Gone South (6 page)

After stopping at the grocery store on her way home from work, Tish grabbed a shopping cart and pushed it inside at a fast clip. Lately, she was always running. Literally and mentally. Always running behind, like some scatterbrained ditz.

Her workday life had always been a whirlwind of paperwork, but now her at-home life had become that too. The mortgage was in process. She’d given notice to her employer and her landlord, and she’d started her online search for jobs around Noble. Her apartment was a mess of moving boxes and piles of giveaways.

She steered the cart toward the produce department in hopes of finding the produce manager. He always had boxes to give away, but she liked to ask him first. She didn’t want anyone to think she was taking them without permission.

Passing a display of Valentine’s Day merchandise—a premature display,
in her opinion, as it was still early January—she nearly ran into one of the Henderson brothers coming the other way with one of his little boys. Father and son matched from head to toe: John Deere caps, barn jackets, jeans, and brown boots.

There used to be six stairstep Henderson brothers. Out of habit, not because she needed it anymore, she ran down the mental list that had helped her keep the brothers straight at first. This was Matt, who wasn’t quite as blond as his brothers. Hank was the one with the boyish, contagious laugh. Paul had curly hair. Ryan had the only big nose of the family. Rob was the short, studious one. And finally there was Stephen, the youngest. The one she’d loved.

Matt’s son tugged on his arm and whined for a bag of Valentine’s candy.

“No, buddy,” Matt said. “Your mom already bought plenty.”

“Daddy, please?”

“No, Alex. Sorry.”

Tish felt herself softening, feeling sorry for the little tyke. At four or five, Stephen must have looked very much like Alex.

Tears heated her eyes. If that stupid deer hadn’t run into the road and ruined everything, Alex would have been her nephew by marriage. She would have sent him a Valentine every year.
With much love from Uncle Stephen and Aunt Tish …

Laughing at something his son had said, Matt looked up and noticed her. “Tish, how are ya? My mom told me you’re moving to Alabama.”

“Hi, you two.” Tish mustered up the biggest smile she could. “Yep. That’s why I’m here. Picking up moving boxes.”

“It sounds like a real adventure. Why Alabama?”

“A family connection.”

Matt frowned. Maybe he thought she’d gone crazy.

“My mother remarried and moved to Florida,” she said. “Now I’ll be within a long day’s drive of her new place.”

Matt nodded. “That gets important as parents get older. It’s good to stay plugged in tight with your family.”

Easy for him to say. He had family coming out his ears. But Tish only smiled and nodded.

“I hope you’ll love it down there,” he said. “Best of luck to you.”

“Thanks, Matt. Well, give the rest of the family my love. Bye, Alex.”

The little boy gave her a shy smile, but he didn’t know who she was. He’d never known his Uncle Stephen, either.

Tish continued toward the back of the store, finding it difficult to think about moving boxes.

Stephen had moved on, leaving her behind. He was eternally young and carefree in her memory while she marched on toward middle age in her comfy Naturalizers. Wearing small, sensible earrings, with her hair pulled back tight. Driving a Volvo. She was even buying a house. An old house, frozen in time.

Maybe she should have taken her mother’s suggestion and bought a brand-new condo in Tampa. Surrounded by senior citizens, she might have felt like a spring chicken in comparison. Or she might have sped up the process of turning into an old hen.

December and much of January had blurred into a flurry of paperwork, e-mails, phone calls, and money transactions. The closing was just two days away in Muldro. Tomorrow morning, she’d begin her drive south, but she had one thing left to do before she could leave her life in Michigan behind.

Aware that she reeked of cleaning supplies, Tish leaned against her grocery cart like an old lady with a walker. She’d promised her aching muscles a long bubble bath, but this was her last chance to buy flowers. She was cutting it close too. The gates would be locked at dark.

Picking up her pace, she made her way to the floral department. She passed by the sedate arrangements in the cooler and stopped beside the random, cellophane-wrapped bunches of flowers in big plastic tubs. Twelve stems per bunch. She just couldn’t decide which mixture she liked best. Each one included something she loved. A bright yellow spider mum, the softness of green eucalyptus, the vivid blue of a bachelor’s-button … How could she decide?

Buy ’em all. You know you want to
.

Such extravagance! Exactly what Stephen would have wanted.

Tish counted. Six bunches in one tub. Six in the other. At nearly ten dollars each? When she needed to be smart with her money?

But she had a wad of cash in her purse for the trip. More than she needed.

She wouldn’t be able to put more than a few of them in water, though, and what could she do with the rest? They’d wilt in no time without water.

They would wilt anyway.

She loaded the contents of both plastic tubs into her cart, balanced the flowers upright, then headed for the shortest checkout line. Through the window, she could see the sun breaching the horizon. Once the sun went down, it would be too late.

The man ahead of her didn’t seem to understand how to swipe a debit card.
Hurry up
, she mouthed soundlessly.

Stephen had often picked up flowers at this very store. She would forever wonder what kind he’d chosen, that last time.

Finally, the slowpoke finished his business and moved on. She handed one cellophane sleeve of flowers to the teenager at the register. “I have twelve of these,” she told him.

“Got it.”

Fast, efficient, and impersonal, he scanned the UPC code times twelve, handed the single bunch of flowers back, and gave her the total—all without really looking at her. She handed over the cash and took her change and receipt, all without really looking at him.

