Lineage(12)

“Okay, we’re going outside and getting in the car. You’re going to be a big boy tonight and steer the car for a minute while Mom pushes, okay?” Lance nodded, his eyes wide. He marveled at the change in his mother. The day before she had been the same withdrawn ghost she normally was. She had been devoid of life and hope, just biding time until the next bout of pain was delivered. The woman he looked upon now had a plan. There was purpose in her words and how she moved. It was as if a new life force had been born in his mother overnight. For lack of better words, she seemed alive.

“Okay,” she said, and opened the outside door. Lance winced as he waited for the sound of the old hinges to shriek in protest as they always did when someone entered or exited the little house. Instead, there was silence, and he noticed the bottle of WD-40 sitting on the floor near the closet.

The night was sharp with the cold bite of brisk wind and the clarity of the fall sky. The three-quarters moon shone down on them as they hurried across the rough gravel drive, which sloped away from the house, splitting the wide fields like a brown river, and out onto the paved county road a quarter mile away. Dead leaves danced and skittered across the drive, and Lance looked nervously over at his father’s 1970 Chevy pickup, the smashed right headlight black like a pierced eye that stared blankly ahead. He wondered if his mother had done something, before she woke him, to disable the vehicle to try to slow his father if he woke and tried to follow them.

Without any more thought about the strategy of their getaway, Lance did exactly as he had been told and went without pause to the driver’s-side door. He had never sat in the driver’s position, much less steered a vehicle. He opened the door and pulled himself into the seat. His mother placed the two suitcases behind him without a sound and leaned on the rear door until it latched. She then came to his side and reached across his slight form to place the keys in the ignition. After turning them only one click, she pulled the shift lever down so that the arrow on the dashboard pointed to the dark letter N.

“It’s going to be hard steering, okay? Just keep it in the middle of the driveway and we’ll be fine.” She stared deeply into her son’s frightened eyes, and tears welled up in her own. He was scared now. After all this time living in a nightmare and putting up with her cowardice, now was when his courage finally crumbled. She knelt there for a moment and hated herself all the more, before smiling tightly and pushing the door shut.

Lance turned his head over his shoulder and watched her walk to the back of the car. A moment later the vehicle started to move, slowly at first, and then quicker as it began to descend down the hill that led away from their house. Lance pulled the wheel back and forth as the car rolled, struggling to keep the nose of the vehicle in the middle of the driveway. Soon the car was traveling on its own volition, and he looked to the rear, expecting his mother to have fallen behind drastically. When the door was pulled open next to him, he started and the car swerved as it coasted.

His mother was there, jogging lightly as she held on to the frame of the car. “Move over, baby.”

Lance scooted over into the passenger seat as he tried to maintain a grip on the steering wheel. Molly jumped into the car and slammed the door shut.

“I’ve got it honey,” she said as she grasped the wheel and pushed Lance’s hand off, nearly having to peel his fingers away. She twisted the key in the ignition, and Lance heard the small engine hum to life. His mother pulled the lever down one more notch, and the transmission grabbed gears and propelled them forward. Molly kept the engine at a near idle, and they rolled gradually up to the line where their own dirt drive turned into the compacted tar of the county road.

Molly gunned the car and turned right onto the smooth surface, sending rocks and sand spraying behind them before the tires finally caught and held. As she accelerated down the highway, Lance heard another long breath escape the thin figure beside him. He looked over at her then, her face lit in the iridescent glow of the dashboard. Her eyes searched the rearview mirror every few seconds, as though she expected her husband to abruptly sit up from the back seat and grab her roughly by the throat. The image made Lance shiver, and he turned his attention back to the straight county road ahead of them, which was being eaten up by the tires of their small car.

Molly glanced down at the speedometer and reluctantly pulled her foot off the gas, watching the needle fall back below seventy. She searched the mirror to her left, then up, then to the right, all the while looking for any sign of pursuit. When she was satisfied that they were alone on the dark road, she looked over to her son slouched in the seat next to her. She reached out and laid a soft hand on his shoulder. Lance looked over at her, his eyes glowing briefly like an animal’s in a headlight.