by Huss, JA
“Yeah,” Ash says softly. “Me. I feel the need for gas station food. Can you wait a few more minutes while I finish up? Then I’ll put her back in her seat and we can go.”
“Yeah, sure.” All I really want to do is get the fuck out of here, but babies have to take priority over my guilt, so I busy myself looking for music on my phone. “What bands do you like? I have no radio but I can make this hunk of shit play Spotify.”
Ashleigh laughs. “You have a cassette player, Ford.”
I reach over and open the glove box and pull out one of those contraptions you stick in the cassette deck so you can hook modern shit up to an old-ass car. “I’m an Eagle Scout, remember? I’m always prepared.”
“Play something soft then. So she’ll fall asleep.” Soft. I do a quick search on my phone and come up with a playlist of classical music for babies. When it starts playing Brahms’ Lullaby Ashleigh lets out a little sigh. “That’s perfect.”
“Yeah. It sorta is.” I turn around and look at the baby. She’s pink and a little bit sweaty in all her clothes and blankets. Her hair is very dark, like Ashleigh’s, and I know her eyes are dark and not blue because I’ve seen them, but they are closed now as she suckles for a few seconds, then stops and just when I think she’s really asleep, she suckles again. “What’s her name? You never told me her name.”
“You never asked,” Ash says as she peeks up at me through her hair.
“I’m a dick, I know.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll cut you some slack because I get the feeling you’re used to being on your own. Her name is Katelynn, like the two names put together and not the trendy spelling. But I call her Kate. Like the Duchess.”
“Kate,” I say as I turn back to pick out my dad’s headstone in the small sea of markers popping up from the snow. “It’s perfect. Very classic.”
“Like the music,” Ashleigh replies.
“Yeah,” I say, looking back at Ash. She’s got her eyes closed now—the baby’s pushing her sleep button. I laugh a little at that and she opens her eyes for a moment, then they get heavy and drop again. “You want me to go? Or you need to put her back in the seat?”
“No,” she says with her eyes still closed. “I’ll put her back.” And then she gently removes the baby from her breast and whispers soft things in her ear so she’ll stay asleep when Ashleigh buckles her up. She climbs over the console, resting her hand on my shoulder for support, and plops down in the passenger seat. “Sorry, I forgot I can’t touch you. It won’t happen again.”
I squint my eyes at that remark, wondering if it was a dig, but she just busies herself with her seatbelt and ignores me.
“OK, I hope you’re happy. We’re officially an hour behind schedule.”
“Are we on a schedule?”
I look over at her as I start the engine. “Are you on a schedule?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I have meetings every day this week, but fuck it. I missed today and I’ll miss the rest most likely. But I’m not worried about it so we’ll just do our thing and we’ll get there when we get there.”
Ashleigh smiles at me. “Sounds good to me.” She turns her head to the window and tucks her legs up near her chest, like she’s trying to curl up into a ball. And before I can get back onto the highway that will take us back to I-70, she’s asleep.
I have to admit, I might like Ashleigh. She’s assertive with me, and she was pretty pissed off this morning, but she’s not a grudge-holder. She might be the opposite of me, actually. She’s almost easy-going. And that’s something considering how much stress she’s probably under. She’s small. She can’t be any more than five foot two. And she’s very blunt. She doesn’t offer much, but every time I’ve asked, she’s given me more than I’d give her. And she’s not pushy. She did try to insist I come out here to the cemetery, but I doubt she’d have been mad for long if I refused. And whenever she gets the back-off vibe from me, she does exactly that. She gives me space. It almost makes me want her more when she pulls away like that.
So what is she? She might be a Complier. With conditions. Because she’s kind of a Fighter too. But not a Grudge-holder. And she likes me, that I know for sure. She would not travel across four states with her infant baby if she didn’t at least like me. And she’s a Mother. I’m sorta digging that part of her. How she talks to the baby in that low whisper and the way she falls asleep when she’s nursing. I like it.
Plus she keeps my mind off Rook.
And maybe it’s wrong to use her like that, but I’m having a hard time feeling bad about it right now.
Chapter Twenty-One
The girls sleep all the way to Grand Junction. I almost want to wake Ashleigh so she can see the drive because it’s really breathtaking, but I guess if she was interested in it, she’d try to stay awake.
“I can’t believe you’re still listening to this music, Ford,” she says as she tries to pull herself out of her slumber in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
“I barely noticed it. My mother played this kind of stuff for me all growing up. Said it was calming.” I look over at her and I can tell she likes it when I talk about personal things because her mouth forms this half-smile and her eyes open a little wider. “And it is. Put the two of you to sleep.”
She stares are me with that half-smile for a moment longer, probably waiting to see if I’ll elaborate. Then decides I won’t and sits up straight. “You were messing with me earlier, right? About never being in a Wal-Mart before?”
“I grew up in Denver, Ash. Not Beverly Hills. We shopped at the Wal-Mart every week.”
“Well, sometimes you’re so serious, it’s hard to tell when you’re joking. What are we getting, anyway? Snacks or something?”
