Not a Sparrow Falls (3 page)

You just didn’t think, that was all. You just kept your face pointed straight ahead and you didn’t think, and you didn’t feel, and you just did the next thing, and whenever something made you feel bad, you looked away, or closed the cover, or turned it off, or found something to distract you.

But she must be wearing out or the presence getting stronger, because it wasn’t working any longer. More and more, when she was lying on her bed almost asleep, when she was
staring out the window, her mind unguarded, that presence would come, that voice would speak.
Who are you?
it would ask.
Whose are you?
And when it did, that little girl’s face would appear in memory, and Mary couldn’t tell if she was being taunted or beckoned back to something still possible.

Was it possible? Did that person still exist inside her somewhere, or was she lost forever? As the question echoed, long forgotten words came to her mind. They suddenly seemed right, a perfect description of what her life had become. She closed her eyes and whispered them to herself. “Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. . . .”

There was more to it, but she couldn’t remember. All the way home she repeated the first part, trying to recall the rest of the verse. Finally, as Dwayne turned the truck off the highway onto the snaking back roads, the rest of the passage came to her. “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!” she whispered. “I would fly away and be at rest.”

“Fly away and be at rest,” she repeated to herself as they turned onto the long dirt drive up to the trailer. “Fly away and be at rest,” she whispered as she gazed at the meth trash mounds in the ditch—mountains of empty antifreeze and drain cleaner containers, spent cans of lantern fuel. She murmured the words over and over again, and somehow, by the time the truck pulled up in front of the rusted trailer and shuddered to a stop, something had changed. They had become a plan rather than a prayer.

Two

She knew enough to bide her time. A day went by, then another, then a week, then two. Finally, when all the necessary pieces came together, it took her a few minutes to realize that this was it. The chance she’d been waiting for.

She and Dwayne spent another long day visiting stores to buy ingredients. They drove up to the ragged trailer about six o’clock. Jonah came out of the smokehouse just long enough to get what he needed, then went back to work. Mary Bridget went into the kitchen. She washed up the dirty dishes, threw out the empty beer cans. When Dwayne went out to the truck and came back with two quarts of home brew, her heart thumped. This was her chance.

“I did some business in Franklin County today.” Dwayne grinned and sniffed the cap of the bottle. “A mild fragrance with just a hint of battery acid and the tiniest aftertaste of lead pipe.”

Mary Bridget laughed like he’d said something clever. She took the chickens she’d bought yesterday from the refrigerator and breathed another prayer of thanksgiving that she hadn’t cooked them. She made a big, heavy meal—fried chicken and biscuits and gravy—the kind of meal where Dwayne always ate three times what even he needed, then fell asleep on the couch while watching TV.

She finished the dishes, even sat down beside him and watched television—show after show. Dwayne swigged from the bottle every minute or two. Finally, just when she was losing hope in her plan, his head lolled back, and he started snoring.

She sat there for a minute, making sure he was out, then slipped out from under his arm and forced herself to walk down the hall just as normally as possible. It wouldn’t do to have him wake up and find her tiptoeing around. She checked
her watch. She had about an hour before the cars would start pulling in. Evening shoppers looking to buy what they needed. She went into the bathroom and looked out the window. It was dark, but she could see a sliver of light edging past the black plastic over the window in the smokehouse. She quietly went back into the hall. Dwayne was still sawing logs.

Jonah’s door wasn’t locked. He never slept in his room. In fact, he never slept at all, and she prayed he kept the money here instead of with him in the makeshift lab. She glanced toward the living room one more time, then turned the bedroom doorknob and went inside.

It looked like a bomb had exploded. The bed was unmade, and there was a strong smell of dirty clothes. Jonah had given up bathing some time ago, and she’d noticed little bloody scabs on his arms where he’d taken to picking at them. She wrinkled her nose and thanked God she would get used to the odor in a minute. There was money everywhere. Tens and twenties balled up on the top of the dresser, with wadded-up receipts and coins strewn among them. She glanced past them, knowing there must be a bigger pile somewhere. They took in thousands every day, and she knew for a fact Jonah hadn’t marched into the bank and opened an account. She looked through a drawer or two and found only gray underwear and socks and a snake’s nest of old dungarees and T-shirts.

