by T. Greenwood
And, to be truthful, there was something sort of lovely about their lives now. The house was beautiful, their baby was beautiful (everyone said so). The neighborhood looked as though it belonged in a movie: the tree-lined street and singing birds. Once a week they put their shiny silver trash can out in front of their home (instead of in an alley Dumpster) and by ten o’clock in the morning, when she took Peyton out for a walk, it was empty. A gardener came weekly as well, to trim the hedges and mow the lawn in the summer. When snow fell, the walkway and driveway were shoveled and sprinkled with salt so that no one ever slipped and fell. They did not have a housekeeper; Ab had offered to hire one, though she declined. She was home all day with Peyton, what else was she supposed to do with her time?
She had traded in the old life in Cambridge for this new one, consumed by the demands of the house: ironing, folding, and vacuuming. The endless string of chores Peyton provided: tiny clothes to be laundered, toys to be picked up and put away, again and again and again.
She didn’t socialize with the other mothers in the neighborhood. She imagined all of them, her compatriots, each living out their respective lives inside their lovely homes, each life quietly identical to the other. What on earth would they talk about? Their Frigidaires and their colicky infants? The price of ground beef or the best way to remove stains from the toilet? Besides, this was only temporary; she’d made the mistake of getting attached to their neighbors in Cambridge; leaving them behind had been difficult.
Thankfully, there were books. There had always been books. She missed the library, but she had her own personal library she’d built over the years, and she returned to those books again and again whenever she thought she might die of boredom inside the house. There were entire days when she neglected household chores in favor of hours spent reading on the couch. Once, when Peyton had some childhood illness or another, she was blessed with three straight hours of peace and quiet in which she read and reread Ariel, that collection of Sylvia Plath’s poems Ab had given her for her birthday, from cover to cover. It made her feel guilty, of course, but she’d been slightly irritated when Peyton had woken up the next day healthy and energetic and as demanding as could be again.
And so her life moved forward in circles, in cycles, for the first year in Dover as Ab got his toes, then his knees, then his waist wet in the law. By the time Peyton turned three, Ginny knew that if she didn’t pull him out soon, he’d be fully submerged.
“Let’s drive down there,” she’d said one Saturday morning, as she set Ab’s usual Saturday morning soft-boiled egg and two pieces of buttered toast in front of him.
“Where’s that?” he asked absently; he was reading something he’d plucked from his briefcase, the long-ago promise to leave work at work on the weekends long forgotten.
“The Cape. Let’s go to the cottage.”
She’d long since given up the idea that Ab and she would join one of those communes. The creature comforts of having their own home—privacy, for one—were things even she wasn’t willing to sacrifice. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t live more simply. Move into his family’s cottage. She dreamed of the woods, the ocean, a life in which her husband didn’t spend seventy hours a week in the city.
Ab smiled, but the little spark was gone. He sighed and reached for Ginny’s hand. “My dad has asked me to be a partner,” he said.
Ginny’s throat constricted.
“A partner?”
“Yes. It would take me seven years at any other firm to move from associate to partner.”
“What does this mean?” she asked, knowing already and fully well exactly what it meant.
“Richardson, Richardson & Associates,” he said, taking a deep breath, his chest filling with air, his shoulders broadening.
Overhead a large bird flew, casting a shadow, which for a fleeting moment cast a shadow over them all.
“Ginny, I want this. For us. For me.”
Twenty-Eight
September 1971
“I picked up a Florida map at the last gas stop. It’s more detailed than the atlas. Can you grab it?” Marsha said, and Ginny reached toward the glove box, remembering for the first time that there was a loaded firearm inside.
Ginny located the key under the mat, unlocked it, and reached in, her fingers grazing the cold metal of the gun. She pulled the map out and closed the door, not bringing up how uncomfortable having the gun made her feel. This was Marsha’s vehicle, one she’d essentially hijacked. Who was she to start making the rules?
