Pearl (25 page)

“Don’t touch me.”

Vernie flinched, her hand darting to her side. “Where are you going?”

Pearl didn’t answer. Truth was, she didn’t know. She walked down the steps.
 

“You can’t go home,” Vernie said, her eyes wild in fright.

Pearl paused at the bottom of the porch, her feet touching gravel. She knew Vernie meant the trailer, but Pearl had another place in mind.
 

“Yes, home. I need to go home.”
 

Vernie understood. “But how?”

Pearl shrugged. “I’ll hitchhike.”

“Darren!” Vernie screamed.
 

Pearl heard Darren’s boots trudge through the house. She didn’t look back as she stomped down the driveway, her stilettos getting caught in holes. Her rage was boiling over. She couldn’t think straight. She needed to get home, to confront her father, to find her mother. How foolish she felt for believing this secret that they kept from her for over eight years.
 

“Darren, help her, please,” Vernie begged. “Don’t let her walk to town.”
 

Darren started the truck, the wheels turning on gravel as he drove up beside her on the long driveway.

Pearl ignored him.

“Hey Pearl,” he said casually. “Want a ride?”

She shook her head.
 

“Come on now, I’ll take you where you need to go. No questions.”

She stopped and looked at him. Darren punched the brakes.

“I swear. Just get in the car before Vernie has my head.”

Pearl looked back to a distraught Vernie on the porch. Pearl was furious, but she had enough sense to know that her anger was not directed at her sweet friend. She just needed to pass her hurt to someone, and Vernie had been standing in the way.

 
She gave in, opening the truck door, and climbed in.
 

“Where to?” Darren asked.

Pearl thought a moment. The destination was home. Back to Arizona. How she would get there, she hadn’t figured out. She was broke, she was cold, and she was hungry. She needed to sleep and decide what her next step would be. She was too upset and stubborn to face Vernie, which left her with only one place to go where she would be safe.
 

“Take me to Ben’s house, please.”

Darren nodded without judgment. “The Murray place? The ones that own the horse stable?”

Pearl nodded.
 

“I’ve done some work with his dad before, went to school with Sam.”

Pearl sat back, her head tilted toward the window. She watched the farm disappear behind her. The trailer, pitch black beneath the moon’s gaze, fell farther out of sight. Roy’s truck was parked where it had stopped when they came home from Sammie’s wedding. She pictured him asleep, naked on top of the sheets as he always lay. She waited for the jab of guilt to settle in as the trailer faded from sight, but it didn’t. She silently said goodbye to Roy, and to Jumping Creek.

Pearl was grateful for the quiet as they drove. She could always rely on Darren for a moment of peace for her thoughts. She was running to Ben; she had no misgivings about that. But she knew her heart, and the truth of it told her that being with Ben was right. She would tell Ben of her plan, and she imagined him saying that going home was what she needed to do, and he would be right there beside her. She loved him, but she also needed him. She couldn’t do this without him. He would have to go with her. There was no alternative. They could start over in Arizona, or even find a new place to go, someplace where there was no past, no secrets, and no reminders of what they’d left behind. She could never return to Oregon, and he would understand. But first she would face her father. And Ben would be there to hold her up when she faltered.

They pulled into the stables. Ben’s truck sat off to the side, idle by the main house. The house was dark, as it was past one in the morning. So was Ben’s house, which sat in the shadows of his parents’ home.
 

Darren flipped the lights off on his truck and set it in Park.

Pearl reached for her doorknob, ready to run.

Darren grabbed her hand. She flinched as she turned to look at him.

“Hold on,” he said.
 

He stuffed his fingers into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Pearl went to object, but he held up a hand and stopped her.

“Look, I’m only giving you what I have of Roy’s paycheck,” he said. “You’re still his wife, so I figure you’re at least due that much.”

Pearl met his outstretched hand and took the folded bills.
 

“Thank you,” she said gratefully.

Darren stared at her. His crystal eyes looked pitch black in the dark.
 

