by Jim Nelson
“Who is that?” Hanna asked.
“Kelly,” Cynthia said. “She has another six weeks.”
The redhead was more petite than Cynthia and more full-figured than Ruby. Her auburn hair fell down one side of her face. She twirled the end into a ring about her fingers. She brushed the tuft against her chin. Cynthia waved and the girl waved back in return.
“You need to say goodbye,” Hanna said.
“Not now,” Cynthia pleaded.
“You’re going to have to,” Hanna said.
The redhead’s parents gathered up their bags and coats. Their table was ready. Cynthia hurried to the redhead, waddling a bit, and offered a hand. Cynthia’s blue-veined forearm hardened and quivered to support the bridge’s weight. With a surprised look on her face, the standing redhead held her distended belly and let out an exhausted breath of air. She assured Cynthia she was fine and waved goodbye. She departed with her family for their table.
Cynthia returned to Hanna with a soft elated smile. She started to speak, wanting to explain what she felt, to share this new feeling with her mother. Gradually, her smile melted to a soft frown, and Cynthia grew grim. The stained-glass lamps made her glistening eyes lemon and indigo. She fell into her mother’s arms and cried.
—
In the car, still parked in the restaurant lot, Hanna turned to Cynthia. “We won’t be able to make it to Big Sur.”
“Why not?” Ruby said.
“The police are looking for you,” Hanna said to Ruby. “It’s best if we get away from here as quick as we can.”
“Can we go to Grandmother’s farm?” Cynthia said.
“The police will find us there,” Hanna said. “We can’t go to Grandpa’s either.” Hanna felt they were risking it all just taking Ruby into a San Jose restaurant.
On the interstate, Cynthia broke down. “I’m sorry all this happened,” she said.
“Honey.” Hanna reached across the seat and squeezed Cynthia’s hand. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“I was the one who talked with Piper,” Cynthia said. “When we were at Grandmother’s farm. I told her I wanted to run away and get the operation.”
“Piper came to the bathroom window, didn’t she?” Hanna remembered finding the girls in the bathroom, the window open, both acting guilty.
“I thought she liked me,” Cynthia said. “She acted like we would be together on the road.” Cynthia whispered, “She kissed me.”
“She was using you,” Hanna said.
“It’s my fault,” Ruby said. “I talked with her first.”
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Hanna announced. It felt unconvincing when she said it.
Hanna drove hard, keeping the speedometer under the posted limit. They pushed southward, out of the Bay Area and into rural flatland. When she grew bleary-eyed, Hanna exited the interstate and parked at a state-maintained rest area. She positioned the car behind an eighteen-wheeler pulling a trailer, conscious of the Audi being spotted by a patrolman passing on the highway. The girls dozed in the backseat. Hanna reclined the driver’s seat all the way back and slept. At dawn, she rose, yawned, and used the chemical lavatory at the end of the parking lot. The girls did likewise. They fell back asleep while she drove.
She hated feeding the girls junk food but saw little choice. At a fill-up station, she bought a packaged Danish and a coffee for herself, a slice of cheese pizza for Ruby, and a box of miniature powdered donuts for Cynthia.
At the cash register, Cynthia asked Hanna, “How much farther?” She’d only eaten two of the donuts and already her lips and cheeks were dusted white.
“We have a ways,” she said. With her phone turned off, she had no reliable predictor of travel time. Hanna had no maps in the car. She hadn’t bought a roadmap since her college days.
“Mom,” Ruby said, astonished. “Look.”
The portable color television behind the counter showed the morning news with the sound muted. A superimposed photo of a young Hanna hung over the newscaster’s shoulder. He spoke gravel-faced, almost ominously. The broadcast displayed the words HAGAR’S SISTERS below Hanna’s face.
Hanna recognized the photograph. She knew clearly when it had been taken. She was thirteen at the time and living on the farm with her mother. Uncle Rick snapped the photo. Hanna had been in the sun all morning watching him work on his motorcycle. She was fascinated with the bolts and screws and pans of oil on the ground about the disassembled motorcycle engine. When she wasn’t looking, he fished a Nikon 35mm from a saddlebag and snapped the shutter, capturing a warm, innocent smile on her sun-reddened and sweat-beaded face.
