“Hulda is fine,” I told him. “I didn’t gag her and shove her in a closet if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, I know. She called to tell me that she didn’t get on the plane. She asked me to look out for you, and that is the only reason I’m going along with this crazy stunt. Hulda is a good person. You did her a favor, so I’m doing you a favor because…” He trailed off, then looked at me anew. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No.”
“Because if you are … if there’s something about you that brings trouble to my family—”
“I’m not in any trouble.”
“Because girls always trade plane tickets with strangers in airports. They’re always flying off to meet some stranger’s boyfriend.”
“That’s funny. According to the people in this car, you’re Hulda’s boyfriend. But Hulda didn’t think so.”
“What’s your point?”
“We all have secrets.”
He turned and stared straight ahead again. “I went on a foreign-exchange trip to Iceland last summer.”
“And…”
The corners of Ethan’s mouth turned up in something not quite resembling a smile. “What happens in Iceland stays in Iceland.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He glanced back at me. “So, what’s in it for you?”
“I didn’t want to go to New York.”
“What’s in New York?”
Aunt Mary was leaning between the front seats, talking to Ethan’s mother and father. Emily was wearing headphones—I could hear faint traces of music as she closed her eyes, fading in and out of sleep. Ethan and I were alone in the last row, but the SUV was too quiet. Someone might overhear. Get suspicious. Find out.
I swore right then that no one would ever find out.
“I needed to get away, okay? I saw my chance, and I took it. I’ll be out of your hair, and you can start mending your broken heart or whatever just as soon as we stop. I will disappear, and you will never have to see me again.”
I expected him to protest, to complain that I was putting him in an impossible position. I didn’t expect him to actually say, “You can’t just run away.”
But I was not in the mood to hear what I couldn’t do. The list had been too extensive for too long.
You can’t eat that.
You can’t go there.
You can’t be this.
Ethan didn’t know that I was in that SUV-bound-to-nowhere because I had solemnly sworn to never let anyone tell me what I could or could not do ever again, so I leaned closer. “Watch me.”
But he only laughed. “No. You don’t understand. I know my father, and there is no way this vehicle stops until we get home.”
“So I’ll split as soon as we get there.”
But that must have been hilarious, because Ethan just laughed harder.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, but he sank lower in his seat, closed his eyes and whispered, “You’ll see, Not Hulda. You will soon see.”
* * *
In case you were wondering, by “soon” Ethan meant four hours later.
That’s how long I sat squeezed into the backseat, listening to Hulda’s fake boyfriend snore. He kept his cap pulled low over his eyes, so I sat alone in the dark vehicle, staring out over the lights of the towns in the distance and the red glow of the taillights of the trucks that passed us by.
When Clint finally pulled off the interstate and onto a small highway I thought we must be almost there, but it was another hour before we turned onto a narrow gravel road that wound and curved through the darkness. The lights of the city were long gone. There were only stars. Millions of stars. Honestly, it was like we were the only people on earth when Clint stopped beside a small white house with a wraparound porch and said, “We’re here.”
“This is your house?” I asked Ethan as we crawled out of the backseat.
“No.” Ethan yawned, and I realized it must be after midnight. “Aunt Mary lives here. We’re next door.”
I turned to look, but saw only dark hills beneath that blanket of stars—a moon so large that it felt like I could touch it.
“With next door being…”
“About a half mile on the other side of that ridge.” Ethan pointed to the darkness.
A cold wind blew my hair into my face, jolting me awake. I watched as Clint carried Hulda’s huge suitcase up the stairs and through a door that opened without a key. That’s when I realized I was literally in a place where people didn’t lock their doors at night and the distance to the nearest neighbor was measured in miles.
If all I wanted was to go away then I’d done it. But Aunt Mary was beaming at me. Ethan’s parents were giving me hugs and wishing me good night. And Ethan kept looking at me as if he expected me to bolt off into the darkness at any moment.
I had to congratulate myself on finding the perfect place to hide.
It was a shame I couldn’t stay.
* * *
“You got everything you need, sweetie?”
Aunt Mary knocked on the bedroom door and it swung open. If she thought it was weird that I was still sitting on the bed with my backpack on my lap, she didn’t say so.
“Do you need some help unpacking?” She pointed to Hulda’s huge suitcase, but I shook my head.
“No, thank you.”
“That’s okay.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “You’ve got five months to settle in.”
Five months. A whole semester. I tried to imagine living in a tiny white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere for almost half a year. I had one bar on my cell phone (I’d checked before removing the battery again), and there was no cable TV. Could a person even live like this? Then I thought about the unlocked door, the big Christmas tree, and the handmade stocking already hanging on the mantel, the name Hulda sewn on in green sequins. And I knew that, for some people, the answer was absolutely yes.
“Your house is nice,” I told her.
“It’s old. Like me.” Aunt Mary laughed. “And it’s empty now that my husband and little girl aren’t here. But it’s mine. I was born here, you know.” She glanced at the old building as if expecting it to finish her story. “This was my room when I was your age. And then it was my daughter’s room. And now it’s yours.” She gave me a wide smile. “We’re glad you’re here, Hulda.”
