See How They Run

by Bethany Campbell

  He appeared and looked her up and down. “You want a drink?” he asked. “It’s been a long day.”

  She nodded. “Too long.”

  Opening a cupboard, she took out two glasses. “We have wineglasses, everything, here,” she said. “Even a washer and dryer. This place feels like a palace after the lodge.”

  She busied herself opening and pouring the wine. He stood so near to her that she was overly conscious of him.

  “Laura?” he said in a strange tone.

  “Yes?” she asked, pouring the wine.

  “What’s Jefferson’s gun doing on the coffee table?”

  Slowly she raised her gaze to his. “I took it. In case—in case something happened.”

  His eyes searched hers, and she knew what he was looking for. He said, “Could you use it if you had to?”

  She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  He shook his head as if dubious that she could. “Have you ever shot a gun?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I had a boyfriend in college. He said everybody should know how. He used to take me out to practice. We’d shoot at cans, bottles, things like that.”

  “But could you use it on a person?”

  Confusion rose within her. “No,” she said, looking away. “Probably not. But I thought if I had it … Oh, I don’t know what I thought.”

  For a moment Montana said nothing. “Whatever happened to him? The guy who taught you how to shoot?”

  “I threw him over for a pacifist with really great blue eyes,” she said.

  Then he tipped her face up to his, and smiled, and so did she, although a bit sadly.

  She turned back to the table, picked up her wineglass.

  “Here’s hoping nobody has to fire at anybody,” he said, and clinked his glass against hers.

  “I’ll drink to that,” she said, her heart still beating hard. She took a sip. It was a red wine, strong and rich, and she savored its taste and the afterglow that followed it.

  Everything tasted different when you were in danger, she thought. Tasted, sounded, felt different. The sky had been blue this afternoon. She thought she’d never noticed how blue it could be. She’d kept staring through the car window, wondering how many more blue-skied days she might live to see.

  She hadn’t really been hungry tonight, but she’d found herself almost spellbound by the taste and texture of canned peaches. It seemed miraculous how smoothly her spoon sliced through the golden flesh, amazing how sweet the fruit tasted.

  I’d like to eat strawberry shortcake with fresh spring strawberries and real whipped cream, she had thought. I wonder if I ever will again?

  And when Montana held her or kissed her, his touch affected her so strongly it shook her through. It was the danger, the constant danger, that intensified every sensation. She wondered if this intensity was only an illusion. Or had nothing in her life been real until now?

  She looked at the play of light in the depths of her wine. “Did you ever?” she asked, her voice choked. “Kill somebody, I mean?”

  She raised her gaze to his again.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Was it hard?” she asked, then tried to swallow the knot in her throat.

  “Let’s not talk about dying,” he said, taking her face in his hands. “Let’s talk about living. Talk to me. Tell me about the twins.”

  She put her hand over his scarred one, pressing it more tightly against her cheek. “Because you’ll be taking Rickie?”

  “I’ve got to learn,” he said. “I need you to teach me.”

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and willed herself not to tremble or cry or weaken in any way.

  He said, “You understand them. You make them understand you. My nephew, nobody could ever do that for him. What goes on in there, inside their heads? Explain it to me.”

  She opened her eyes and met his steadily. “I can’t see into their minds. But I know—sort of—how their thought processes work. There are different levels of autism. It doesn’t sound as if your nephew is as lucky as they are.”

  She paused, musing over the absurdity of calling the twins lucky.

  His hands moved to her waist. He lifted her and set her on the countertop next to her wineglass. He insinuated his body so close that he stood with his body between her jeaned knees. He handed her the wineglass.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  She took a drink of wine and relished its taste, the warmth it stirred in her.

  “Autism’s mysterious,” she said softly. “The most obvious problem is communication. They don’t understand communication. So I have to teach them as well as I can.”

  “How? How do you teach that?”

  She twirled the stem of the wineglass between her fingers, thought of how she could explain such a complex thing.

  “All right,” she said. “The first thing is to try not to confuse them. Their logical and perceptive processes are very different from ours. They understand things like ‘who’ and ‘what’ and ‘where.’ They could tell you that I’m Laura and you’re Montana.”

  She paused. “I showed Rickie on the map when we crossed the state border. He could tell you we’re in New Hampshire, not Vermont, or that this is a house, not the school.”

  She took a meditative sip of wine. She said, “What they can’t tell you is why or—in a way—when. They have trouble understanding cause and effect. Ordinary children would know that we’re on the run for a reason. They don’t.”

  He said, “Then maybe, for once, this thing’s a blessing for them.”

  “Maybe,” she said, but the thought gave her no comfort. “They don’t really understand that they’ve seen people killed. If we went back to school tomorrow, they’d expect to see Mr. Zordani again, the same as always.”

  “What about their mother?” he asked. “She’s dead. Do they understand that?”

  She shook her head. “We told them she’d gone to heaven. But how much they understand, I don’t know.”

  He drew her closer, and ran his hands from her waist, down her thighs and back again. “You said they don’t understand the concept of when. What’d you mean? They sure understand those watches.”