She began to ask the clerk to turn up the sound, then caught herself. If the newscaster was reporting Hanna’s flight with Ruby, then she would be giving themselves away less than twelve hours after leaving home. The clerk did glance back and note the broadcast but seemed not to associate it with Hanna. And why would he? She was thirteen years old in the photo.
Hanna asked if the payphone in the rear of the convenience store worked. Recognizing the risk, she dropped in a handful of change and dialed her mother’s number. Dian picked up the phone on the third ring.
“Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” her mother said. Hanna had turned the phone off before they reached the restaurant. She knew she could be tracked if the police chose to take it that far.
“Have you seen the news?” Hanna said.
“Of course I saw the news,” her mother said. “They’ve been showing it since last night.”
“Why are they using that photo?”
Her mother breathed an annoyed sigh down the crackling line. “I was mistaken,” she said. “Remember when I said that Piper girl stole your bridge mother’s old photo? That old picture of Hanna up in the redwoods?”
“Yes?” Hanna said, confused.
“That Piper girl stole a different photograph,” her mother said. “Some kind of mix-up, I think. She took Ritchie’s photo of you.” She was the only one in the family who could call Uncle Rick by that name. “That picture he took of you when he was rebuilding his Honda. I’m so angry, that’s the only print I have—”
“Wait,” Hanna said. “What does it have to do with me?”
“With you?” Her mother pished. “It has nothing to do with you. That Piper girl is in the news again. You really didn’t hear?” Her mother sighed another annoyed sigh. “Bridge daughters were marching yesterday in Sacramento. They arrested fifty of them.”
“Bridge daughters were marching?”
“That Piper girl ordered them to,” her mother said. “Most of them had Blanchard’s Procedure already. Some of them were in pons anno. You’ve never seen such a thing.”
Hanna’s mind reeled to catch up. “So this has nothing to do with me?”
“That Piper girl is using your bridge mother’s name and story,” Dian said. “She’s calling it Hanna’s Moment. She’s on the Internet talking about how Hanna could read and write and handle money. She’s talking about the thousand origami she folded, and how she studied flowers and horticulture.” Her mother made a gagging noise, an exasperated cry. “They’re talking on the news channels about how Hanna ran away and almost had a bi-graft. It’s the most embarrassing thing I can imagine—are you telling me you haven’t heard any of this yet?”
“My God,” Hanna said softly. “Hanna’s Moment?”
“When they march, they’re all carrying Hanna’s photograph,” her mother said. “They blew it up and sent it around the Internet. Only it’s you and not your bridge mother. And now I’m getting phone calls from the press people! Your father too. Haven’t they called you? Oh—that’s why you turned off your phone. Well, stay tight in the house and wait it out. This will blow over soon enough. Once the police catch that Piper girl, this mess will be over.”
Before she dialed, Hanna half-thought she would confess all to her mother, tell her about Ruby and how they were heading for the border. Now she knew she could not confide their situation. Sh
e could already hear her mother’s scolding voice, I told you not to get so close. The children have to come first.
Hanna hung up the phone with such force the bells inside the box rang. She stared at the keyed-up chrome of the phone box for a moment, absorbing all she’d just learned.
“What does Grandmother say?” Cynthia asked.
Hanna pressed on the girls’ shoulders to guide them to the convenience mart’s exit. “Grandmother sends her love,” she said, hurrying them along.
—
Cynthia never got carsick; for Ruby, it was all but guaranteed. Hanna pulled over twice to give Ruby a chance to recover, first outside of Gaviota, then in Santa Barbara. In a shopping center parking lot outside of Thousand Oaks, Ruby vomited up a mouthful of her hamburger lunch. Cynthia rubbed Ruby’s back to calm her nerves. Ruby sipped water and complained about cramping in her tummy.