“I think you’re brave for what you’re doing,” he said.
 

Pearl swallowed hard. “Running isn’t brave.”

Darren smiled shyly. “I’d run like hell if I could.”

His soft voice echoed from the silence around them. Pearl looked away, her gaze landing on the stable. “Why haven’t you? What you suffer from Cindy isn’t any better than what I got from Roy.”

“Kids,” he said simply. “I can’t leave my kids with her. At least now I come home at night to them. If I left her, she would make damn sure I never saw them again.”

Pearl dropped her gaze. Her heart hurt for Darren. How right he was, and how lucky Pearl was to escape when it was only herself to worry about.

“But when I say you’re brave, I don’t just mean the running away,” Darren continued.
 

Pearl’s head tilted to him, and she watched as he fought to find his words.

“Pearl, you forget how strong you are. You don’t need a man to take care of you.” Darren held her gaze before looking away. He rested his hands on the steering wheel. “I should go. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Pearl shook her head, wiping away her tears with the palm of her hand. She took in a deep breath and looked in Ben’s direction. The comfort of his home now seemed shallow. Would she just be running to Ben so she wasn’t alone?

She placed her hand back on the door handle, her legs swinging out in front of her. Before she jumped from the truck, she tugged her wedding ring off her finger. She turned to Darren and handed it to him. He understood the gesture and nodded.
 

“Thank you, Darren.”
 

She watched him drive away, waiting until he turned the bend before flipping his lights back on.

She twirled back to the house. She took a step and stopped. The rumble of the horses’ snores caught her breath, and she spun toward the stables.
 

She sneaked down the vacant cool halls, the scent of bitter hay, nourishing oats, and fresh manure bringing a smile to her face. She stopped in front of Molly’s stall. Carefully she lifted the lock and glided the door open. Molly rested on the ground, her head turning slightly toward the sound of Pearl’s arrival. Molly sniffed and huffed, sensing Pearl and settling back to a resting state. Pearl dropped to her knees and knelt beside her. She caressed the horse’s mane and whispered softly to her. How she had missed being in Molly’s presence. Pearl petted the horse’s neck down the curve of her back. She fell into Molly and held her, letting the tears flow as she finally let loose all the hurt and pain she had recently suffered.
 

But the pain of what she had endured didn’t measure, didn’t begin to match the heartbreak she knew she must cause.

 
She needed Ben. But not in the way she initially thought. She loved him. She wanted his arms around her, for him to kiss her as he did on the dance floor, as he did on the hill the first time she surrendered to him. She ached for him, and desperately wanted to rush to his side, to crawl beneath the sheets with him, and to live happily in denial of what she must face.
 

And she knew she must face it alone.

Her love for Ben meant she could not drag him into her mess. She had already hurt him. She had turned away from him time and again, rejecting his unconditional love for a monster’s touch. She was despicable. And he deserved better.
 

Pearl planted a kiss between Molly’s eyes. Her knees trembled as she stood, closing the stall door behind her.
 

She didn’t look back as she walked from the stable and away from Ben Murray.
 

CHAPTER 23

She kept her eyes straight on the road. She tricked her mind into thinking that the rustle in the brush was only the wind and not a wild animal. She dared not believe someone was hiding in the trees, watching her. It was a crazy concept to be in the path of darkness and have nothing to occupy her but her vivid imagination.

She counted the white lines in the street and kept her ears open for cars. There wasn’t much activity in the country at three in the morning, but a couple of times she jumped into the ditch when she saw headlights. She swore it was Roy, and she cowered in the dirt, fearful he would see her and throw her in the back of the truck and take her home. But even worse, she thought it was Ben, because Ben she would not be able to turn herself away from.
 

She walked, until her feet ached and blisters formed on the inside of her stiletto sandals. She shivered in the brisk chill, thankful it wasn’t raining, but regretful she hadn’t bothered to grab a sweater. Vernie’s oversized T-shirt didn’t seem as appropriate as it had when she first put it on.

