Kate came into the bedroom, the dog at her heels.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I threw a toothbrush into the suitcase. “I’m leaving.”
“What happened?”
I shook my head, fighting back tears. I would not cry because of him.
“I can’t stay here,” I said.
Bella whined, wagging her stubby tail.
“Where are you going?” Kate asked. She tugged on my arm and turned me toward her. “Talk to me.”
“Pack a bag,” I said. “Unless you want to stay here with him.”
She gave me a hard look. “Give me five minutes. Do not leave this house without me.”
Chapter 16
When Kate came back downstairs, she was carrying her smallest duffel bag. I tossed one more sweater and one extra pair of shoes into my suitcase and zipped it up.
“Ready?” I said.
She nodded. “We’ll take my car. You shouldn’t drive. You’re too worked up.”
She went out first, without saying a word to Jack, and rushed to the car to get out of the rain. When I stepped onto the porch, Jack saw the suitcase in my hand.
“What are you doing?” he asked. His hair was dripping from the rain that was blowing sideways onto the porch.
“I’m not spending the night here. Don’t be here when I get back.”
His head tilted to the side, his mouth falling open. My bag banged against the porch rail as I pulled it down the steps.
“What are you saying?”
I stopped at the bottom of the steps and turned back to him. “I want you out of here by the time I get home.”
His eyes widened. I wanted to run to that car, before he could say anything else, before the tears could sting my eyes. But I made myself walk steadily and thought of the first time I’d asked Kate, How the hell do you walk in those high heels?
She’d just shrugged and said, Heel-toe, heel-toe.
I repeated that in my head as I stomped over to her car and shoved my suitcase in the trunk. Kate had already started the engine, and when I slipped inside, she took off before I’d even shut the door.
Jack called my name, but I didn’t look at him.
I glanced into the side mirror as we went down the drive and thought I saw Jack’s silhouette on the porch, his slumped figure the one bit of darkness in the warm yellow of the porch light.
As we came to the main highway, Kate said, “Which direction?”
“Left.”
She pulled onto the pavement. “Where to?”
“West. To Texas.”
“That’s a little extreme for one night away, isn’t it?”
“Who said it was one night?”
“I only packed one pair of underwear,” she said.
“Then I guess we’re going shopping.”
After a couple of miles, she asked, “What’s in Texas?”
I pulled up my cell phone’s GPS and typed in the name of a town. “The river where my mother drowned.”
Even in the darkness, I could see the worry in her face, the set of her jaw.
“Relax,” I said. “I just want to see where she spent her last days. I’m not going to drown myself in the river.”
“Of course you’re not,” she said, turning the radio on. “We are not women who drown ourselves in rivers.”
“I wanted to go sometime after the New Year,” I said. “But I’ll just consider tonight a sign that the universe wants me to go now. It’s time some things got settled.”
“We could just go to that little inn we stayed at in Algiers,” she said. “Let you cool off, visit the city. We don’t have to leave the state.”
“This isn’t about him,” I said. “This is about finding the truth about what happened to my mother. I’m tired of secrets.”
I thought of the cold way Jack had talked to me, how easily he’d blamed me for everything that had happened with Lucille. How could he think of me as reckless? How could he think I was doing anything but helping Lucille? I’d never thought he could turn on me so quickly, but the way he’d said family when he talked about Lucille made me think he’d placed me in some other category entirely, one that would never hold the same bond of loyalty. The worst part was that he didn’t even seem to think hard about that insult: He didn’t pause and consciously choose the word to hurt me.
It just came out that way. On instinct.
Because that’s the way he thought of me, deep down. Not family. Something less than. Other.
Even worse, he’d said he wanted a break. Like he wanted to leave me. Like he was threatening to leave me, the same as the people I loved most had done before.
I rolled the window down enough to feel the breeze. The rain had let up, but a mist still wafted into the car, a stray droplet stinging my cheek now and again. Beyond the breaking storm clouds, stars blinked in the spaces between tree limbs, tiny holes pierced in the night. I tried to forget the look on Jack’s face, the way he’d so easily dismissed me, how he’d let me walk out of the house without any objection. He wanted to be away from me. He didn’t even try to convince me to stay.
After a few miles, Kate said, “You ready to talk about this yet?”
“My mother?”
She frowned. “Jack.”
“Nope.”
The GPS bellowed its directions, telling us to pick up I-10. Kate made the turn and said, “Why do you have an Australian man doing the voice of your GPS?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Can you understand him? I think he just said by-yow.”
“I find him soothing. Especially in heavy traffic and in trying emotional times.”
“I feel like I’m driving on the wrong side of the road. It’s very disconcerting.”
“Just pretend it’s your summer abroad all over again.”
She smiled a weak smile. “They never did let me drive over there.”
“They’re a wise people down under.”
She snorted and stepped on the gas as we merged onto the interstate. I leaned back, playing the scene on the porch over and over in my head, and then trying to make myself stop. Why couldn’t Jack see that I was trying to help Lucille? Why did he insist all of this was my fault?
