by Karey White
Celia continued to pray through four more families that didn’t love her as much as the Hundley’s had. Even now she still prayed, though she hadn’t felt much of God’s love over the past eight years, and she felt a prick of guilt with every lie she told. I’m sorry for lying, she silently prayed. I promise I’ll tell the truth when I get there. I just can’t explain it to all these strangers. They’ll pity me or think I’m crazy.
She imagined the embarrassing conversation that the truth would require.
“Where you headed?” they’d ask.
“Sisters, Oregon.”
“Sisters, huh? I’ve never heard of it. Where is Sisters?”
“North of Bend. In the middle of the state.”
“Now that I’ve heard of. What takes you there?”
“A tear.”
Pearl could tell from Silas Toller’s voice that he thought she was a strange old woman. Or maybe he thought she was certifiably crazy. Why else would she call him—a relative stranger—and ask him to drive her to Bend? Again. Pearl had been in Sisters only a week, and this was the third time she had called to ask Silas to give her a ride.
Unfortunately, her intuition was shorting out. The first time, Silas had dropped her off at a gift shop while he picked up seeds for his aunt at the garden supply store. While he was gone, she had walked around the streets near the bus terminal, but she hadn’t found her. The second time, Pearl had pretended she needed to pick up a package at the Greyhound station. While Silas waited in his Jeep, she went inside, removed a small package she had wrapped herself from her handbag, searched the station for the girl then went back to the Jeep.
Now she was asking him again, and she needed to be right this time.
“I’ll be going over to the B-Bend ranger station day after tomorrow. Is there something I can p-pick up for you then?
“Is this your way of saying you don’t like my company?” Pearl asked.
She could hear his embarrassment through the phone line. “Oh no, m-ma’am. I’m trying to save you a trip. If you need to go, I can take you.”
“I’m teasing you, Silas. But I do appreciate the ride. I’d drive myself if my car wasn’t still at the shop.” The truth was that her car had been fixed for three days, but it still sat at the garage, waiting for her to pay for the repairs. Having it available to drive herself would be counterproductive.
“Another p-package?” Silas asked.
“I’m afraid so. But I’m hoping this one will be my last.”
“I’ll take you. I have to drive out to the M-McKay Crossing campground this m-morning to check on snow levels. I can p-pick you up around three.”
“Thank you, Silas.” Pearl’s voice softened. “You’re a good boy.”
Pearl hung up the phone then pulled on her sweater and walked across Main Street and down 3rd until the houses grew farther apart. It looked like spring, but there was still a winter chill in the air, and Pearl pulled her sweater around her tightly. It would be nice to have her car for little jaunts like this, but how could she ask Silas for a ride if she had her car?
Nancy Toller’s house looked straight out of a fairy tale—white fence, arched gate with climbing hydrangea that would look lovely once the weather warmed, gingerbread details. It was a small, charming house with a large garden plot behind it.
“Pearl, come in.”
“Thank you. I was hoping we could chat.”
Nancy had changed since Pearl had seen her the day of the funeral. But of course, almost everyone ages. She was fleshier and softer than she had been. Her hair was shorter and instead of the brown hair she’d had the day of the funeral, it was now nearly white.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, no. I’m fine.”
The two women looked at each other for several seconds. They each seemed hesitant to speak. Nancy looked confused.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to stare,” Nancy said. “But I can’t get over how little you’ve changed.”
This was why it was better to keep moving, why second-generation attachments were dangerous.
“Oh you’re too kind.”
“No, I’m not. You look the same. I look seventeen years older. Heck, I look about thirty years older, but you look like you haven’t aged a day since the last time I saw you.”
Pearl held her hand to her mouth and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve had a little work done.”
Nancy smiled and relaxed, happy to have an explanation she could accept. “I should get the name of your doctor.”
They laughed politely. When the quiet became awkward, Pearl cleared her throat. “You know Jack and Sharon meant a great deal to me.” Nancy nodded. “And I’ve thought of Silas many times over the years. I figured it was time I stopped by to see how he is.”
Nancy’s face softened and Pearl could tell how much she loved her nephew. “Silas has been a blessing in my life and he’s turned into a wonderful man.”
Nancy told Pearl about her years with Silas, his love of the Trailblazers, the mountains, and dogs. “He loved Jack’s collie. Now he has Winston, a golden retriever. He was a quiet boy and he’s a quiet man. I think it’s because of the stutter.”
“Was that always a problem?”
Nancy shook her head. “No. Before the accident, he was a normal, talkative little boy. He didn’t talk at all for several days after they told him his parents had died. He nodded or shook his head or hid behind me. When he finally spoke again, he had the stutter. It used to be worse than it is now. My heart would break for him. Sometimes he’d try to say something and he couldn’t get it out. He’d try and try, and finally he’d give up.”
“No wonder he’s quiet.”
“I searched for help for him. One doctor I took him to told me about something called Camp Rock Ridge. It was expensive—three thousand dollars—but I knew he needed it, so I sold his dad’s old pickup to pay for it. He spent three weeks at the camp in Washington, working with speech therapists and practicing. The things they taught him helped a lot. He still gets stuck sometimes when he’s nervous or under stress, but he’s never completely paralyzed by it now. And he almost never stutters around people he knows well.”