“Gabe made me get it,” Marsha said.
“What’s that?”
She nodded her head toward the closed glove box and mouthed, the gun. She whispered, “He worries about me on the nights I work late. Remember that guy in Chicago a few years ago who raped and killed all those student nurses?”
Ginny nodded and thought about Marsha coming out of the hospital after her shift, the dangers lurking in the parking lot. She thought about how vulnerable they all were, how fear had lived inside her since she was old enough to understand the dangers of being a girl in this world.
She spread the map across her lap and studied the northern part of Florida, which they were set to enter in about a hundred miles if they stayed on I-95. The exit for State Route 301 was coming up.
“I think you want to go that way,” Ginny said, motioning to the sign they were approaching.
Marsha, without using her blinker, pulled over to the right lane, taking the exit.
“It’ll take longer this way,” Ginny said, nervous now about taking a detour that would keep them on the road any longer than necessary. But really, what other options did they have?
The terrain here was much as it had been throughout Georgia, lots of trees and green on either side of them. Though she wondered if they’d have to wait for sunshine until they crossed the border into the so-called Sunshine State. Overhead the skies were gray and ominous, the air thick with a sort of buzzing electricity.
“When did they say that storm was supposed to hit the Gulf?” Marsha asked and reached for the radio knob, turning to the AM station, perhaps hoping for a weather report. Nothing but static and warbled music.
“The news last night said that it was coming up from Central America, expected to hit the Gulf of Mexico in the next day or so,” Ginny said. It didn’t seem like they’d have anything to worry about, even with this detour. Now, if they’d planned to drive to Louisiana or Texas, that might cause a problem, but as far as she knew they were still headed to Weeki Wachee, where Theresa would be waiting for them with a place to stay. She couldn’t imagine that Ab would ever think to look for her in the Florida swamps. She didn’t think she’d never even mentioned Marsha’s older sister to him.
“Oh, shit. Is that the car you saw?” Marsha asked, raising her eyes to the rearview mirror.
Ginny turned slowly in her seat and looked behind them. In the distance, there was a car, approaching quickly. It appeared to be green, but it was difficult to tell, the skies were so dark. She felt her hands begin to tremble again, and she turned back to face the road ahead of them.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But maybe go a little faster?”
Marsha gripped the wheel and accelerated; Ginny held on tight.
The car kept gaining on them, though; it had to be going at least twice as fast as they were. Ginny twisted in her seat to watch as it approached. Soon it went from being a speck in the distance to being nearly upon them. When it roared past them in the passing lane, Ginny could see it was the green Duster.
“What the hell?” Marsha said.
The car had passed so quickly, Ginny hadn’t been able to catch a glimpse of the driver, or of the passenger if there had been one. It was going so fast that she only caught the last couple of letters of the license plate, which was yellow with blue numbers. Massachusetts.
“I should see where that motherfucker is going,” Marsha said, gunning the accelerator again.
“No,” Ginny said.
“Slow down, Marsh,” she said. “If he was following us, he wouldn’t have passed us, right?”
“He’s screwing with us,” she said.
It must have been true, because as they rounded a small bend, they could see the Duster parked at the side of the road. A man was leaning against the open driver’s-side door. Marsha pressed her foot on the brakes and slowed.
“Roll down your window,” she said.
“What?”
“Roll down your window!” She leaned across Ginny’s lap and reached for the window handle. Lucy, who had been napping in Ginny’s arms, stirred.
“Keep your eyes on the road! I’ll do it.” Ginny rolled the window down, and Marsha slowed the car to a crawl.
As they approached the Duster, Ginny took the guy in. He was nondescript. Not tall, not short. Anywhere from thirty to forty years old. Dark hair, pale skin, a thick beard.
Lucy peered out the window as Ginny did, saw the man, and started to wail. Of course, another beard.
With the window down, Marsha leaned across Ginny, extending her middle finger dramatically.
