Rosalind was in shock, but she knew never to disobey her mother when she yelled. She ran to the back of the hallway and grabbed the suitcase. It was heavy, but her adrenaline kicked in and she heaved it into both arms and started down the hallway. A brilliant light illuminated the living room and the closer Rosalind got to it, the warmer it became. She set the suitcase down and ran to the end of the hallway. The couch was engulfed in flames and standing next to it was a figure that she was sure was her mother. The figure, also on fire, danced clumsily from the television set to the makeshift crib in the corner.
Jared!
Rosalind tried to slip by the flaming figure, but she was too late. Her mother, in one final act of love, threw herself on top of the crib and soon after, the crate and the dead baby inside of it were on fire.
The flames grew brighter and hotter as the room turned into a furnace. She grabbed the suitcase and ran back down the hall. There was a back door off of the side of the house that her father had sometimes used to bring in wood, but laundry was blocking it. She set the suitcase down again and started pulling the pile of clothes apart. When she'd cleared enough to see the handle, she twisted on the knob and threw the door open. There was still a pile of clothes at the bottom of the doorway, but she could jump over it.
She grabbed the suitcase and threw it out the door and onto the cold, wet grass. The stairs her father had used in the past were long gone, and it was a two-foot drop to the bottom, but she didn't think about it, she just jumped. She landed wrong and twisted her ankle.
Rosalind lay there for a minute and caught her breath. She pushed herself up and grabbed the suitcase, but when she managed to hobble a few feet away, she looked back at the trailer in horror.
Rosalind limped back to the door way, which was starting to fill with smoke, and climbed her way across the clothes and back into the hallway. A few wafts of smoke got caught in her lungs, but she coughed them out and threw herself into her bedroom. She flipped the stained mattress over and found it—the picture of the woman with the bright yellow dress. She crumpled it in her hands and made her way back to the doorway. The flames had now taken hold of the most of the hallway, and she knew from now on that anything else she left here would be lost forever. She didn't care, she had everything that ever meant anything to her.
She jumped back down onto the ground, this time, rolling on her side to save her ankle. The fire from the living room had broken through the roof of the trailer and the reflections of the flames danced across the metal lining of the suitcase. She hobbled back over to the red monstrosity, grabbed it, picked it up and hobbled as fast as she could away from the inferno.
When she knew she was a safe distance away, she set the suitcase down and sat on it. The fire had reached about forty feet by the time she made it out, and all she could do was watch it burn. She didn't cry. She promised herself she wouldn't cry. Rosalind Stump was thirteen-years-old, but she was old enough to know that inside of that fiery hell, her mother, her brother, and her father were dead. She picked up the suitcase and started walking to State Road 60 which was less than a mile away.
***
The suitcase grew heavier with each step. She was within sight of State Road 60, so she pressed on, trying her best to forget about the death of her family and the only life she'd ever known.
What would she do now?
Where would she go?
Since she had never attended school, her education on the matters of money were non-existent, but she sensed that the twenty-three dollars her mother had left her in the suitcase wouldn't get her too far. Her blistering heels irritated her, but that wasn't the worst of her problems. She had run from the burning trailer without a jacket. She shivered, but mostly from the thought that she was now completely alone.
The road was as dark as the trip there. She looked in both directions, but saw no headlights from either direction. She flipped open the suitcase to look for something—anything—to cover her exposed arms. To her relief, her mother had packed her a small jacket, so she put it on and closed the suitcase. The blisters worsened. Sighing with relief, she unlatched the back of her shiny, black shoes and pushed them off. The cold weather didn't seem to bother her for ten minutes or so, but the cold numbed her feet, so she opened the suitcase and looked for a pair of socks. She didn't find any, but she did find six pairs of panties and some hose that had several runs in them. She pulled the hose from the suitcase and slipped them on. Little comfort from the cold, the panty hose were still better than nothing.
An owl nestled somewhere in the trees on the other side of State Road 60 began to hoot, and it scared her at first. But after a while, she began to enjoy his chatter, so she started hooting back. For the next ten minutes they traded calls but then, when the owl finally decided that Rosalind was too big to eat, his cooing stopped and Rosalind heard the flittering of wings trail off into the woods in search of dinner. Rosalind knew about things like that. In this world there were predators and there was prey, but she never knew that she was the latter. She never knew that what her father had been doing was wrong, really. There was something off about it, sure. But she had only ever known what her parents taught her and her mother's neglect left her dependent on her father's good intentions, of which there were none. She folded her arms and hooted once more, but there was no answer.
Her neck was getting cold. Her jacket, which was a size too small, didn't have a hood. She carefully pulled the yarn from each oily, ratted ponytail and let her hair over her shoulders and neck. She felt little comfort from it.
Rosalind wasn't sure exactly when she nodded off, and even less sure how she could have done it without falling off of the suitcase, but she had, and the beat-up 1939 Chevy pickup that now sat in front of her scared the Jesus out of her.