“Yes, and baby things. I’m sick of looking at her stupid footied sleepers.” I open my door and get out and Ashleigh does the same, then unbuckles and grabs the carrier from the back seat. “And what’s the deal with that thing anyway? It’s such a pain in the ass to buckle that seat in every time we get back in the truck.”
“I have two at home, but I only brought one.”
She blows out a long breath of air and looks up at the sky as we walk towards the store entrance together. It’s snowing a little but it looks like the storm’s coming from the southeast this time, which means it’ll swirl around once the tail end hits the mountains and head east again, so we should be fine heading west. “Were you in a hurry when you left?” We grab a cart and she puts the carrier in the back this time.
“Sorta.”
And that’s all I get. Just sorta.
She heads over to the baby clothes, doing her best to ignore me.
“Are people missing you? I mean, you have family, right?”
“What’s with all the questions? I’m not prying into your personal problems.” She sorts through some baby clothes and then gravitates to the footied sleeper and starts flipping through the rack.
I look at the stuff nearest me. Car seats. “We should get another car seat. Then we won’t need to keep taking this one in and out.”
She stops looking through the clothes and stares at me.
“What?”
“What’s with this we stuff all of a sudden?”
Her words are like a slap. “Just thought you could use another one to make life easier, Ashleigh. Believe me, I’m not about to start playing daddy to your kid. So relax.”
She throws some sleepers in the cart and I grab a few other articles of clothing the same size that do not have built-in socks, and follow her over to the diapers. She puts two large packages on the bottom of the cart, and then wheels us into the next aisle where she grabs a few small toys, a bib, and some baby wipes. There is like a shitload of crap you can buy for babies and if I was the one shopping, I’d be stuck in this aisle forever trying to decide what to get.
“OK, I’m done,” she says in a curt manner.
“Are you mad?”
“No, I’m just done.” She turns the cart and begins walking up t
owards the front to check out.
“Done with me apparently.”
I get silence. And she stays that way as we check out. I grab a handful of snacks and drinks in the line, then pay for everything and we head out to the truck.
“I’ll pay you back for all this stuff, Ford. But thanks for taking care of it right now.”
“Do you have money?”
“Not on me, which is why I’ll have to pay you back.”
“Do you normally have money?”
“Wow, that was rude. Of course I have money. Do I look like some sort of homeless trash? I’m not, OK? I just needed to figure some stuff out and I couldn’t do it from home.”
“Where’s home? Texas?”
“No, I said I came from Texas. And I did. Because I had to see someone there before I could go to LA.”
“To see your ex?” I say as I unlock the truck and start piling things in.
“Just stop.” She grabs my arm and waits for me to turn and look at her. “Stop prying. I’m not talking about it. You have your problems and I have mine. Let’s just leave it at that.”
She puts the baby in the back and I get in and wait for her to finish. It’s snowing a little more now. “Hurry, we need to move west quick before this storm catches up with us and we get stuck somewhere else.”
She climbs in the backseat and closes the door. “I’m gonna sit back here in case she wakes up and needs to nurse.”
“We’ll have to pull over for that anyway, though, right? So why sit in back?” She doesn’t answer but I don’t need one either. She’s avoiding me. “I’ll try and drive through to Vegas, then we can stop there and rest.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I get back on the freeway but I was right. We just need to pull over a half hour later so she can nurse when the baby wakes up. There’s nothing out here in the way of services, but there’s a turn-out near the sign that says Welcome to Utah. I mess with the music playlist on my phone and try to pretend that her ignoring me isn’t an issue. But it is.
“You know,” I say once she’s settled with the feeding, “I’m not sure why you’re mad at me, but it’s childish. All I did was ask a question about who might be missing you. Believe me, Ashleigh, I’m not into prying into the personal lives of others. So you can stop worrying that I give a shit. OK? I don’t. It was fucking small talk.” I flip through Spotify on my phone and look for some music. “Who do you like to listen to? I’ll put something on so we don’t have to sit in silence.”
“Here,” she says with her hand out. “I’ll find something.”
I unplug the phone from the wires that connect it to the cassette player and hand it back to her. “Then will you get in the front with me again? I cross my heart, I won’t be interested in you at all.”
She grunts a little at that but doesn’t say anything. Her expression is almost sad as she looks through the music. Her fingers fly around the touch screen and then she hands it back. “There, that’s a good playlist.”
I plug it back in and look over her selection as the music starts. “The Naked and Famous. Never heard of them.”
“I’m not sure you count, Ford. No offense, but you’re sorta on the outskirts of fringe as far as pop culture goes.”
“Why would I possibly be offended?” I turn back in my seat and just look outside. “We’ve wasted the whole fucking day. It’s almost dark now.” She’s still in a mood so I get the silent treatment as the music plays. “This stuff is sorta sad, don’t you think?”
More silence. More sad music. More baby slurping noses. More darkness creeps in as the sun sets to the west. I’m about to lose my mind and insist that she come up front when I hear the sniffling. Like she’s trying to cover up sobs.
Fucking girls.
I wait it out and then the baby cries a little as she’s put back into the seat and I let out a long sigh of relief when the back door opens.