  She searched for the right answer, wishing his touch wasn’t so distracting, yet glad it was. She set aside her wine and rested her hand on his shoulder, felt the reassuring hardness of his body.

  She said, “They know numbers. But the flow of time’s a mystery to them. They have trouble with ideas like ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Words like ‘someday’ and ‘then’ and ‘later’ bewilder them.”

  “So that’s why you always say ‘At eight o’clock’ or something specific. Not like ‘in a little while,’ or ‘when I have time.’ ”

  “You have to be precise,” she said. “And careful. Once Rickie asked one of the aides when he could have more juice. She said, ‘In two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ ”

  She paused, remembering. “They actually believed there was a lamb at school. They asked about it for days.” She gave a small laugh of rueful affection.

  “It’s nice to hear you laugh,” he said.

  “You have to be able to laugh,” she said. “Or it’d break your heart. And funny things do happen—Once Trace was nagging a teacher. She said she wasn’t going to change her mind, not if he argued until the cows came home. He was so excited. He thought cows would come to the school.”

  He said, “We put things in crazy ways. In a jiffy. A snail’s pace. Time flies.”

  He looked her down, then up again. “Once in a blue moon,” he said. “That’s a good one. Once in a blue moon.”

  She smiled. “Yes. Any phrase like that—Paddle your own canoe. Hitch your wagon to a star. You can bet your boots. The cat’s got your tongue.”

  They were silent a moment. His hands moved to her arms, caressing them.

  “Laura,” he said, “what happens to them? My nephew’s going to spend the rest of his life in places like Bellevue, unless a miracle happens. What about them?”r />
  She gripped his shoulders more tightly. “If we can teach them enough, they’ll be able to live in some sort of halfway house, have simple jobs, have some independence.”

  She hesitated a moment. “When they’re older, they’ll have to be separated, of course. That’s why I don’t want it to happen now, not yet. They get so little time together. It seems wrong to make it less.”

  She felt his muscles tense beneath her hand. “What do you mean?”

  “The doctors say it’s best. If they can always turn to each other, it could slow their social skills. That’s probably right.”

  “Probably right?” He sounded dubious. “Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds right. But that wasn’t supposed to happen until they’re grown. Until then, they were supposed to have each other.”

  He moved closer to her, brought her face closer to his. His breath on her lips made her flesh tingle. “I don’t want them to be apart,” he said. “I don’t want us to be apart.”

  “I know,” she said, fighting the catch in her voice. “I don’t want you to leave us. Or to take him.”

  “But they’re not apart yet.” He nuzzled her cheek. “They’re not alone yet. Neither are we.”

  He kissed her just beneath the ear. Then he put his hands on her waist again and drew her down from the counter to stand next to him.

  He slipped his good hand to the back of her neck, sliding it beneath her hair. He started to lower his mouth to hers.

  “Montana—” she said shakily “—Mick? We’re just doing this because it’s the path of least resistance, aren’t we? And because it feels good? And because, what if there really isn’t a tomorrow?”

  His hand caressed her nape. “There’ll be a tomorrow. You have to believe that.”

  She kept her hands tense and still on his shoulders. Part of her wanted to keep him at a distance, yet a far deeper part of herself wanted him nearer, as near as possible.

  She wanted to explain her paradoxical feelings, but knew she couldn’t. “If we’re lucky,” she said, “there’ll be a future. But not for this. Not for you and me. This is just for—comfort, right?”

  He ran the knuckles of his scarred hand over her hair, stroking it. He kept doing it. The feeling was nice, almost hypnotic. “More than comfort,” he said. “I like you. Do you want me to say I love you? I love you.”

  Her mind whirled drunkenly, even though she’d had but little wine. She suspected he would say whatever he had to say to make things work, to keep them bonded, working together, not giving up. They didn’t love each other; they simply needed each other on the most primitive level, that of survival.

  She didn’t care. He was smart; he knew the words they had to say to each other, what they had to pretend.

  “I love you,” he repeated, bending once again to kiss her.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered. For here, for now, she started to say.

  But his mouth was upon hers, silencing mere words, and his arms were around her, embracing her so tightly that her breasts were crushed against his chest.

  They kissed hungrily. The cabin seemed to melt away; all of snowy New Hampshire dissolved; the solid, threatening world faded to nothingness, and the only real things were herself and him and desire.

  “Please,” she managed to say, “the lights. We should get under the covers or something. The children …”

  He stared into her eyes, his gaze dark and hungry. He seemed reluctant to let go of her. He led her to the sofa. With an almost uncanny efficiency, he pushed the coffee table out of the way, swept the crumpled afghan to the floor.

  He pulled the cushions from the sofa and leaned them against the wall. He pulled the sofa bed open, so that it unfolded into a mattress, complete with sheets and blankets.

  He took off his sweater, tossed it so that it rested on the cushions. He turned to her, his eyes burning into hers.

  That look made her want him so much she was stunned. She supposed, vaguely, that tomorrow she would be ashamed for feeling such naked need. She didn’t care. But for a moment, she pretended to.

  “There are pillows and extra blankets in the hall closet,” she said, almost primly. “I’ll get—”

  He unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt. “Later,” he said. He reached over to the end table and switched off the lamp.