The T-shirt was not all that caused her shame. She shuddered when she thought of earlier that night, of the scene at Sammie’s wedding when Roy dragged her out of the reception. Sammie had never been anything but good to Pearl, and here she’d gone and ruined her night. And poor Ben being scuffled by backwoods rednecks. What disgrace she had brought to people who had only cared for her.

How did she get here? Who had she become during this last year as she lived a life so foreign to the one she had always known? How did she let things get so bad between her and Roy? Would they have stayed the same if they’d never left Arizona? If she’d never seen her mother cross the field, would she have loved a man like Roy?

And where was her mother?
 

Pearl had spent her adolescent life avoiding that question…and not out of ignorance. She had told herself from the very beginning that she would not allow herself to miss her mother. If her mother’s dreams were to be pursued, then Pearl could accept it, even if that meant she wasn’t included.
 

But that wasn’t the truth, and she had always known it.

The truth was, she didn’t allow herself to miss her mother because there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She was her mother’s burden. Her mother chose to leave her. Chose. She walked out the door and didn’t look back, even as Pearl stood in the window and begged for her to turn around. She said the words. She said them out loud. She would never know if her mother heard her. Her mother desired another life. If Pearl had taken the time to miss her, then the rage she’d pushed down would seep through her pores and destroy her. And she couldn’t let that happen.
 

Now Pearl knew it was all a lie. She was determined to find out who had started the tale, and end it. Not just for her, but for Billy, too. Billy deserved to know the truth. He was still the child. And though he would never remember Lucy Waters, he felt the gaping hole of her absence. Her mother could abandon her, but Pearl could no longer stand by the fact that she walked out on Billy. She would find her mother, confront her, and then learn to let go of her anger and stop being afraid of the tormenting dreams that haunted her. She could accept that it was okay not to love her mother in order to move on with her life. Then maybe she could love someone as good as Ben. Maybe she could learn that she didn’t deserve to be with a monster. Because loving someone who didn’t love you was all she’d ever known how to do.

It was still dark, but only a couple hours before dawn when she came to a twenty-four-hour restaurant just on the outskirts of town. She was near the freeway, an area she had never crossed before. Large dusty semi trucks covered the lot, some filled with men snoozing in the front seats, while others sat lifeless and blank, as though they had nowhere to be.
 

Pearl walked into the diner, her eyes squinting from the bright light. Men at the counter turned to gawk at her, most likely thinking she was there to make a dollar. She covered her exposed body with her hands, shying away from their stares. A vivid redhead not much younger than Vernie, and just as plump, wearing a waitress uniform stepped from behind the cash register. She looked Pearl up and down, her disgusted look turning softer as she saw Pearl’s fear.
 

She smiled slightly, her voice soothing as she said, “You look like you could use some new shoes.”

Pearl looked down at her high heels covered in bloodstains and winced. “I don’t suppose you have any?”

The waitress shrugged. “Don’t usually keep a spare, but I’m happy to get some for you. I have a friend that lives just two blocks down.”
 

“I don’t need you to go through the trouble…”

“Honey, I bet you’ve seen trouble. I think I can take it from here.”

Pearl smiled at the woman. “That’s very kind of you.”

The woman took Pearl by the arm. “Come, sit, you can eat a little something while you wait.” She guided Pearl to a booth away from the prying men’s eyes.
 

“I only got minestrone and split pea soup going. Yesterday’s special, but still has a good bite. I can get you something else, but then you’d have to wait on old Merle to get behind the grill. That could be a little while. Or I got pie. What would you like?”

“Minestrone is fine,” Pearl said.
 

The waitress returned with a hot cup of soup and a glass of icy soda. “You don’t look old enough to drink, otherwise I’d’ve brought you something stiffer,” she said. “Mick!” she called out behind her shoulder. A burly bearded man turned from the counter. He was older than the other few men around him. Though he was stiff and gruff, his eyes were kind.