“He’s been lucky to have you,” Pearl said.
“No. I’m the lucky one. I never had a chance to have children of my own. He’s been a gift to me.”
The women sat quietly, thinking.
“I’m happy to see Jack and Sharon’s son has become a good man,” Pearl said quietly.
“Thank you for checking in on him. I know his parents would be pleased that you cared so much.”
The streets in Sisters were quiet, but the few people who drove past Pearl as she walked back to the bed and breakfast smiled and waved. She had lived many places over the years, some remarkable and some forgettable, but something about Sisters had stayed with her. She was sorry she would only be here a few more days.
The internet had said the average daytime temperature in March was fifty degrees. This wasn’t an average March day.
A bitter wind struck Celia in the face when she stepped off the bus in Bend. It felt too much like Chicago. It was a reminder she didn’t want, and she zipped up her hoodie. In twenty minutes the bus would take her on the last leg of her journey. Sisters was only twenty-five miles away.
Celia shivered, whether from the chilly air or the uncertainty of her future, she wasn’t sure.
Now that she was so close to her destination, she felt the first tugs of doubt. Sisters was a small town, nothing like Chicago. What if there was nowhere to live? What if she couldn’t find a job? What if Cassidy figured out where she’d gone and told Damien?
Celia folded her arms tightly against the memories. She was in Oregon, the most beautiful place in the world, according to her mother. It was because of her mom that she was here. When Celia was a small child, before the addictions had stolen her mother’s smile, she had told Celia stories about the summer she had spent in Oregon, waiting tables in
a picturesque town by the ocean. She had promised that someday she would take Celia there and they’d live in a warm cabin where nothing could hurt them.
Maybe if they had moved here sooner, her mother would still be alive.
Celia’s stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t had anything to eat since somewhere in Idaho the day before. The man at the ticket counter told her there was a Safeway around the corner. She had time to grab a snack if she hurried. She lifted her backpack onto her shoulders and hurried out into the blustery wind.
The Safeway wasn’t like any grocery store she could remember. Instead of cramped and dirty and crowded, the aisles were wide and the floor sparkled. If she had more time, she would have enjoyed walking up and down each row, imagining hearty meals with fresh bread and real butter.
She bought two cheese sticks and a banana. She wanted to add a candy bar or a bottle of lemonade, but if she did, she would have less than ten dollars, and somehow, ten felt safer than seven or eight.
She wanted to ask the clerk if she knew anything about Sisters, but she didn’t. It wouldn’t matter what she said anyway. Celia had no choice but to make Sisters work, at least until she had enough money saved to move on.
Maybe she should have chosen Portland or Eugene. There were probably more jobs in a city, and a better chance to find a small apartment or a room for rent. Maybe even a shelter. It was doubtful a town the size of Sisters had a homeless shelter.
Celia shoved the food into her pockets and pulled her hoodie up onto her head. Little crystals of moisture in the air—not really snow, but definitely not rain—prickled her cheeks. She looked up at the overcast sky and shivered. She didn’t have anywhere to sleep tonight and less than eleven dollars in her pocket. She had planned to sleep in a park or under a bush until she had found a job and could pay for a place. She hadn’t planned on snow or sleet or whatever this was. Wasn’t Oregon supposed to be much warmer than Chicago? Celia realized with a sense of panic that she was in trouble. But she’d been in trouble in Chicago, too, and if she had to face a kind of trouble, she’d rather freeze to death here than take the chance of Cassidy's friend, Damien, big and drunk and mean, sneaking into her room again. He’d covered her mouth and held her down. He’d taken everything from her that night—her innocence, her confidence, even her smile. He’d left her with fear and bruises and disgust.
“Now wasn’t that special. We’ll have to do that again sometime.” His words slurred together and he bumped hard into the doorframe as he left the room. She spent most of the night huddled in the corner crying. Before the sun had even peeked through the closed blinds, she had shoved everything she could carry into a pillowcase and the ragged, flowered backpack she had used since she had lived with the Hundleys. She tiptoed past Cassidy and two of her friends who had crashed in the tiny front room. Thankfully, neither of them were Damien. Celia slipped out the door and walked to an all-night grocery store and wandered up and down the aisles until she realized a man with a buzz cut and a tightly cinched belt around his pudgy middle was keeping his eye on her. He was probably a security guard and thought she might steal something.
How ironic that he wanted to protect the store from Celia. It would have been nice if someone would have been around earlier in the night to protect Celia.
Celia walked to try to keep warm. At first the sidewalks were desolate, then a few shopkeepers unlocked their doors. Trucks made morning deliveries to stores and restaurants. A few busy people in suits and dresses stopped at coffee shops on their way to work. As the morning sun rose, the streets became more crowded and energetic and lively. Celia moved unnoticed among the people who moved toward work and opportunity and success. She seemed to be the only person who didn’t know where they were going.
Across the street she saw a Barnes and Noble. The warm air in the bookstore thawed her frozen hands and cheeks and by the time she could feel her toes again, she had an idea.