  They were plunged into sudden, velvety darkness. She felt his hand close, gently but possessively, around her upper arm. She let him draw her closer, until the warmth of his nearness prickled through her. His arms enfolded her again.

  “Once we’re apart,” she whispered desperately, “we may never see each other again—”

  “I won’t let that happen,” he said, unfastening the top buttons of her blouse.

  “But—” she gasped.

  “I won’t let it happen. Tell me that you love me again. Say it.”

  He kissed her between the breasts, then on the mouth. His breath was fragrant with wine. “Say it again. Like you believe it.”

  “I love you,” she said in a shaky whisper.

  “Good,” he said. “Good.”

  His lips took hers and shook her to her heart. She kissed him back, no longer knowing truth from lies, no longer caring.

  THIRTEEN

  Montana was a light sleeper. When the night wind shifted, when the cold made the cottage creak, he instantly awoke.

  He lay in the darkness, holding Laura, listening until he was sure the sounds were natural, not made by intruders. Only then would he relax, draw her nearer, and fall back into a sleep too light for dreams.

  As dawn began to lighten the east, he gently released her and left the sofa bed. He wore his jeans and a T-shirt, because he knew it wasn’t wise to sleep naked; the night might hold surprises. He took up his holster, but didn’t strap it on.

  He prowled to the closed hall door. The sleeping bags were stacked against the wall beside it, and he picked up his. He carried it to the side of the room farthest from Laura, unrolled it, and climbed in.

  He could smell her scent on his body. He fell asleep with it haunting him and his good hand resting on his gun.

  When the sun had risen and the sky turned gray, he was the first in the house to wake. He rose as silently as possible. He made himself a cup of microwave coffee and a bowl of cereal, then sat at the kitchen table.

  He sipped his coffee and stared into the living room where Laura lay, a curved shape beneath the blankets.

  His stomach tightened. There was nothing noble about his relationship with Laura. The closer they were, the longer she’d hang on, the harder she’d fight. And so would he.

  Laura stirred on the sofa bed. She stretched and turned over. After a moment, she raised herself on her elbow and smiled across the room at him.

  “Good morning,” she said, running her fingers through her tumbled hair.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Want a cup of coffee, piece of toast or something?”

  She sat up, yawned, then stretched. “Are you buying?”

  God, he thought, she looked nice even with no makeup and her hair all rumpled. “I’m buying.”

  She got out of bed. After they’d made love last night, she, too, had risen and slipped back into her clothes, an old pair of gray bell-bottoms and a blue sweatshirt. She even had on her socks, which strangely touched him: Laura, ready to be on the run at a moment’s notice.

  Maybe he stared with an interest too proprietory, because she lowered her gaze and fumbled in her suitcase until she’d gathered an armful of fresh clothing.

  “I’ll change,” she said. “And take a shower. I hope it’s not too early.”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “It’s almost eight.”

  Keeping her head ducked down, she hurried into the hall. He looked after her, musing. In bed, she was warm, ardent, giving—even adventurous. Out of bed, she was modest to the point of shyness. He liked the combination.

  But almost as soon as the sound of the shower came from the bathr
oom, Jefferson was up, moaning, groaning, and standing at the kitchen sink, washing down aspirins with orange juice. He looked like hell warmed over.

  “Feel better?” Montana asked.

  “Very funny,” said Jefferson. “Who’s in the bathroom? My bladder feels like its got Lake Superior in it.”

  “Laura. Give her a minute.”

  Jefferson didn’t answer. He lumbered to the bathroom door and knocked on it hard. “You gonna be in there long?” he demanded, then coughed.

  Laura came out in less than two minutes, her face flushed, her hair damp. She was buttoning up one of Marco’s wife’s out-of-style blouses and wore a different pair of slacks. She hadn’t taken time to put on lipstick, yet once again Montana was conscious of how desirable she seemed.

  There was no time to reflect on this. Suddenly Rickie was up, banging on the bathroom door impatiently, demanding Jefferson get out so he could get in. “Rickie’s got to pee!” he said with passion. “Pee-pee, pee-pee, pee-pee!”

  Jefferson opened the door and scowled at the boy. “Well, you ain’t the only one,” he said. He put his hand to his forehead and shambled into the living room. He picked up the papers Montana had bought yesterday in Manchester, then half sat, half fell into the easy chair.

  Laura, barefoot, sat on the edge of the sofa bed, putting on her socks and boots. She gave Montana an amused, diffident look.

  “Come eat,” he said gruffly, “I’ll put your bread in the toaster. The coffee’s made.”

  She rose and made her way to the kitchen area, stopping beside Jefferson. “Are you hungry?”

  Jefferson shook his head and kept staring into his newspaper. “I’m not feeding this virus nothing. I’ll starve the booger into submission.”

  He waved her away.

  She came to the little kitchen table and sat down across from Montana, who was nursing his second cup of coffee. The toast popped up, and they each took a piece.

  “Sleep all right?” Montana asked gently.

  She had no chance to answer. From the bedroom came Trace’s voice, wailing her name.