While Hanna searched her purse for ibuprofen, Cynthia came close. “Do you think something’s wrong?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Hanna said. She worried as well. With every complaint from Ruby of pain or fresh discharged blood, the concern grew. “I can’t take her to a hospital,” she said.
“What if we look for the symbol?” Cynthia drew Hagar’s urn in the air with an index finger. “Maybe we can find a doctor who will look at her.”
“We need to keep moving,” Hanna said. “We’ll look for a doctor in Mexico.” Hanna knew every country had doctors who could be paid to look the other way.
“Do you really think we’ll be okay there?”
“Yes,” Hanna said, but it was only to soothe Cynthia. She had no idea.
As the girls’ buckled up, Hanna motioned through the windows for them to remain in the car. She entered an ice cream parlor and found the server wiping down tables. Hanna asked if there was a clinic nearby.
“Clinic?” He shook his head. “I mean, we have a hospital.”
“I need a woman doctor,” Hanna told him.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Wait—there’s a big purple house up the way with a doctor’s sign out front. She’s a woman.”
Hanna drove as instructed. She slowed the Audi to a crawl through a neighborhood of Queen Anne’s with robust bay windows and oversized porches. A swinging shingle before a lavender house announced Dr. Beverly Pilson practiced within. Now Accepting Patients was printed on a second shingle beneath the first.
“Wait here,” Hanna told the girls as she unbuckled her safety belt.
“What’s going on?” Ruby said. She was cross-armed and holding her midsection.
“Wait here,” Hanna repeated. She emerged from the car and approached the front door of the residence.
And it was a residence, not an old home converted to a medical office. On the covered porch, she approached the front door with care, searching for any sign of Hagar’s urn. The screen door was latched, the door itself wide open. From inside the house came the officious sounds of a news radio station, its tympani drums and gravelly voice announcing the top of the hour. She reached for the door buzzer, telling herself, You’re going to have to find a doctor somewhere.
“Arrests continued this morning in Sacramento,” came an radio announcer’s voice through the screen door. The on-the-scene reporter’s voice was muted compared to the studio announcer’s, and she could not hear more of the story. Fingertip on the buzzer, she began to apply pressure.
Then through the screen door came from the radio Hanna Driscoll and bridge daughters Cynthia and Ruby. Distinct and crisp, their names were listed as though an important part of the story.
Hanna landed in the driver’s seat and turned over the engine. “We need to keep moving,” she said to the girls in the backseat.
She looked in the elongated rearview mirror. Now Cynthia held her midsection. A light glistening of perspiration coated her upper lip and forehead. Ruby, constrained by the safety belt across her lap, leaned across the backseat, half-hugging her sister.
“Honey?”
“Drive,” Cynthia said. “Get us out of here.”
On Highway 101, Hanna pushed the Audi. If it was on television and radio, it was all over the Internet. She no longer believed she could hide from anyone anywhere in this world. She pushed the Audi harder wondering when she could stop.
Thirty-one
In keeping with her training, Paige Doisneau never strayed far from her father’s lead. They walked Rue St. Laurence from Marc Saint Place, a familiar cobblestoned path Paige had trod countless times over the years.
Her father stopped before a Gothic wood door painted lavender with flaking royal-purple trim. The rage-purple faces of twin devils were carved into the eaves above the door. They leered down on the Doisneaus, baring fanged grins.
Her father placed his hand on the latch and hesitated. “Come now,” he said to her. The morning newspaper, folded in half, was tucked under his arm. “Show your smile and look your best for Dr. Blanchard.”
The bell over the door tinkled as they entered. Denis Doisneau led Paige into the oak-planked room. The cheery little bell tinkled once more when he closed the door.
Hot and sticky from the July heat, her father uncovered and fanned his face with his hat. Without a word, Paige stood behind him at attention, hands clenched at her sternum. She too perspired from the heat. Unlike her father, she’d been carrying an oversized tote on the crook of her arm. It was filled with carrots, romaine, tomatoes, oranges, hard cheeses, and two baguettes, all purchased that morning at the market at Place Saint Marc. Paige’s back ached. It was a pain she’d grown accustomed to, now bearing the considerable weight of Renaud Doisneau, due in seven weeks.
