“I make up my own songs, from movies and TV.”
“What about your mom?”
“I don’t know. Sleepy music? Lovey music? She also likes to listen to annoying people reading stories on CDs. Audio books, she calls them. Yuck!” He stuck his tongue out.
“Okay, well, let’s pick three that look interesting by their names. Here is a quarter. Put it in there.”
Will plopped the quarter in the thin slot. It was like the games at the bowling alley. He didn’t know what any of the songs meant. They all sounded like lovey songs. He of course could read them all—Mom said he was a reading champ and that he was all set for fourth grade—but they were all silly phrases. He picked one that had unusual words.
“ ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ Good choice,” Reid said, patting him on the back.
Will selected two more songs. One for Mom. One weather one. He hoped the one he chose for Mom would make her smile. She hardly smiled anymore. He missed her happy faces and goofy stories and tight squeezes. Reid made her smile though.
After memorizing all the control buttons on the jukebox, he wandered around the pizza shop. His stomach growled from the yumminess. There was a map of Italy on one wall, surrounded by lots of framed black and white photos of people. The photos seemed old, like from many years ago.
Checkered black and white tiles also covered the floor. He counted the black ones.
He paused at fifty-six and returned to the jukebox.
Tiny gears spun in a six-inch by three-inch window, his guess without a ruler. He presumed that’s where the records used to be. He watched each one twirl as the song—that had begun quietly and then got noisy—bad choice!—continued. It was a bad rhapsody.
He returned to counting the tiles. He finished at one hundred twelve because he couldn’t count all the tiles under the tables and booths, and behind the counter. He ran a finger along the textured wall and stopped at the counter. There was a four-inch figurine of a fat guy in an apron wearing a chef’s hat. A cactus shaped like a pickle sat in a flat round pot next to the fat guy. He dug a finger in the pebbles of the cactus pot.
“Will!” Mom said from a booth behind him. “Stop that, please.”
He continued touching the pebbles.
“Like rocks, do you?” the man behind the counter said.
“Some. Only the cool ones. My brother Finn loves all rocks. He likes to dig holes in our yard looking for gemstones like topaz or ruby. These aren’t rocks. They’re pebbles.”
The man smelled like garlic. It was stinky but not as gross as mom’s coffee breath. “Ruby?”
Will shrugged and took seven of the pebbles out, lining them up from largest to smallest. “Well, he thinks they’re rubies. I know they’re not. Mom tells me to agree because it makes him happy.”
He moved the pebbles around to equally space them. The largest one was the most interesting. It was marbled brown and white, while the others were all solid black or brown.
“Those look nice all lined up. That big one there came from a quarry nearby. Do you want to take it with you?”
Will shrugged and looked at the fat guy. “This guy is funny.” He tapped the figurine. “He has a fat belly!”
“Hey, that’s my Grandpa Vito!”
Will glanced fleetingly at the man, his gaze passing from the man’s wide nose to the large brown hairy mole on his upper cheek. He passed a quicker glance at the man’s dark brown eyes, which had green flecks in them, and then focused again on the pebbles.
The man said, “Just kidding.”
“I know. This guy is pretend. Aren’t you scared, mister?”
The man’s eyebrows knitted together, making them look like a long caterpillar. “Scared?”
“About the eruption. We already saw ash-rain! Have you had any yet?”
“Not yet.”
“You will. It’s coming. We saw the clouds.”
The man cleared his throat.
Will continued, “I saw lots of people packing their cars, like ours. All the shops here—their lights are off and Closed signs are on doors. We had to wait thirty-two minutes again today to get gas, and nobody lets you use their bathrooms…sewers and pipes are all messed up from the ash rainstorms. Why are you open? Aren’t you scared?”
“Nope. Plus people need to eat, so I’ll keep making pizza until I can’t. And I’ve got an outhouse out back if you need one. Our bathrooms and water aren’t working well either. I might have to close up tomorrow.”
“You should be worried. It was a supervolcano. They don’t think the entire magma chamber erupted—that would be catastrophic—but enough did. Haven’t you been watching the news, mister? A lot of the ash cloud went west, though. You should watch the news.”