“For what it’s worth,” Kate said, “you were right to kick him out. After what he said.”
“You heard all that, huh?”
She shrugged. “The walls are thinner than you think.”
“He obviously didn’t feel about me the way I thought he did.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but you have to kick them out when they cross the line into irrational.”
“Still not ready,” I said.
“I know, but until you are, you need to have that thought in your head too. I know you well enough to know what muck is rolling around in there right now.”
“Noted.”
Kate was quiet for a while, staring at the road ahead. It was so dark that the whole world seemed to run together, the ground blending into the water and the sky. I’d found it unnerving when I’d first moved here, but now it was comforting somehow, like things weren’t as divided as they had been before. There was more fluidity, more overlapping. Lines weren’t so clearly drawn.
It was after nine. Even running solely on adrenaline, it was unlikely we’d make it all the way to Green Bluff, the town closest to where my mother was found. It was north of Beaumont, still down in the bayou country that had probably reminded my mother of her home. I’d searched on the Internet one night the week before and found an article in the Green Bluff Gazette that detailed a tragic drowning in the nearby wildlife refuge. It was the only mention I could find of the incident.
“How far is it?” Kate asked. “To this place we’re going?”
“About five hours, according to the map. Just across the border into Texas.”
She let out a heavy sigh.
“We can stop when you get tired,” I said. “Or we can trade off driving. I doubt I’ll be sleeping
much tonight anyway.”
I could see her doing the math, her fingers twitching just barely as she counted. It had been a long time since we were out driving until two or three in the morning, and neither of us liked it much. It usually meant we drove until we were about to drop, and ended up staying in a sketchy motel out of desperation.
“Let’s just see how far we get,” she said.
~~~~
It was after midnight when we crossed the Sabine River, which marked the border into Texas. I’d taken over driving about an hour before, and Kate had quickly fallen asleep. If I stopped for truck-stop coffee, I could probably drive us on to Green Bluff, but I had no idea what the town was like. It was entirely possible we’d get to Green Bluff and find there was no motel and have to drive another hour to find one. In Texas, “remote” meant something entirely different. I blinked, wishing my eyes weren’t so tired and dry. The more I blinked, the more my eyes wanted to stay closed. I tried to focus on the faded white line at the edge of the pavement, but its blurry motion made me want to rest my eyes.
I blinked again, slowly, and felt my head jerk back upright. I needed to stop at the next decent motel we passed, or else we’d be in a ditch with the thistle. I scanned the signs along the roadside, hoping to see a familiar name, but it felt like hours since I’d seen the name of a motel chain I recognized.
My phone buzzed with what must have been another text message from Jack. A couple of hours before, I’d received one that said Please pick up. But I couldn’t. I’d ignored it and shoved the phone into the cup holder facing away so I couldn’t see the screen light up with messages. He’d tried calling a few minutes later, but I refused to answer.
Less than half an hour later it had buzzed again. At that point, I’d had another thought that made me curse under my breath.
My father. I’d told him we’d talk later. I’d intended to go over to the inn where he was staying and finish the conversation I’d been putting off for far too long. I glanced at the phone, but the message was not from my father. It was too late to call him. It would have to wait until tomorrow.
The phone buzzed again, this time in a pattern like Morse code. Jack was calling.
I almost answered, just because I didn’t want him to worry. But I was too angry to hear his voice. I didn’t want to rehash everything that had been said earlier. I didn’t want to hear more about how I was wrong. Dishonest. Asinine. He’d said he wanted a break, so I was going to give him one. It would be simple enough to text him when we were in for the night, so he knew we were safe. But beyond that, I had nothing else to say to him.
I stared at the screen, then let it go to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message. In all likelihood, our conversation on the porch would be our last one. I’d never forget the look of disappointment on his face, the look of disgust. How could I go back to him after that? How could I be with him if he thought I was so reckless and thoughtless?
I couldn’t fault him for being mad about the situation, but I did fault him for blaming me. I couldn’t understand why he was making me the bad guy after I’d done everything I could to help Lucille. He was probably already packing and calling one of his buddies to stay with. He’d likely call me a few more times, and he’d eventually leave a message that let him get out everything he wanted to say. Then I’d go back in a couple of days, and he would be gone.
I’d told him to go, and he hadn’t argued. He wanted to leave me. He wanted this to be over. He would vanish the way my mother did, the way Vergie did. Jack would slip out of my life as quickly as he had slipped into it.
I’d figure out how to live without him.
I hated the idea, but I knew that’s how this would end. I couldn’t help but ruminate, and as I did, the more I started to realize that Jack might not be completely wrong. If he were in danger, I’d want to know immediately—not days later. I hadn’t wanted to betray Lucille, but the way I’d tried to protect her had made Jack feel ignored. He’d felt betrayed, and I could understand how that would make him feel angry and hurt. Of course I could.
