Where We Belong (14 page)

It’s like we weren’t all traveling at the same speed.

I couldn’t decide if I could bear to open the note or not. I felt equally strongly about seeing and not seeing what was inside. Then I decided I’d better look now, before my mom showed up again. It would be too late to change my mind for God only knows how long.

I tore it open. Inside was a hundred-dollar bill, with a printed receipt wrapped around it that said, “Back pay for inventory work.” And then there was a long, handwritten note. Which—now that I was looking at it—I was absolutely sure I didn’t want to read.

I just looked at the first line. Kind of squinted at it. I swear, I’m not making this up—I read it with my eyes half shut. Like I could see it and not see it at the same time. I just saw “Angie, I’m so sorry. I never meant to embarrass—”

I quick shoved it back in the envelope. Before I died of embarrassment. The only thing more embarrassing than what I’d just been through could only be somebody pointing out how embarrassing it was.

For a minute, I wondered if there was something wrong with everybody else in the whole world, or if it was me.

My mom turned the corner at the end of the block, and I shoved the money deep down into my jeans pocket. Then I threw the book and the note in my little trunk and locked it again.

I could hear, as they pulled up, that Sophie’s voice was getting broken and scratched. But she was still giving it all she had.

I softened up the earplugs and got them in just in time.

I put the jacket and the trunk in the back section of the wagon and got in beside my mom.

She said something, but I didn’t make it out.

“What? I have my earplugs in.”

“I said, ‘Oh, the trunk.’” Much louder.

“Yeah. Oh, the trunk. Just the most important things I own.”

“Sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have packed me. I should have been able to pack my own stuff.”

“I told you not to go.”

It hit me then that she was right. I shouldn’t have gone. I’d known it all along. But it was something I hadn’t been willing to give up.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

We drove without talking for a while. Sophie’s voice was beginning to crack. Everybody only has just so much voice. Even my sister.

My mom was still going around in a circle. Which seemed so insane that I barely felt able to speak to it.

Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I said, “Where are we going?”

“No idea.”

“Can’t we just park somewhere?”

“I can’t think of any place far enough away from people that no one will call the police. I’m just going to keep moving till she stops.”

“Then what?”

“You’re asking too many questions. I need time to think.”

“Sorry.”

It was the middle of the afternoon. But all of a sudden, I woke up, even though I had no idea I’d fallen asleep. The car was parked in front of Aunt Vi’s house. Sophie was fast asleep in the backseat. My mother was nowhere around.

I closed my eyes again.

I felt a little better, because I figured she’d gone in to talk to Aunt Vi. Maybe they’d even work it out. Maybe we could stay here, at least for the night.

I don’t know how long my eyes were closed, but when I opened them, I saw my mom in the side mirror. She was standing on the porch of what used to be Paul Inverness’s house.

She was talking to Rachel.

“What the hell?” I said. But quietly, so I wouldn’t wake up Sophie. That was hard to do once she’d worn herself down. But I wasn’t taking any chances.

I jumped when the car door slammed. I looked over at my mom.

“What was that all about?”

She didn’t answer. Just started up the car and drove. I had to think how much I wanted to push for answers. On a day like that one, did I really want to keep hurrying the bad news?

We didn’t go in a circle this time. We got on the freeway.

“So…” I said, kind of testing. “Now can I ask where we’re going?”

“Yes,” she said. “Now you may ask. We’re going to a lovely little town in the mountains. And we’ll start over there. If it’s as small as I think it is, maybe we can even rent a place that’s out of earshot from the neighbors.”

“The mountains,” I said. Hardly daring to believe it.

“It’ll be nice up there. You’ll see.”

That’s when it hit me that my mother had no idea how much I loved the mountains. I’d really kept my inside life that much of a secret.

“What mountains? Where?”

“The Sierra Nevada mountains. Up near Lake Kehoe.”

It took a minute to settle in. It fell into my brain like the pieces of a puzzle. Some assembly required.

When it hit me, I yelled so loud, it’s a miracle Sophie didn’t wake up.

“Oh, my God!”

“Keep your voice down!”

“You wouldn’t! You can’t! You can’t be serious! He worked his whole life so he could have some peace and quiet up there!”

“He doesn’t own the town.”

“How can you think this’ll work? You think you’ll just happen to find a place for rent on the other side of a fence from his dog? This is crazy!”

“We can at least try.”

“I can’t believe you would do this. He’ll die when he sees us.”