“I try not to.”
“Will!” his mom called from the booth.
He kept going. “There’ve been eleven VEI 8 eruptions…those are the largest…so far. Three of them in the Yellowstone hotspot. This one would be the fourth, but it wasn’t a super-eruption, so I guess not. Scientists are still figuring it out. My guess is VEI 7, way bigger than Mount St. Helens. Crater Lake—we visited it on vacation—was a VEI 7.”
“Then that’s good news,” the man said, smiling, his teeth large, crooked, and pale yellow.
“Well, not really. Lots of dead people, mister. And dead animals and crops and ash everywhere. It’s going to take them a long time to clean it all. The climate is going to change, and El Niño is coming.”
“You know a lot about all this.”
He nodded. “My brother would like that rock.”
“You can have it.”
Will then returned to the map of Italy on the wall. Italy had a lot of volcanoes which this map didn’t show. It only showed Etna and Vesuvius. He recalled that Italy had like nine or ten. He needed to confirm that in his book in the car. He stood in the booth beside the wall to enable him to trace Italy’s border, which was shaped like a boot. He drew his finger halfway up the coastline of Italy, making volcano sounds.
When Vesuvius had erupted in 79 A.D., eleven thousand people in Pompeii were buried alive under ten feet of ash. That one wasn’t a supervolcano, only a VEI 6.
****
“He likes to do recon?” Reid said to me as Will fluttered around the room.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I call it,” I said, sipping a grape soda while “Bohemian Rhapsody” played on the juke. The soda was sweet and bubbly and divine. I hardly ever drank it now, but whenever I did, I thought of Harrison’s addiction to soda. I had always told him the aspartame or saccharin in the diet cola would kill him. I said a lot of stupid things back then.
“Assessing his situation. Smart kid.”
“Overloaded kid,” I responded, with a peek out the window to my parked and locked car. “He does it to feel safe and familiarize himself with an area. Kids on the spectrum are more sensory than us. They need to take it all in, memorize it, and feel safe for the next time.” I paused, sipped. “Here I go explaining him again. Sorry. It’s a habit I need to break. You know that stuff already, from working with your sister, right?”
“Yeah. Will’s an exceptional kid.”
“It’s just Will being himself.”
Even as the words came, I felt burning stares of reproach. Two older women sat a few booths away from us, and one was giving me the most disapproving look. I scowled at them and returned to sipping the sugary heaven of my soda.
Without turning around, Reid said, “Don’t let those fuddy-duddies bother you. They have their own issues. He’s not bothering anyone.”
“Yeah.”
As much as I wanted to prevent it, the twang of embarrassment and hurt slivered my heart while the women continued with their critical looks. Let it slide off like butter, Siobhan used to tell me. She did say that her shit-tolerance factor had changed greatly once she reached her fourth decade. Perhaps when I turned forty, I wouldn’t give a shit anymore. I found my thoughts falling on her. She lived in South Carolina now. I hardly ever
saw or spoke with her these days. Or any friends for that matter. I really missed them. Mental note: call her when we get home. If we get home?
Reid sipped his root beer. “Ah, delish, right?”
“Yup. When the world goes to hell, we drink soda.”
I looked outside at the car.
It wasn’t my fear of the car being stolen that had me nervously looking outside. Locked, barred, and shuttered windows lined Main Street. Stacks of luggage covered car roofs and spilled from the trunks of the remaining cars. Most people were gone. Or were leaving. Had they been evacuated? I didn’t think to ask the pizza shop manager.
The man happily chatted away with Will at the counter.
“Will!” I called, seeing as another customer was waiting behind him. The owner gave me a friendly smile and wave of nonchalance.
Well, this fella wasn’t going anywhere yet. Either he was optimistic that the ash cloud wouldn’t fall upon Kansas, or he was like those people who waited out a hurricane with planks covering their windows, ignoring the winds that bellowed around them.
Distant thunder cracked. This pizza needed to hurry.