It took a few minutes, but she found an atlas of the United States, and sat down at a low table in the children’s section. Maybe she was crazy, but it didn’t matter. She was never going back to that apartment, so she might as well figure out where she should go.
The pages were large and colorful with so many towns and cities, it boggled Celia’s mind. Every dot on the page represented a place she could go, a place that she hoped would be safer than here.
She started with Georgia. Did the Hundley’s still live in Atlanta? She couldn’t remember the name of the suburb they’d moved to. She ran her finger back and forth across the state looking for a name that sounded familiar, but nothing rang a bell. It was probably best anyway. By now they probably had a new family, a lucky little girl or boy they’d saved from the foster system. Celia bit the sides of her mouth and tried not to hate a nameless child that had probably received the love she had wanted.
Disappointed that she couldn’t remember where the Hundley’s lived, Celia turned the page. Hawaii. Although a warm, tropical climate sounded appealing, Celia didn’t have enough money for an airplane ticket.
She spent a few minutes looking over the map of Idaho. She skipped past the page of Illinois. Why look at it when it was Illinois she was trying to escape. Iowa was too close. Page by page, she eliminated towns and cities. And then she flipped from Oklahoma to Oregon. The page looked different, the colors more inviting.
Celia could hear her mother’s voice as she lay beside her. “Someday I’ll take you to Oregon. It’s the prettiest place on earth. The trees are tall and straight and the ocean is brave and beautiful.”
“How can the ocean be brave?” Celia had asked.
“Some places the ocean is soft and easy and warm, but in Oregon, it’s rocky and brisk. The water there has to crash over big, black stones to get to shore. It isn’t easy, but the sound it makes is beautiful. Like music. And the spray, when it crashes against the rocks, is like a dance. The bravest thing I ever did was set off by myself to see the Oregon coast. I should have stayed there.”
“Why don’t you go back?”
Her mother had sighed. “I will when I feel strong again. Oregon isn’t for the weak.”
Celia hadn’t understood what her mother was talking about, but sitting at that little table in Barnes and Noble, looking at the green map of Oregon, she’d pulled courage from the page. It was the only place she knew her mother had loved, the only place her mother had felt brave and in control of her life. Maybe it would do the same for her.
She ran her finger over the map, looking at the names of the towns and cities. She didn’t know where her mother had lived, but as long as it was Oregon, she thought it would be okay. She remembered her mother’s long, brown hair, before it had turned limp and dirty. She remembered her warm hand when it was strong and didn’t shake. She missed her.
The page became blurry, and a tear slid down her cheek and fell onto the map. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked down at the darker green spot where her tear had soaked into the page. It had landed on Sisters.
It had felt perfect. It was only the name of a town, but it sounded friendly and loving, like a real family. Celia closed the atlas and hugged it to her. She would leave this cold, dangerous place. She would go to Sisters, Oregon.
She had transferred the contents of the pillowcase into a battered little suitcase she found at a thrift store for six dollars. She walked to the bus station, where she had purchased a ticket and slept the night on a hard bench close to the ticket counter, because the benches in the darker corners scared her.
That had been three days ago. Now her journey was almost over. She walked across the parking lot and the bus station came into view. A bus pulled out of the parking lot and drove down the street. It took a moment for Celia to realize it was the bus she’d been on. Her bus—the one that was supposed to take her to Sisters and a new start—was leaving without her. Celia ran down the road, flailing her arms in a desperate attempt to catch the driver’s attention. She thought he might have seen her when the air brakes gasped
and the lights on the back of the bus lit up, but it didn’t even come to a complete stop before it turned right and disappeared behind a building. How could she have lost track of time? She had her backpack, but the little suitcase was still on the bus.
Celia staggered back a few steps and collapsed against the side of a parked car. A soft sob escaped her throat. If she had ever had the bravery of the Oregon ocean, or her mother, or the kind Myra Hundley had praised her for, it had just run out.
Silas waited in the parking lot at the bus station. Icy particles landed on his windshield where the warmth from inside the Jeep melted them. It looked like it might snow, and he hoped Pearl would be ready to go home after she picked up her package. He was tired and still had some paperwork to finish up at the station before he could go home and watch a Trailblazers game with a bowl of reheated chili.
Pearl walked out of the bus station and looked around the parking lot with a curious expression. Could she really not remember where he’d parked? She was a strange woman. He could have sworn she looked right at him before she turned and started around the building. Silas opened the door and called out her name, but she kept walking, so he closed the door, turned on the ignition, and started to drive toward her.
Pearl moved quickly for a woman her age. She crossed the road and began walking toward the grocery store. If she needed to stop at Safeway, all she’d had to do was ask. He eased the Jeep across the road and into the other parking lot, but Pearl wasn’t walking to the store. She was walking the opposite direction. He turned down a row of cars and craned his neck to see where she had gone. There she was, talking to someone.
Silas pulled even with Pearl and the woman. She looked young, couldn’t be long out of high school, and she was crying. The girl flinched away when Pearl reached up to pat her cheek, so Pearl brought her hand back down. They spoke for a minute, and Silas didn’t know if he should park or stay where he was. Pearl solved his dilemma a minute later by coming to the driver’s window.