She heard the dogs start baying, and her heart thumped. She went to the window and peered out. The lights were still on in the shed, and she didn’t see a thing or hear a sound other than their hoarse cries. Sometimes they went off like that, and there was no telling why. Perhaps a raccoon or a possum had passed by in the night. She eased open the bedroom door, craned her neck, and looked down the hall. Dwayne was still snoring.

The fright galvanized her to more speed. She became methodical in her search, opened and closed each drawer quickly and quietly, went to the closet and looked underneath the pile of dirty clothes and the smelly boots and shoes. Finally she
had searched the whole room. Nothing. The money wasn’t here. She leaned against the wall, then slumped down onto the dirty carpet and felt like dissolving into tears. She covered her face.

“Help me, God,” she prayed, not missing the irony. She had to get out of here, though. That was all there was to it. The money had to be with Jonah out back. She opened her eyes and wondered how she could get him away from the smokehouse. She stared straight ahead, not seeing the messy room, trying to come up with an answer, but as she stared, her attention was snagged by something. Between the yellowed box spring and mattress was an edge of green paper. She crawled to the bed and gingerly pulled it out. It was a hundred-dollar bill. She hauled up the mattress, and sure enough, there it was. The stash of money, piles of raggedly banded bills nearly covering the entire box spring. She stared for a second longer, then took the green duffel and began raking it in. She jammed in the wads of hundreds and fifties until the zipper was stretched tight. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

She hoisted up the bag, and not wanting to risk passing Dwayne by exiting through the front door, she went into the bathroom. She opened the window and tossed out the duffel bag and her backpack. She climbed out herself, dropped onto the soft ground underneath the window, then lowered it slowly. She carefully crept toward the truck, opened the door as quietly as she could, and shoved the duffel across the gearshift to the passenger seat. She was just easing herself in, hoping the truck would compression-start as she coasted down the hill and wondering what she would do if it didn’t, when the dogs started up again. He heart froze, not beating at all for a second, then thumping down hard and taking off racing.

A slice of light cut through the darkness as Jonah threw open the door of the smokehouse. He blinked, hair and eyes wild. He had the shotgun on his shoulder again, and the
flashlight lurched wildly over the yard, finally coming to rest on her in the driver’s seat of the truck. Mary took a deep breath and decided to go down fighting.

“Turn that blamed thing off of me before I go blind.”

The light continued to blaze for a moment, then swung down toward her feet. She could see him, awful and frightening, framed in the light of the shed, and even though it terrified her to do so, she began walking toward him, for the last thing she wanted was for him to come to her and see the duffel on the seat beside her. As she drew closer she could see that his sharp face was gaunt, and he was biting his lip and moving his jaw around in that strange way he’d taken since he’d started using. She got closer and could smell the odor even before she saw the array of Mason jars, Pyrex glasses, and tubing on the tables behind him. She tried not to breathe. It smelled like fingernail polish remover, only a hundred times stronger. She planted herself in front of him and spoke before he could ask her a question.

“Give me the truck keys,” she demanded, keeping her voice calm and sure.

“What for?” His eyes were thin circles of gray around black discs.

“I need to run to town.” She purposely made herself sound impatient.

He stared at her suspiciously, his jaw working. His hand started picking at the scab on his arm. The top came off, and it began to bleed.

“Well, for mercy’s sake.” She made a sound of irritation. “I need something. Some feminine products.”

“Oh.” Jonah looked perplexed.

“Give me the keys,” she demanded again.

He stared at her for a minute, tilted his head.

“The keys,” she said again, and finally he dug in his pocket and handed them over.

She held out her hand, suddenly inspired. “And some money.”