Reid whispered, “We’ll leave soon.”
I tapped nervously on the table.
“I’m sorry about Wichita.”
“Yeah. Will was right about the clouds moving.” I suppressed my dark thoughts. When I’d ordered the pizza, the owner had confirmed Will’s suspicions. Reid had also inquired when we stopped for gas. Both said the same thing: Wichita was a no-go zone and that cloud was moving east. Great call on Will’s part.
Reid shifted in his seat. “AJ, are you okay? I mean, after…what happened?”
Staring at the ominous overcast sky and the vacating town didn’t help me. “You mean with those—those…,” I began, unable to say their names. “Those two assholes who tried to take my car?” I finished. I let my gaze fall on the consolation of Reid’s brown irises.
“Yeah. My behavior…,” he said, but stopped. He rubbed his chin. “I know what you must be thinking.”
I sipped soda. “It was justified.”
Silence.
“And I needed your help,” I admitted.
“What I did, though,” he said, quietly, regret-filled. He released another sigh.
The crunches and thuds and the old man’s cries reverberated in my mind. I shivered. “You did what needed to be done.”
“I shouldn’t have hurt him like that. I could’ve restrained him. I sort of snapped when I saw him hurting you. He was about to reach for Will, too.” Reid’s stare shifted to Will, who was at the map of Italy on the wall, tracing the outline.
“Sort of?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, not sort of. I did. Sorry.”
I gave him the benefit of the doubt despite my wariness being raised. Perhaps with all his PTSD talk, he had some extent of it, too. “That’s twice now you’ve been taken to the police station. Hoping this isn’t a habit of yours?” I attempted mirth, but it didn’t come off well.
“It’s not. I’m not a bad guy. I’m sorry.”
“Isn’t that what bad guys always say?” I waved a hand. “Anyway, Will’s okay. He’s a resilient kid. He’ll be all right. You didn’t scare him if that’s what you’re asking me.”
Reid stumbled on his words. “I…but you…”
“Really, Reid, you don’t need to say any more. It’s okay.” I slid my hand across the table, squeezed his, and then withdrew it. “Thank you.”
Reid rubbed a thumb over his tattoo on his inner wrist. Even though I said the words, the recollection unsettled me. He’d moved in quickly, defensively…and violently. I could’ve been hurt more, especially given the rap sheet that couple had. Those two had been hell bent on stealing my car. If I’d lost that, then what? If Reid hadn’t leapt in, I wasn’t sure somebody else would have come to my defense, except maybe Geena, but I was less confident in her punch. And the creep Dennis had already given her husband a bloody nose when he tried to intervene.
Reid looked up from his musings. “Your son is resilient.”
“He is. I just hope I don’t mess up the boys too much.” I pulled out a napkin from the holder and began folding it, distracting myself from his penetrating look.
“Don’t all parents worry about that?” he asked.
I lined two edges, folded. “Yeah. It’s been harder since Harrison died.”
“How long ago did he pass away?”
I brushed my throat with two fingers, the bubbles and acid not mixing well. I spoke in a halted voice. “A year ago in July. This trip of ours, the one we finished before this all happened—the one to Yellowstone—had always been Harrison’s idea. He knew how much Will would love it, how it would foster his interests.” Those calls to the airline and hotels last summer to inform them of my husband’s death had been excruciating. There was no way I was going on that trip right after Harrison died. Will hadn’t spoken to me for a week afterward. Finn had been equally furious.
“Your brother stepped in this year in his place.”
“Yeah. A year belated but appreciated. The boys really wanted the trip, too. So we did it.”
“How—” Reid began, but he retracted his question.
I swallowed. I knew what he was asking. It had been ages since I’d spoken with anyone about the details of Harrison’s death. Instead of avoiding Reid’s look, which I did with everyone to ease the asker’s comfort, I blew a breath, lifted my focus, and stared at him directly. He didn’t seem to be the uncomfortable sort who avoided the topic of death. God, look at the books he lugged around with him! “It was a late, rainy night. Something happened at work, and he had to go in. A drunk driver hit him. Both my husband and the drunk man, a young guy in his twenties, died on the scene.”