“I’m very glad to be here,” I said because it was the first lie that came to mind.
For a second, though, I thought it must not have been the right lie, because Aunt Mary looked as if she knew there was something wrong with Hulda. Wrong with me.
Then she shook her head. “I just can’t get over how good your English is.”
“Thank you,” I said, and remembered what Ethan had told me on the drive. “Ethan helped me with it when he was in Iceland last summer.”
“Of course. He’s a good boy,” Aunt Mary said, but then something in the woman’s countenance grew serious. She studied me anew. “I would hate for him to get hurt.”
I looked into her big brown eyes. “I would hate that, too.”
And at that moment I meant it.
I swear, I really did.
* * *
“She’s so quiet.” I could make out the words, but I couldn’t place the voice. Or the room. Or the house. Or the overwhelming stillness that seemed to permeate everything around me. There were no honking horns, no dinging elevators or room-service carts being pushed down anonymous, never-ending hallways. That was when I told myself that I was still sleeping, that it had to be a dream.
“It’s a long flight. She must have been exhausted,” someone else said, and I remembered: Aunt Mary. The little white farmhouse with the big Christmas tree.
Ethan. Iceland. Hulda.
I threw off the covers and bolted upright in bed. The sun was too bright, burning through the white lace curtains that covered the windows. It felt like a spotlight, and I knew I had to get away—to get out of there before someone
looked too closely, asked too many questions. By now, it would be obvious that I hadn’t shown up in New York, and people would be looking for me. If they found Hulda, they could find Ethan. And if they found Ethan, they’d find me.
“Hulda!” Aunt Mary called from the door. “Good. You’re awake. Come on downstairs, hon. Everyone’s waiting.”
“Okay … I … Everyone?”
Turns out I just thought I’d met all of Ethan’s family.
Clint and Mary had a younger sister who had a set of identical twin girls a year behind Emily in school. They stared at me in stereo. It felt like something from a horror movie as they tilted their heads in unison and asked, “Do we know you?”
“Nope. Sorry. One of those faces,” I said, and moved on through the crowd.
Clint’s older brother had three daughters, two of whom were already married, one of whom had a baby boy of her own. The names and faces all ran together. The kitchen was a blur of smiles and hugs and plates full of eggs and biscuits and gravy. So much gravy. I started to shake.
“Hulda, why don’t you tell us about your family?”
I heard the question, but I didn’t know who’d asked it.
“How was your flight, Hulda?” someone else asked.
“What do you like to do?”
“How do you like Oklahoma?”
“Have you ever been on a ranch?”
The questions swirled around me so fast that I was almost dizzy.
Aunt Mary’s hand was on my arm. “Honey, have you called home? Does your momma know you made it?”
“My mom is…” I started but couldn’t finish. “I … I need to go to the bathroom,” I blurted and ran for the tiny room and locked the door.
There was a narrow window, and before I even had time to think, I pushed open the glass and threw a leg over the edge. I was halfway down when I heard a deep voice say, “Good morning.”
The voice made me freeze. I dangled from the window. My feet didn’t touch the ground, but I didn’t have the upper body strength to pull myself back up again, so I just hung there, listening to Ethan laugh until I finally gave up and asked, “How far is it?”
Two hands gripped my waist.
“Drop,” Ethan said, and I did.
“Well, thank you.” I tried to sound as cool as possible as I pushed my hair out of my eyes. It had snowed overnight, and I shivered without a coat, but Ethan was in his boots and jeans, a heavy jacket, and very worn gloves.
He looked at me, eyes mocking. “Does your room not have a door? It wasn’t nice of Aunt Mary to put you in a room without a door.…”
“I…”
“You thought you’d run away this morning,” he said. “Better than running away last night at least, I’ll give you that. But if I know Aunt Mary, there’s gravy inside. A person should never run away from Aunt Mary’s gravy.”
I’m not allowed to eat gravy, I wanted to say, but instead I asked, “How far is it to the nearest town?”
“Define town?”
I glared at him. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to have English as a second language.”
“Bethlehem is three miles that way.” He pointed to the east.
“Bethlehem?” I practically rolled my eyes. “At Christmas. Perfect.”
“It’s not much of a town, though. Just a post office and a Baptist church. If you mean town with a grocery store and a school, you’ll have to go forty miles that way.” This time he pointed due north. “If you need a movie theater, Walmart, or hospital, well, then that is sixty miles that way.” This time he pointed to the south. “And, as you saw last night, the nearest airport is in Oklahoma City, which is literally hours away, so tell me, Not Hulda, what kind of town exactly are you needing?”
I walked away from him, toward the fence. Sunlight bounced off the smooth white hills, and I squinted against the glare. I needed a cab. A hotel. A different life.
I would have given anything for a different life.
“Real Hulda texted me, by the way,” Ethan yelled after me. “She made it to New York.”