But he was so angry he couldn’t see that I was also trying to save her—that I’d started to think of her as my family too. I wanted to protect her, the way I wanted to protect everyone who mattered to me. Lucille mattered to me because she mattered to Jack. His family was becoming my family, and that had meant the world to me.
But now they would be gone.
More people I loved would disappear from my life because of one choice I’d made.
Because I couldn’t make Jack see.
There was almost no traffic, aside from semis, and hardly any lights along the road. I exited the interstate and headed northeast on a two-lane highway, toward Green Bluff. It felt like a hundred miles had passed since I’d seen even a gas station. A cloud of orange-tinted light off to the south indicated a city, but it had to have been thirty miles away and not in the direction we were headed.
The state highway carried us through rolling hills with cattle and scrub trees. We passed clusters of houses, but it was another half an hour before we passed a sign for a chain motel ahead. When I saw the neon glow of a vacancy sign, I pulled into the parking lot.
Kate woke when I parked. The motel was a small two-story with a kidney-shaped pool that had been drained for the winter. The safety lights in the parking lot cast an eerie green glow on the bricks, making them look like the thick hide of a reptile.
I pushed the office door open and saw the night clerk watching TV in the lobby. He looked about eighteen, with shaggy blond hair that almost touched his shoulders. He didn’t move until I rang the bell at the front counter.
“Oh, hey,” he said, jumping up from his chair. “Sorry, they were showing highlights from the bowl game.”
“You have any rooms left?”
He laughed. “Oh sure.”
“Two adults,” I said. “Two beds would be great.”
He went behind the front desk and started typing on the computer, eyeing the car in the lot as I gave him my information. “Breakfast is served from six to ten,” he said, handing me a receipt to sign. “Your room’s upstairs to the left of the elevator.”
“Thanks.”
“Yes, ma’am. Have a good night.”
He was back in his chair by the time I got to the car.
Kate and I carried our bags to our room and collapsed onto the beds. Light from the parking lot poured into the tiny space from the gaps around the edges of the curtains.
“I’ve stayed in worse,” I said.
“It’s not that bad.”
“You’re road weary. You’ll feel differently in the morning.”
She waved me off. “There’s a bed and a roof and a coffee pot. Who cares about the rest?”
She fell asleep before I’d finished brushing my teeth. I climbed into bed and lay in the dim greenish light, staring at a swollen ceiling tile that looked like it might collapse sometime in the next few hours. I set the alarm on my cell phone and read the string of text messages that had come in from Jack. They were mostly asking me to call him, to pick up the phone. I sent one back that said, We stopped for the night. We’re fine.
I almost wrote more, but didn’t.
Instead, I sent a quick text to my father. Something came up that had to be fixed, I said. I’ll try to call tomorrow.
My last conversation with Jack began replaying in my head again, and I pushed the phone aside, refusing to think of that fight on the porch any more before I went to sleep. Instead, I thought about my mother and imagined what exactly had brought her out here, across the river into this remote part of a state she’d never seen before.
~~~~
In the morning, Kate and I both showered quickly and took our bags out to the car. It was amazing to me that Kate could always look so sleek and put-together, regardless of what grubby place she’d spent the night. She could sweep her hair back into a ponytail, splash cold water on her face, and look like a model trying to travel incognito. I, however, always looked l
ike I had pillow hair, and my eyes were always puffy, regardless of how much water I splashed on them.
It was just after seven, and only two other people were in the motel lobby—an elderly couple bundled up like they were expecting a Chicago winter. I nodded a greeting to them as Kate made a beeline for the coffee pot and poured two large cups. She handed me one and cringed as she sniffed her own.
“Maybe this town of yours will have a nice coffee shop where they know how to make lattes,” she grumbled as she dug a handful of creamer containers from a bin.
I emptied a couple into my coffee, and she said, “Honestly, who uses these?” She systematically tore into them, peeling their wrappers back, dumping the contents into her cup, and setting them on the counter. When she finally reached for a stirrer, eight little cups were lined up in two rows of four.
“This is ridiculous,” she said, waving her fingers over the tiny containers.
“I know.”
“Are those biscuits over there?”
A tiny sign that read “continental breakfast” was stuck in a plate full of biscuits. The row of metal trays next to them held sausage, an egg-like substance, and toaster waffles.
I sipped my coffee as she grabbed two biscuits and broke them apart, slipping sausage patties inside.
“We could sit down,” I said. “There’s no rush.”
“These’ll travel easy.” She wrapped the biscuits in a napkin. “Let’s hit it.”
“What’s got such a fire lit under you all of a sudden?”
She fixed me with her eyes, which were entirely too bright and alert for this hour. This is how she looked at me when she was fiercely set on an idea.
“We have an objective,” she said, gesturing toward me with her coffee cup. She’d have pointed her finger straight at my chest if she hadn’t been holding coffee and a biscuit. “You need to figure out this stuff with your mom so you can move past it. I’m here to hold the pedal down.”
Bayou, Whispers from the Past: A Novel Page 18