“Victor,” her father said when Dr. Blanchard entered.
Dr. Blanchard attempted a smile as they embraced.
“They’re biting at the river,” Denis said. “When do we go on that fishing trip?”
“Soon,” Dr. Blanchard said. “This week is not good for me.”
Dr. Blanchard lowered to one knee before Paige. He placed a gentle cupped hand on her cheek. “And you, passerelle?” he said. “How are you today?”
She recoiled. The doctor reeked of liquor and the antiseptic odor of too much aftershave to cover it up. In the six months since performing the procedure on Violette, broad streaks of gray had developed through Dr. Blanchard’s head of hair. He’d grown a beard too, a brambly one shot through with lightning bolts of gray. The Gauloises had yellowed his teeth.
“Her appetite comes and goes,” her father said. “In the morning, she can’t smell a pot of broth without growing ill, then for supper, she’ll eat a horse and the stable too.”
“What does Madame Doisneau say of it?” Dr. Blanchard said, rising to his feet.
Her father said, “She’d like her horse and stable back.”
The men shared the laugh while Paige waited, the tote of produce growing weightier by the moment. She found their humor juvenile and not particularly witty.
Dr. Blanchard led them to the examination room. Paige freed herself of her burden and stashed the tote in a corner. Having visited Dr. Blanchard’s office many times by now, she did not wait for instruction or permission.
Behind the Japanese screen, she began to disrobe. She was never comfortable in this room, prodded and groped by this tobacco-foul friend of her father’s. He was all smiles and s’il vous plait in his examinations, but Paige never left his practice without some ineluctable sense of violation.
The men continued conversing on the other side of the screen as though she was not present.
“She nearly fainted on Sunday,” her father said. “Well, she felt woozy is all. Had to have a little lie-down. Madame Doisneau thought it was dehydration. Paige had been helping in the garden, see.” The weekend had been unusually hot.
“I want you to change her diet,” Dr. Blanchard said. “She should start eating more cheese and butter and fatty meat. Only light work about the house. No more tending the garden.” When her father protested, Dr. Blanch
ard said, “Madame Doisneau will know all about it. This is the approach to the finish line, Denis. The situation becomes more fragile from here. It’s important she build up a good layer of fat and avoid any strenuous activity.”
Her father agreed with some good-natured grumbling about idle hands. “Of course we’ll do what you say, Victor. Now, this is where I step out.” He called over the Japanese screen, “I’m stepping out!” And the door to the examination room creaked open and closed. Paige’s father, squeamish of seeing his own bridge daughter’s unmentionables, retreated to the waiting room with the morning paper.
Paige emerged from behind the screen, draped neck to ankle in a thin white examination gown. She stepped on tiptoe across the cold floor to the table and, with Dr. Blanchard’s assistance, lay across it. She smoothed her gown down as he prepared his stethoscope. She allowed him to prod her belly and feel about her groin. He pressed the stethoscope button to her sternum and abdomen and asked her to breathe. He said little else, jotting notes on his pad of paper before returning to his examination.
“Does your chin hair bother you?” he asked absently.
“Mother won’t allow me to shave,” Paige said. “I feel like a goat.”
“You would not be the first bridge to shave,” he said.
“Dr. Blanchard,” she said up to him. “I don’t want to die.”
He sighed and made a slight, futile smile. Although she prepared in advance what she would say to him, it did not occur to her Dr. Blanchard had heard this before from the hundreds of bridge daughters he’d treated.
“It’s called the finality for a reason,” Dr. Blanchard said. “It’s in your nature.”
Paige, heavy and thick about the middle, struggled to raise herself up on the examination table. The best she could manage was to lift herself by her elbows. Relenting, he helped her upright, legs dangling off the edge of the table.