Run(41)

“I dunno,” I say. “Guess it’s just easier to fight for people I love.”

“Do … do you love your mama?”

I’m surprised by her asking, and I think she is, too. Because she immediately starts talking again.

“Sorry. That’s an awful thing to ask. Of course you do. I just—”

“I … love her when she’s sober,” I say. “Lately that’s not real often, but … she’s not always so bad.”

Every so often, Mama would stay clean for a week. Maybe two, if I was lucky. And things would start out good. She’d offer to take me and Colt to the movies in the next town, even though we barely had the money to pay for electricity. She’d start a new job at the grocery store or doing telemarketing, and she’d come home all happy and excited about it. She’d even cook and ask me to help, the way Daddy used to, and we’d sit on the sofa together, watching our old black-and-white TV with the bad reception.

And for a day or two … or three, we’d be a real mother and daughter.

I loved that side of Mama.

But when she was using, when she called me a slut or asked my best friend for money, she got a little harder to love.

“Well,” Agnes says, “thank you. No one’s ever really fought for me before. Except Mama, I guess.”

“Your mama’s gotten into a fight?”

Agnes chuckles. “Not like that. Not with fists or anything. You know … like if the school isn’t helping me with the stuff I need or if some restaurant don’t have a braille menu—that’s when she fights.”

“Do you miss her?”

I hate myself for asking, because I ain’t sure what I want the answer to be.

Agnes thinks for a while. “Yeah. I do. This is the longest I’ve been away from her or Daddy. So it’s just kind of strange, you know? To be away from them. Even if it is what I wanted—what I still want.”

I don’t say anything to that.

For a minute, the only sounds are the cicadas and the soft hoot of an owl overhead.

“Hey,” Agnes says. “You brought that book of poetry, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you read one?”

I almost laugh. “It’s not bright enough to read.”

“Really?” She sounds surprised. “Wow. I guess sometimes I’m still confused by how much y’all sighted people can see. Maybe just as confused as y’all are about how much I see. So moonlight’s not enough to read by?”

“Maybe if it’s full moon. And a clear night. But usually not.”

“I guess I learn something new every day.”

We both laugh, then Agnes yawns.

“Probably for the best. We ought to get some sleep.”

“Yeah. All right.”

“Good night, Bo.”

“Night.”

But while Agnes starts snoring within a couple minutes, it takes me a while to fall asleep. It ain’t my first time sleeping in a car, but it never gets easier. Not because it’s uncomfortable—I can handle that—but because it’s too quiet.

I ain’t gone a night sleeping without the TV turned on in years. I think I started keeping it on after Daddy left. The voices, even turned down low, just made me feel safer. Less alone.

But now there’s no TV. Just Agnes’s snoring and some crickets chirping, and it ain’t enough to help me sleep.

I think of turning on the car, playing the radio, but it’d kill the battery. So I just have to lie here, in the quiet, trying to ignore that familiar ache of loneliness and the guilty voices in my head.





We had our first fight on New Year’s Eve.

It was only a couple days before Colt would be moving out of Mursey and starting his new job, so Bo had suggested the three of us go to Tanner Oakley’s party. The only trouble was, there was no way Mama would agree to me staying out until after midnight. Not at a party. Not anywhere.

I’d pretty much written off the idea until the Thursday night before, when Daddy had asked, “So, honey. I know y’all have had your differences lately, but are you staying at Christy’s for New Year’s? It’s sort of your tradition, right?”

“Uh, no, I …” But then it hit me. If my parents thought I was staying at Christy’s, I’d be able to stay out all night without worrying about a curfew or anything. So I cleared my throat. “I mean, yeah. We worked things out. I, uh … I think she’s volunteering at the church that day, so if you could just drop me off there, I’ll leave with her.”

“No problem,” Mama said. “I’m glad you two worked it out.”

“Me too.”

Good old Christy—doing me more favors now than in the ten years we’d been best friends.

Bo and Colt picked me up at the church, then we headed over to Tanner’s. The plan was for us to ring in the New Year there before heading back to Colt’s place. We were gonna have popcorn and watch movies and stay up all night.

Unfortunately, things went downhill before we got to any of that.

It was close to midnight, and Colt and Bo had stayed sober. Colt was the designated driver, but Bo, I realized, never seemed to drink. Me, on the other hand, I’d had a couple already. And while I wasn’t quite drunk, I think the combination of alcohol and me being sadder than I expected about Colt moving away was partly to blame for some of what got said that night.