A dryness tickled my throat and inside my mouth, like cobwebs had settled in there. I crinkled the napkin, tossed it aside, and sipped the soda. It no longer quenched my thirst. I had never said goodbye. No, instead, we’d had a heated debate about Harrison’s overworking. My last words to him were spoken in frustrated anger. I traced a thumb over my lips. I had at least given him a kiss goodbye.
“I’m sorry.” He shifted his gaze to his tattoo, rubbing it in a daze.
“Cynthia, the mother of the young man who had died, still reaches out to me every few weeks. After I told her to stop calling, she started sending letters. I’m not ready to talk with her about it.” I remembered the most recent letter, unopened, and tossed with the junk mail when Will and I had returned home from Salt Lake City.
Both of our attention fell upon Will, who was still doing recon.
“Reid. I…,” I began, moving from one uncomfortable topic to another. Just spit it out, AJ. “I need to find a pharmacy in town.”
“Do you need more cold medicine? You’re looking better. Less green.”
I drummed my fingers on the table. “No. The cold’s fading. It’s…” I heaved a sigh. “I have a prescription I need. I called my doctor earlier—a few days ago—and asked her to send in a refill to Wichita, and well, we’re here and not there. I asked the shop owner at the counter about local pharmacies when I ordered the food. He said there are a few, but most are already closed. I need to check around after we eat. If they can find my info in their system…”
“Geez, I didn’t know. Yeah, sure thing,” Reid said.
Will ambled around the restaurant. He shifted from the mural of Italy on the wall farthest from us to what looked like counting the squares on the floor.
For a chatty fella, Reid had grown gravely quiet with the mention of Harrison’s death. Had I been wrong about him? Was he like all the others? I cleared my throat. “I should have brought Will to his grandparents. He shouldn’t have to bear this burden with me. This trip. It’s been a nightmare.”
Reid turned his focus to me, usual countenance resumed, the glow filling his eyes again. “Your parents?”
I shook my head. “No, my father lives in Arizona with my stepmother. We talk when we can, but
I don’t see them much these days. My mother’s deceased. Harrison’s parents are the ones my kids know well. They live in Virginia. God, what was I thinking? Why did I bring him?”
“Because you’re his mom. You knew he would be safest with you.”
If it hadn’t been for Reid…
“How many times do you plan on saving me?” I asked, lightheartedly, but inwardly, I cringed with the thought. How many times had he saved me? He helped me with the tire. That was one. He helped me after I’d passed out. That was two. He saved me from the attack. Three. He helped me find Will. Well, that was sort of four. Even though he hadn’t technically saved me physically there, he’d definitely saved my sanity and helped me find my son. Who, for all we knew, hadn’t really been lost. I had told him to run and hide, and that’s what he had done. Literal kid. Smart kid.
“You’ve reached your quota.” His face broke into a smile.
I shook my head. “You weren’t following me?”
“Nope.”
I sighed, allowing myself to defuse. “Right time, right place?”
“You can say that,” he agreed. Handsome dark brown eyes held mine. They made me thirsty—for coffee. Or more. I shifted in my seat, feeling my desire grow. God, and it scared me shitless. My stock in fate was outweighing coincidence at this moment. Perhaps everything in life was meant to happen, when it was supposed to happen, and for a reason. That was a hefty truth to swallow.
If that was so, then why did Harrison have to die when he had?
I hated when my mind turned down this path. I grabbed a few napkins, placed one in front of me, and one for Will’s spot. “I certainly hope you won’t need to be my knight anymore on this trip.”
“If I did need to be, would that be awful?”
I stared outside to delay answering. Then sipped. The straw made a slurping sound as I drained the cup.
“Lighten up, Audrey Jane. Such a serious name for a serious gal. It’s going to be okay. I’m not on a mission to save. Okay? We’re both going to the same place. You’re my ride; I’m your map. The stars aligned. Luck. Right time, right place.” He smiled.
Was I fated to find him?
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