“You got a better idea?”

It always boiled down to that. Accept my mom’s very bad ideas or think of better ones on my own. Always those two terrible choices.

Neither one is any way to grow up.

At least, not in my opinion.

I kept my eyes closed for most of the ride out of town. I would have bet money I’d never manage to sleep, but then all of a sudden, my eyes opened, and we were out in the middle of nowhere. It was dark, and raining hard. And we weren’t moving.

My mom had her arms draped over the steering wheel, her forehead down on her arms.

I watched her for a minute, trying to shake myself awake. I watched the rain battering the windshield, huge drops that exploded into smaller drops on contact. The sky lit up, and I could see the actual webs of lightning on the horizon, the way they arced down through the sky.

I looked over the seat at Sophie, but she was still asleep.

When the thunder came, it made my mom jump.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she said.

“Yeah. What are we doing?”

“Not much.”

“Couldn’t you see to drive?”

“I could see. It’s not that.”

I could have asked, “What is it, then?” But that’s a pretty obvious question. Once you’ve told somebody, “It’s not that,” you should be prepared to cough up the second half of the story. They shouldn’t have to ask.

After a time, she said, “Maybe this is insane.”

“Oh, it’s definitely insane.”

Then she didn’t say anything for a long time, and neither did I.

Finally, I got tired of waiting. So I said, “What else could we do? If we didn’t do that?”

She laughed in a way that had nothing to do with any kind of funny.

“Well, there you have the problem. That’s how I always get to insane decisions and irrational behavior. No backup plans.”

“How far did we drive already?”

“More than halfway.”

The lightning electrified everything again, and my mom winced, bracing for the thunder. But it was a dud compared to that last time.

“Maybe…” she said.

And I already knew something bad was coming. And what it most likely was.

I felt like maybe the Earth really was flat, and I’d sailed right off the edge without knowing it. It felt like falling. Like nothing was going to stop this fall. I’d been feeling that way since the bookstore. No bottom yet.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe we have to think about some things we took off the table a long time ago. And… you know. Maybe… put them back on the table again.”

I couldn’t feel much of a reaction inside my gut, because there wasn’t much room for things to get worse.

“I can’t believe you would do that. I can’t believe you would even say it. You promised. We both promised.”

“We’ve got our back up against the wall here, kiddo. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s a promise. You keep a promise no matter what. You don’t keep a promise until it gets hard. What about me? What about if I make your life hard? Am I out the door, too?”

“That is
so
not fair,” she said, her voice seething with this hurt anger. “This is not the same, and you know it.”

“Why isn’t it? We’re both your daughters. That’s either forever or it’s not. That’s either no-matter-what or it’s not.”

Another flash of lightning.

She wouldn’t answer me. Sometimes when my mom was really upset, she’d lose her words completely. I never knew if she couldn’t find them at all or if she just didn’t like the ones she could find.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s not completely the same. I’m sorry. But we did make a promise.”

“So what’s your plan?”

I hated to think that way, but I had a flash of a thought that she’d done that whole thing on purpose. That the hint of sending Sophie away was just a ruse to dump the next move off onto me. I pushed it down again. It might have been true. But it wasn’t helping.

I said, “Maybe we could go to that little town where Paul lives. But there would have to be some rules. I don’t want you or Sophie going near him at all, because I don’t think he’d want that. But I get along with him pretty well. Maybe I could just tell him the situation we’re in. Maybe offer to walk the dog for free. And Sophie could come along on the walks, because he wouldn’t be there, anyway. And maybe she’ll just settle down and figure she’ll see Rigby again the next day. You know. The way she did at Aunt Vi’s. Do we have money for a place to stay?”

“Yes and no.”

“Meaning what?”

“We could stay someplace for a little while. Or feed ourselves. Not so much both.”

The heel of my hand was resting on the slightly crackly lump of Nellie’s hundred-dollar bill, still stuffed deep in my jeans pocket. I didn’t mention it. Not that I planned on withholding it. I mean, we had to eat. I just wanted it to be all mine for a little while longer. Before I gave it up for the good of the family. Like I always did.

In my sleep, I was replaying a moment of the Horrible Bookstore Fiasco. Just one endless, disgusting moment. I was standing behind the bookcase, knowing she was about to find me. To find out I was listening. Except, in the dream, the aisle was about as wide as a football field, and angled out into infinity. When I saw her face, there’d be room to pass her by a mile.