“Come to your senses?” But when I turn to watch her get in the front with me all I see is her back, walking off into the wilds of fucking Utah. I lower the window on the passenger side and yell, “Ashleigh! What the fuck are you doing?”
The baby does not care for my screaming one bit and decides she’s having none of it. I lean back and rock her seat a little. “Shhhh,” I tell her, like I’ve seen Ash do it. That fucking girl. What the hell is going on?
I turn the music off and start the engine. Ash has stopped walking away, and that’s a good sign, but she’s on her knees now, like she can’t take it anymore. I put the truck in four-wheel drive and plow down the small embankment, then drive slowly out towards Ashleigh. I keep the engine running and turn the heat on a little higher since the sun’s about to set and that means a sudden drop in temperature up here at this altitude.
I check Kate real fast, but she’s got her eyes closed, so I get out and close the door quietly. I walk a few paces towards Ashleigh and stop. “You OK?”
Dumb question. Obviously, she is not OK.
I walk a few more paces and shove my freezing hands into my pockets. Ash is only wearing one of my zippered hoodies—her winter coat was discarded when she started nursing. She’s got to be fucking cold. I cross the distance between us and I can hear small muffled sobs.
“Ash,” I say when I get directly behind her. “Come on, it’s cold out here. We can talk about it in the truck if you want.”
“I don’t,” she snaps. “I do not want to talk about it.” And then a full-fledged sob erupts and she bends over at the waist and presses her head to the frozen ground as she cries.
Fuck. I have no idea what to do.
“Ashleigh, get up. We don’t have time for this.”
She shakes her head and sobs harder.
I kneel down behind her and pull her up off the ground. “You’re freezing.” I wrap my arms around her upper body and pull her against my chest. She’s trying very hard to stop crying because she’s holding her breath, but that just makes it worse because her sobs escape eventually, only now she’s on the verge of hyperventilating. I can’t ask her what’s the matter because she’s not interested in talking about it. And she’s clearly not ready to get up off the ground.
So now what?
My mind races for an answer as her cries become more and more desperate-sounding. She is in full-on life-sucks mode.
“Ashleigh, I don’t know what to do for you. Just get in the truck with me.”
She shakes her head. “It can’t be fixed, Ford. Nothing will ever be better again.”
I guess she’s talking about her ex, but fuck, I have zero information on this girl beyond the fact that she’s not anywhere close to home and she’s got nothing but a baby going for her right now.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you. You’ve told me nothing. Is it bad?” I get a nod this time. That’s something. “The kind of bad that just makes you want to move away and never talk to anyone again?”
She’s silent for a moment, then she lifts her head a little. “No, Ford. The kind of bad that makes you want to curl up and die.”
I’m not an emotional guy. I mean, I get what she’s saying, but even after my dad died, I never wanted to like, kill myself or anything. I have a strong sense of self-preservation. And I suppose that’s why I don’t always put others first. I don’t really know how to put others first, but I’m good at manipulating people, so I figure I need to distract her. Take her mind off her fucked-up life and redirect her somewhere else.
“I have never been to that place, Ashleigh. But I have had my share of fucked-up times. A couple years ago I tried to fall off the face of the Earth and lose myself in work that took me as far away from Colorado as I could get. But the shit always catches up with you. In my case I lost a girl I liked, she died of an overdose. I almost got in a lot of trouble for something I did with some friends of mine, and then my dad…” She leans into me a little as soon as that word leaves my mouth. “My dad was killed in a…” I laugh for a second. “I was gonna lie and say a terrible acci
dent, but it wasn’t an accident and everyone knows it.”
“What happened?” she asks, turning a little so she can try and look at me.
Mission accomplished. I should just get her in the truck right now and stop this conversation before it starts.
But the trip to the cemetery has opened up something inside of me. Something that says I made a lot of mistakes after my dad’s death and it’s time to get over it. “Stay still now. I’m trying to keep you warm since you insist on falling to pieces outside in the dead of winter.” She doesn’t stay still, in fact she turns all the way around and presses her face to my chest. I unzip my jacket and try and wrap it around her as best I can. Her arms reach under my coat and circle my waist. Her hands are cold, but it makes me feel warm.
And then, before I even have time to reconsider… that shit just comes pouring out.
“I loved skiing. Fucking loved it. It’s like, fuck. That sport consumed me. Every weekend in the winter I was in Vail skiing. When I bought this Bronco in tenth grade, I’d ditch school early on Friday so I could get in some afternoon runs. My parents never really cared about that, they encouraged me in pretty much everything I did. And my dad and I, we were so much alike. I was definitely less socially astute—he had a ton of friends and I’ve never had any, not really. Just Ronin and Spencer, the guys I keep calling back in Denver. But most of it was business and that was college.
“But my dad and I were like brothers born a generation apart. He was smart, not freaky smart like me, but just so intelligent. And he was good at all the stuff I liked to do. Skiing, running… all of it. So one day we were gonna hit the slopes in Vail. But I needed some new gear and we always get it from a shop in Copper. A friend of the family owns it. My dad and I went in there to get me some poles and I bumped into a couple of guys I knew from competition days back in high school. And they were gonna ski some backcountry nearby, just up Loveland Pass.”