“That’s a lot of flowers,” he said, as if he’d finally noticed. “Big party?”

Wanting to cry, she met his eyes. He wasn’t as young as she’d first assumed. He was in his midtwenties, probably—about the age Stephen was when they’d met.

Her phone rang. Glad for the diversion, she pulled it out of her purse, mouthed a
thank-you
to the checker, and answered the call as she walked out of the store. It was someone from the mortgage company in Muldro, calling to confirm that she’d be there for the closing at five on Monday afternoon.

Tish decided not to mention the storms predicted for her first day of travel. She would get through it, one way or another.

“You bet,” she said. “I’m leaving early tomorrow morning. I’ll spend the night in Kentucky and pull into town late in the afternoon.”

“Perfect! Safe travels.”

“Thanks. See you then.”

Tish loaded the flowers gently into the backseat of her car. Climbing behind the wheel, she breathed in the scent of the flowers, then drove out of the parking lot and headed south on M-24. She tucked her phone in the console and ran down a mental checklist of everything she still had to accomplish before she left town.

Lost in her thoughts, she’d missed the turn. She hadn’t been there in a while. Wasting precious moments of daylight, she drove to the next light, made a U-turn, and went back to the side road she’d meant to turn on.

A quarter mile down, the metal gates still stood open. She pulled onto the narrow gravel road and followed it around three gentle bends, finally recognizing a cypress tree she used to use as a landmark. A few feet taller than she remembered it, the cypress swayed like a skinny dancer against the fading sunset.

She climbed out of her car and looked out at the flat farmland. An earlier generation of Hendersons had settled in the county long ago, and most of their descendants still farmed. The joke was that you couldn’t walk through town without bumping into someone with Henderson blood, and you couldn’t drive through the countryside without passing Henderson land.

She opened the rear door. Using the tiny knife on her key chain, she freed the flower stems from rubber bands and cellophane. Piled up in lovely abandon in the soft glow of the dome light, they did indeed look fit for a big party.

She filled her arms with flowers and carried them to Stephen’s grave. Working quickly, she began to spread them out from the head to the foot. It took her three trips in the fading light before she finally held the last few stems. It was so dark now she could hardly make out their colors.

A yellow lily. A stem of pale alstroemeria blossoms. A red rosebud.

She brought the rose to her lips. She’d be two hours down the road by the time the sun shed its first light on her farewell offering—if the sun came out at all.

A bird trilled in a nearby tree, and traffic kept up a steady hum on M-24. Life went on, as it had for over five years, without Stephen.

“I’ll never forget you,” she whispered against the soft petals of the rose.

She placed the last few stems close to the headstone, its lettering illegible in the twilight. She knew every inch of it, though. The dates bookmarked the life of Stephen David Henderson, who’d meant to marry her.

“Good-bye, Stephen,” she said, her voice loud in the silence. She groped for something more to say, but there was nothing. Her heart felt empty. Swept clean, like her apartment.

Straightening, she saw a trio of deer grazing in the distance. They looked peaceful. Graceful. Harmless.

She returned to her car. It still smelled like flowers. She started the engine and backed up, shining the headlights on the small mountain of blooms. Then she drove slowly toward the exit, knowing she would never visit the place again. She was bound for Alabama in the morning.

Mel wished she had one of those fancy backpacks so she could strap everything on it. She’d left Orlando in a hurry, though. No time to get organized. With her bedroll strapped to her back, she had to shift her duffel bag from one hand to the other. The jacket made the bag heavy. She’d known since last winter that she didn’t really need it in Florida. Still, she couldn’t just get rid of it. It was borrowed.

Her legs were so tired. One foot in front of another, she’d made her way south, changing her name along the way. Melissa. Melinda. No. Too close to
her real name. Belinda? Yeah, she’d be Belinda for a while. She felt safer that way, like she was protecting her identity somehow.

She knew that didn’t make sense, though. Hitching a ride was dangerous, especially for a girl as scrawny as she was. If somebody killed her, her parents would never know. For them, it wouldn’t be any different from the last two years. Dead or alive, she was already gone.

Stopping for a minute, she pulled the jacket out of the bag and tied the sleeves around her waist. The bag was lighter as she walked on.

Her eyes on the ground, she knew there was a red light up ahead because traffic slowed. She turned and walked backward with her thumb jutting out, trying to look sweet and tough at the same time. Decent people wouldn’t pick up a girl who didn’t look sweet, but she had to let people know not to mess with her.

She tried to meet the eyes of the drivers, but nobody paid any attention except a guy in a little Honda. He honked and gave a friendly wave but kept going. Like that could help.

When the vehicles were at a dead stop, the drivers all ignoring her, she turned around and reached the corner just when the light turned green. She stepped into the crosswalk, and somebody gave her a wolf whistle.

Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten a real meal since that last night at Fishy’s just before she got fired. She was trying to save her cash. If she could find a campground that didn’t charge, she could roast some convenience-store hot dogs over a fire. That would be sort of cool, like the good ol’ days when she’d gone camping with Grandpa John.

She looked up at the cloudy sky. “Don’t be mad at me.”

Hitchhiking was one of the things he’d lectured her about. Hitchhiking, drugs, alcohol, sleeping around, smoking, and tattoos. She had done pretty well, considering.