The man returned her gesture by tipping an imaginary hat, and as Marsha sped up and blew past, he calmly got into his car. Ginny turned to watch as he closed the door and started the engine. Ginny watched him in the side-view mirror as she tried to comfort Lucy, who, once again, was trembling and weeping. She also felt her lap suddenly warm and damp. A soaking wet diaper. But there was no way in hell they were going to pull over now.
“Who do you think he is?” Marsha asked, glancing in her rearview mirror nervously.
Ginny shook her head. She didn’t recognize him. The car was from Massachusetts. Could he be someone that Abbott Senior had hired to follow them? Someone from Willowridge? Or maybe an undercover police officer. But all the way from Massachusetts? And if that were the case, why not just pull them over?
“Well, whoever that asshole is, we need to lose him,” Marsha said.
“That’s a bad word,” Peyton chimed in from the backseat. He hadn’t said anything in nearly an hour. “You say a lot of bad words.”
“Sorry, buddy!” Marsha said brightly into the rearview. To Ginny, she said, “Get out the map again?”
Ginny studied the map. There were about ten main arteries that would get them to Weeki Wachee, and about a hundred smaller veins threading from where they were now to the Gulf Coast of Florida. But choosing one seemed arbitrary, and depending on how far behind this guy was, potentially lethal. Lucy had finally stopped crying, but Ginny’s blouse was damp with tears, her lap soggy with pee.
“We could go this way,” Ginny said, deciding that perhaps a capricious decision would, in the end, be less predictable than one backed by any sort of reason or logic. Let fate decide.
The billboard, tattered and faded, loomed ahead. A beleaguered-looking alligator under the words GATORS GALORE: A REPTILIAN ADVENTURE. 161 MILES AHEAD.
Peyton perked up, pointing at the sign. “Like the crocodile in Peter Pan!” he exclaimed, climbing between the two front seats to study the antiquated sign. Ginny didn’t have the heart to tell him that Gators Galore might not even exist anymore. But his enthusiasm seemed to be a sign.
“That will bring us almost to the Gulf,” Ginny said, studying the map. “Then we can just hug the coast all the way down to Weeki Wachee.”
Marsha nodded once and took the exit advertised on the billboard. Ginny said a silent prayer that whoever that man was wouldn’t think to follow the signs for a reptilian roadside attraction.
Ginny had hoped that once they got on the new road, they’d see a place where they could pull over and she could change Lucy’s diaper, but there was nothing as far as the eye could see except for orange groves. It was raining a little as well, and the prospect of trying to put a dry diaper on a wriggling child in this sort of drizzle seemed counterintuitive.
“Hey, Marsh, can we stop soon? Lucy’s really wet.”
“I thought it kind of smelled like pee,” Marsha said. “My nose is finely tuned these days. I swear I can already smell the ocean.”
Ginny recollected the heightened sense of smell she’d had when she was pregnant with Peyton and Lucy as well. She seemed to be able to smell everything; her world was a palette of conflicting odors. Ab had once gone out to lunch and eaten fried clams. For three days afterward she still thought he smelled like the bottom of the ocean. She’d made him gargle with Listerine, but the minty smell made her eyes water.
Finally, in the distance, through the drizzle and haze, Ginny saw an orange dome. It loomed in the distance like an odd beacon. As they approached, she could see that it was a citrus stand, shaped like a giant orange, complete with a jaunty stem nearly two stories up. She marveled at how enormous it was. Peyton perked up, too.
“Wow! That’s a big peach!” he said.
“It’s an orange,” she said. They were in Florida. “I’ll take the baby inside to see if they have a restroom. Can you watch Pey?”
“Sure,” Marsha said. She pulled around behind the building, parking out of sight of the main road just in case the man in the Duster had somehow managed to track them down again.