At first it looked like a smoking demon from a nightmare, but once her eyes focused, she saw a man on the other side of the seat peering over the passenger-side door. He was smiling at her.
"Girl, what are you doing out here this early?" the man said.
She'd never talked to strangers, even when her parents were alive. Her father had warned her many times that doing so would result in a whooping, so she never once even thought about such a transgression. But he was dead now. Burned up in a fire. She stood up and walked to the door.
"Hi," she said with her head bowed.
"Hello," replied the bald, gray-bearded man.
After a few moments of silence he spoke again. "You got somewhere you need to go? Looks like your packed up there."
"I don't know. Momma just said I got to go away from here."
"Did she now? A pretty little thing like you? I think she's crazy is what I think," he said, still wearing the smile that made her slightly uncomfortable. And, did he say pretty? This was definitely a man who could not be trusted. Little girls in rags with ratted hair were not pretty. Her father said so many times. They were 'dirty, ugly things,' he would say. And sometimes her momma would agree. Rosalind started to back away, but the man spoke again. "Hold on now, I'm not tryin' to be forward or nothin' like that. But it's cold out here and you was sleepin'. That ain't healthy, if you know what I mean. I can take you as far as Whispering Pines. You got any family there?"
She shrugged. She really didn't know. There might be someone there who'd claim her, but she had never left the house to visit anyone and she never recalled any visitors ever coming to the house, let alone relatives. She would have remembered that. A chill grabbed her. She shivered. She felt the warmth from the truck pouring out of the window, over her face.
"Yes," she said.
"Well alright then. Hop on in, I'll get your things." He got out of the car and put her suitcase into the truck bed. He even opened the door for her, something her charming man in the black suit had done for her so many times when they went to New York or Paris or even Louisville. Maybe he could be trusted after all.
Her first encounter in the world of survival was going just fine, and she didn't even have to spend one penn
y of her twenty-three dollars.
She climbed in the passenger side while he rolled up the window and closed the door.
He came around the other side and got behind the wheel.
"It's gettin' shit-cold out there, if you know what I mean. It was a good thing I was drivin' by."
She knew exactly what he meant. Her mother knew it too. It was shit-cold outside. And maybe she knew something else; when you were cold like that on the inside and you had been for a long time, the only thing that could warm your bones was a fire that ripped through your life and put you right back out in it.
Chapter 4
They arrived in town fifteen minutes later. Her bones had finally thawed from the previous night, but she knew that he would be moving on and she became nervous at the thought of being alone; this time in an unfamiliar town. He got out of the truck and opened her door.
"Last stop Whispering Pines." He held her hand as she got out of the truck and saw how scared she was. He looked around the square and then behind him. There was a coffee shop on the corner that was having a special on two eggs, sausage, toast, and coffee for only thirty-five cents. He had two dollars in his pocket. "Why don’t we grab some breakfast, on me?"
She nodded innocently and breathed a sigh of relief. They walked into the shop and sat down in an empty booth. It was a Thursday morning and there wasn't a crowd, so the waitress walked over right away.
"Two specials, please," the man said. The waitress set two glasses of water on the table. Rosalind was thirsty and drank the entire glass in one motion.
Rosalind put both of her hands between her legs and pushed down on the seat of the booth. She winced.
"Everything okay?" the man asked.
"I got to pee," she said.
The man laughed. "I bet you do. Go on, now. You don't need my permission." She gracefully slid out of the booth and wandered to the back of the shop. There was a door that said Management on it, but she couldn't read it. The waitress saw what she was doing and walked over to let her know the bathroom was behind that very same door. Rosalind was weary of signs, not that she saw that many in her life. She smiled at the waitress and then went inside.
She came out a few minutes later and sat back down in the booth. The waitress had already brought their food, and Rosalind dug right in. She slurped one of the egg yolks into her mouth from her spoon—a trick her mother had taught her at an early age—and chewed on the creamy, buttered toast that formed a heavenly combination in her mouth with the sweet, chalky yolk. She took a drink of the water and then shoved a sausage patty into her mouth, chewing it exactly three times before swallowing it. She repeated this procedure with her last egg, toast, and sausage while the man just sat there in awe.
"You sure was hungry, huh?"
She smiled at him with a full mouth of breakfast and decided that she liked him.
"So, I need to get going pretty soon, you got anyone you can call?" he asked, taking a small bite of his sausage patty.
She felt bad for not liking him at first. This nice man had brought her to town and bought her breakfast, and she did nothing but lie to him. She lied about knowing someone in a town she had never been to. She hung her head low.
"Uh-huh. I can't really blame you, to be honest. It was cold out there and I mighta told someone I was the president of these United States if I thought it woulda got me outta this chill. But, I'm gonna feel real awful about leaving such a young girl in a town she don't know. Are you sure?"
"Momma put twenty-three dollars in my suitcase," she said, finishing up the last of her toast and washing it down with the last of her second glass of water.