I spun on him. “Did she…” I trailed off as I realized I couldn’t exactly ask Did she see anyone waiting for me? Did they find her? Do they know where I am? So I didn’t say anything at all.
But something shifted in Ethan’s eyes. Like the wind, he was growing colder. His heart was freezing over, and this wasn’t the adventure it had been the night before. Now, in the light of morning, Ethan was worried, and I couldn’t blame him.
“Who are you?” He covered the distance between us in three long strides. “What are you doing here? Who are you running from?”
“No one. Nothing.” The cold metal of the fence pressed through my shirt as I stepped back.
“Then tell me why I shouldn’t march in there right now and have my parents call the police or the FBI or whoever you’re supposed to call when there’s a stray teenage girl who needs to be taken back to her parents.”
“Is that what you think?” I didn’t mean to shout, but I couldn’t help it. My nerves had been fraying for days. Weeks. Years. And right then I felt them starting to snap. “Well, you’re wrong, Mr. I’ve-Got-a-Whole-House-Full-of-People-Who-Love-Me. My parents are not looking for me. There is absolutely no one who loves me who is worried about me at this moment. On that you have my word.”
“Okay.” Ethan took off his hat and ran his hand through his wavy brown hair. “Tell me your name at least. Please. Just tell me your name.”
Even that question wasn’t as simple as it should be.
“Lydia,” I said after a moment. “You can call me Lydia.”
“Okay. Hi, Lydia.”
“Hi.” I smiled. “So what happens now?”
“Now I’ve got to go feed.”
I looked back at the house full of strangers and questions and gravy. Then I looked at the wide-open sky and the really cute boy. “Want some company?”
* * *
The tires of the old, beat-up truck rattled in and out of the deep ruts in the ground. Ethan pushed the clutch and shifted gears, and I thought that it was maybe the single sexiest thing I’d ever seen. He was so confident, so at home and at ease. This was his domain, the cab of this old truck with its big bale of hay and long line of black, hairy cows trailing behind us. They would have followed him to the ends of the earth, I could tell.
But Ethan and I stayed quiet in the cab of the truck that, even with the heater blowing at full blast, was still cold. I could see my breath. I put my hands between my knees. Ethan pulled off his gloves and handed them to me.
Finally, the silence must have been too much because he flipped on the radio and, instantly, music filled the cab. It was supposed to be “O Holy Night” but there were too many backup singers and the tempo was too fast. It made me want to be sick.
“Sorry about the station,” he said. “Emily or the twins must have been in here. They love that teenybopper stuff.”
He turned off the radio and I pulled on his gloves. They were still warm inside. “That’s okay.”
“Do you like music?” he asked.
“I used to. When I was a kid.”
“And now that you’re so old you’re over it?” he asked with a grin.
“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that. How long have you lived here?” Suddenly, I was desperate to change the conversation.
“Well, I’m seventeen now, so … seventeen years.”
“Has your family always lived here?”
“I’m generation number five,” he said, but the words sounded strange—not like Ethan had roots tying him to that place. It was more like he had chains.
“It’s nice that you have a big family. That you all get to live together and work together.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Why did you go to Iceland?”
I don’t know where the question came from, but I could also tell that it was the right question—that somehow the answer mattered.
Ethan shifted gears again and sta
rted over a ridge. The ranch spread out before us, white and clean and stretching for miles. It was the kind of place most people only see in movies and out of airplane windows.
“I was born here. I’m going to live here and work here for the rest of my life. And, someday—if I’m lucky, a long, long time from now—I’m going to die here. And … well, I guess I just wanted one little part of my life to be not here. And Iceland seemed about as not here as a place could possibly be.”
I looked around at the rolling hills, the distant dots of cattle. “Here doesn’t seem that bad to me.”
“Yeah.” Ethan shifted gears again. He didn’t face me. “What about you? Where is your home? Or is that secret, too?”
“No secret,” I told him. “I don’t have a home.”
* * *
“Hey, honey,” Aunt Mary said when I finally returned to the house. She was kneeling on the living room rug while Emily stood on an ottoman with her arms outstretched, dressed like an angel. “We missed you at breakfast.”
“I’m sorry I left without telling you. I—”
“You had to choose between running off with a handsome cowboy you haven’t seen in months or staying in a house full of rowdy strangers…”
“And gravy,” I told her. “I also ran away from the gravy. Which might have been a mistake.”
“Then tomorrow I’ll teach you how to make it. Would you like that, Hulda?” She looked as if she expected me to protest. Or maybe confess. I was officially paranoid.
“I’d probably burn down your house.”
“It takes a lot more than you to turn this place to ash.”
“Aunt Mary, are you done yet?” Emily shifted from foot to foot.
“Stop fidgeting,” Aunt Mary commanded, then pulled a straight pin from the puffy band on her wrist and studied Emily’s too-long costume.
“I’m tired,” Emily complained, but Aunt Mary just cut her eyes up at her.
My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories Page 29