Ginny grabbed a change of clothes for each of them from the laundry bag as well as a fresh diaper. Inside the shop, she was greeted by not only rows and rows of citrus bins, but also aisles of souvenirs. Key rings and plastic visors, T-shirts and flip-flops and beach towels and snow globes. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine that she was just a tourist, that this was, indeed, just some lengthy road trip. A family vacation. What might she pick up to serve as a reminder? She even thought of what sort of postcard she might send home. “Wish You Were Here”? “Greetings from the Sunshine State”?
Home. It was Thursday, still less than a week since she’d taken Lucy from the school. Since her world systematically began to fall to pieces. She hadn’t spoken to her mother since they were in New Jersey. She knew she should check in with her again, though she feared that Shirley would confirm her darkest fears. That Ab and his father were going to send someone after her; maybe they already had. That Willowridge had gotten the FBI involved. That she was on a road trip that would end not in Weeki Wachee but in losing her children. When her mind began to wander to those dark places, she had to pull herself back. Keep from opening those doors to all the awful possibilities.
As she made her way through the maze of colorful tchotchkes toward the overhead RESTROOMS sign, blinking lights to guide the way, she felt dizzy. She clung tighter to Lucy and rushed past a rack of tacky T-shirts (SEND US MORE TOURISTS, THE LAST ONE WAS DELICIOUS, said the grinning cartoon gator) and an entire display of coconut monkeys, feeling tears starting to spill from her eyes. What was she doing? This, all of this, was insane. The coconut monkeys seemed to mock her with their bucktoothed grins.
She rushed into the restroom and quickly changed Lucy first, noting that the diaper rash was looking angry again. She took extra care to clean and dry her bottom, using extra ointment and powder. What she needed to do was to just let her go without a diaper for a day. When Peyton had gotten a rash like this, she’d simply spent an afternoon in their backyard, letting him run around naked. The fresh air had been the best medicine.
She set Lucy on the closed toilet lid and quickly changed out of her own damp clothes, considered just leaving them there. Once they got settled, she could get new clothes. Start over. But what did that even mean? Starting over? What was she doing? Did she really think she could keep running like this forever? So what if they finally reached Weeki Wachee; that was nothing but a momentary refuge. It wasn’t as if being there would change anything about the fact that this little girl in her arms, this baby with her soft skin and tawny eyes, with her curls and tiny fingers, did not belong to her. This truth was one she’d been keeping behind a locked door, in its own room. She could not go inside. Would not.
“Mum mum.”
Ginny s
topped.
She looked at Lucy, who was peering at her with an intensity that made her body soften, warmth pooling like something liquid at the center of her.
“Mumma,” she said again and reached her chubby little arms up to her, clasping her fingers.
The tears that Ginny had wiped furiously away returned, and she shook her head.
“Yes, baby?” she asked.
“Mumma,” Lucy said again, and Ginny thought she could stay here forever. Inside a cramped bathroom stall in an orange-shaped souvenir shop, in some Florida swamplands. She could live inside this orange orb, subsist on tangerines.
Ginny picked Lucy up again and held her tightly. She smelled clean and sweet, and, at least for this moment, she knew nothing mattered but this.
Because she’d left her credit card at the body repair shop back in Savannah, she was starting to worry about money. She was down to her last fifty dollars. She’d seen a pay phone behind the giant orange when they pulled in. She’d get Lucy situated in the car and then call her mother collect. Ask her to wire some money to the Western Union closest to Weeki Wachee.
But as she and Lucy exited the store and moved around the back to the parking lot, Marsha came running up to her.
“Is Peyton with you?” Marsha said, her eyes frantic.
“What?”
“Peyton,” she said. “You don’t have him?”
“No,” Ginny said, and her heart started to pound in her ears and throat. “Weren’t you watching him?”
“I told him to sit at that picnic table, and I went to get some snacks from the vending machine over there, but when I came back he was gone.”
“You left him alone?” Ginny said in disbelief.
“I thought he went inside to find you. I was just headed in to look. I thought maybe he needed to use the restroom.”