder and the rain turns the world into a gloomy watercolor. Every so often, sheet lightning flashes across the sky. It’s just the start of the weather, I can feel it. There’s an electricity in the air and it’s making my skin hum, tells me it’s going to get worse. The highway stretches endlessly nowhere, but then—a shape of someone on the side of the road. I squint past the rain. They have their thumb out. I didn’t know people still did that. I slow as I pass, so I can get a look at them. It’s hard to see clearly but …