His eyes widened and he dropped his fork onto his plate. The waitress look up from behind the counter and then back to her napkins and utensils. Twenty-three dollars wasn't much, but it was enough to get him to Indianapolis and the hell out of this miserable county, even in that gas-hog. A war was brewing inside of his head and the only question he had, the only shot that he could fire across enemy lines that would end it, was whether or not he could live with himself if he stranded a young girl in a strange town without any money.
It was a quick battle.
"Honey, why don't you go to the bathroom and clean up a bit. I can take you to Mary Peterson's boarding house and maybe she can set you up for the night while you figure out what to do."
She pulled at her oily hair and admitted to herself that he might be right. She nodded her head and then slipped out of the booth and went back to the bathroom. She looked back at the waitress and she nodded for her to go on in.
The man, once he was sure she was inside and couldn't see him, got up quickly and ran out to the back of the truck. He opened the suitcase and rummaged through it, searching for the money. After he didn't find a purse or any other conventional means of storing it, he searched the bottom of the container and underneath the pile of panties and saw it: a wadded up twenty-dollar bill. He stuffed the bill in his pocket and then shoved the items back into the suitcase. He looked back into the restaurant and didn't see any movement in the windows, so he took the suitcase and dropped it on that ground. She would need her clothes and after all, he wasn't a monster. He just needed a way out and you know what, he brought her this far, didn't he?
The suitcase hit the ground and flew open, sending her clothes all over the sidewalk. He bent down to grab a few dollar bills that he had missed, but decided against the last one when he saw that the waitress was coming out of the shop.
"You bastard!" she cried.
Horrified, he ran around the side of the truck, hopped in, and revved up the motor. And with a long squeal of his tires, he was down the road and out of sight. The waitress covered her mouth in disgust and went back into the shop.
She went to call the police, but realized that she hadn't actually bothered to look at the license plate or the make and model of the truck. She went back to folding napkins and tried to think of a way to tell the girl in the bathroom that she had just been robbed.
Chapter 5
The reflection in the mirror didn't scare her. She had become quite accustomed to the haggard girl in the reflection and for all she knew, every girl her age looked like this.
When the water was warm enough, she cupped her hands under the flow and splashed it on her face. There was a bar of Ivory soap sitting in the white porcelain impression, so she grabbed it and began lathering her face with it. She wasn't so dumb that she didn't know what clean was, she just wasn't used to worrying about it. Besides, no one at her house ever seemed to complain, least of all her father. Her arms were caked in soot and dirt, so she washed them next. She would need to make a good impression if she was going to stay at a stranger's house. That much was just common sense. They wouldn't want a dirty, ugly girl mucking up their house. But maybe they'd just take an ugly one who smelled nice and looked clean?
Her hair was another matter. Brushing and grooming were never a major concern at the Stump residence, so she decided against washing it and instead pulled loose a small thread that had been eeking its way out of the bottom of her skirt. She had to be very careful with it so it wouldn't break. Her skilled hands managed to tie up a single ponytail that kept a majority of her hair out of her face. Once satisfied with her appearance, she half-smiled at the mirror and went back into the dining area.
The man who brought her to town and bought her breakfast was no longer sitting in their booth. She scanned the room and didn’t see him anywhere, but she did see the waitress standing behind the counter with her hand over her mouth, looking at Rosalind like someone had just died. She walked to the door to see if he was outside warming up the truck, but when she got to the window, she saw that the truck was gone. Rosalind pushed open the door and ran to the curb. She looked up and down the street, but he was nowhere to be seen. At her feet, she saw a pair of panties that looked like they could be hers, and when she saw the rest of the clothes and the opened suitcase, she knew that they were. Rosalind knelt down and calmly put her clothes back
in her suitcase. She rifled through the suitcase and found a single dollar bill and some loose change amounting to forty-seven cents. She didn't know how to count, but when Henrietta had told Rosalind that she put twenty-three dollars in there for her to escape, she believed her. She believed her then and she believed her now. And she knew that what she held in her hand wasn't twenty three dollars. At that moment she knew that the man who brought her to town had taken something from her which made him no different than her father. She started to think that maybe all men were like that. She didn't know, but if her brief experience with them had taught her anything, it was that men would always want something from her and they would always take it whether she wanted to give it or not. She closed her suitcase and set it upright. She looked back and forth down the road for the man, but she caught no glimpse of the battered truck anywhere. When she decided that the man wasn't coming back, she pulled her skirt close to her legs and sat down on the suitcase.
Chapter 6
When Nancy Fletcher, the waitress who had witnessed the man run off with Rosalind's money, had finally gone out to the curb and convinced Rosalind to come back into the diner, she made her lunch and promised her that everything was going to be okay. If Rosalind would have asked Nancy right then why the man had stolen her money and left her like he did, Nancy would have probably held her hand and offered some meaningless wisdom. What broke Nancy's heart was when Rosalind didn't bring it up. The girl just pecked away at her burger and fries like nothing had happened.
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