Jonah set aside the shotgun and took out his wallet. “Here.” He handed her a twenty, and the door was closing in her face before she could even reply.

She ran after that, heart thumping in her throat. She climbed into the pickup and shifted it into neutral, praying that Dwayne was still passed out on the couch. She coasted down the hill without the lights, hoping she wouldn’t run into the gully, and didn’t shut the door and start the engine until the road leveled off and she had no choice.

****

It was just after two o’clock in the morning when she pulled into the parking lot of the twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart in Charlottesville. She sat for a moment, thinking; then when her plan was made, she went inside and bought a pair of earrings, some lipstick, and a bottle of dark brown hair dye.

She went into the bathroom and colored her hair, mopping the drips from her neck and shoulders with paper towels, ignoring the curious looks from the one salesclerk who came in to do her business and left without a word. Mary didn’t speak, just applied the dye, ignoring the pain that shot through her when she saw the corn-tassel hair becoming the color of mud. She did the best she could to dry it afterward, ducking her head to catch the air from the little wall-mounted dryer. She quit before it was fully dry, but combed it down straight onto her shoulders. It felt thick and sticky, as if she hadn’t done a good job of rinsing it. She leaned forward and examined her face, already somewhat unfamiliar.

Adding the dangly earrings made her look even more foreign, and by the time she outlined her lips with the dark lipstick and made up her eyes, another person stared back at her from the mirror. Now she was ready. No one would recognize her like this, and with as many IDs as this fellow made for students at the college, there was no way he would remember her as a former customer. No way he would connect her with Jonah.

She drove Dwayne’s truck toward the school and cruised slowly up and down the streets. There it was. That was the apartment building. She breathed a prayer of thanks, though she felt odd again praying about such a thing. She justified herself. Without identification she couldn’t get a job, and if she worked under her own name or one of her aliases, it would be like leaving a trail of bread crumbs leading Jonah to whatever hiding place she was able to find.

She set the brake on the truck and made her way through the concrete maze of the apartment complex. She found the bank of mailboxes and counted on the hope that she would recognize the fellow’s name when she saw it. She’d looked through the whole first row when the thought occurred to her that he might have moved. After all, it had been two years since she’d last used his services. Her stomach tightened into a knot but then relaxed when she saw it: Eric Whitley.

Reassured, she went back to the truck to sleep awhile. She tried, but her nerves felt as if they were strung tight. Finally she dozed off. When she woke again it was nearly eight o’clock. She made her way to Eric’s apartment at the back of the complex and rapped on the door. Nothing happened, so she rapped again, louder this time, and was rewarded by a shuffling sound and the bark of a dog.

She cleared her throat and composed herself, trying to remember what Eric had looked like. Tall and thin, she remembered, not at all what she’d expected for a forger. He looked as though he could be one of the professors at the school, and acted like it, too. Quiet and studious, with a scraggly red beard and thinning hair. But she, of all people, knew there was no telling what circumstances had led him to this life. She shifted her weight and leaned forward as the door opened.

It was a child, not more than four or five, a little girl with blond hair that could use a good shampoo and combing. She was wearing skimpy little pajamas and looked cold. The dog was one of those like the queen of England had, with short
stumpy legs. He thrust his head at Mary Bridget and shifted the girl aside.

“Hey,” Mary Bridget said, holding her hand out to the dog. He sniffed it and pushed a cold, wet nose into her palm. “Is your mama or daddy awake?”

The little girl didn’t answer. Just rubbed a calf with her foot. The dog was trying to get out. Mary Bridget caught his collar, and seeming to lose interest, the little girl drifted away from the door. Not knowing what else to do, Mary stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

The apartment was messy but not as bad as she was used to. The pressboard tables were littered with pop cans and beer cans, brimming ashtrays, and a couple of plates of last night’s pizza. A newspaper and some of the little girl’s clothing littered the floor. There had been no children the last time she’d come here. She was certain of that.

The little girl went back to the couch and pulled a baby blanket over her bare legs. The television was tuned to cartoons.