Despite how angry he is at his mother almost all the time, she is still his mother, I thought, and she’s gone. Surely, he was also thinking about the impact it would all have on Shawn and Patty Girl. I felt so bad for all of them. Any thoughts about my own misery were forgotten.
“Del,” I said gently, touching his arm.
When he turned to me, I was expecting to see tears, but instead I saw a face so stone cold, it chilled my heart.
“Go get the money,” he said.
“Del?”
“Go on. We’ll leave tonight. I’ll start packing what I want to take.”
He turned away. I stood there for a moment and then hurried out to the SUV.
All the way back to the house, I thought about Del’s reaction to hearing his mother had died. How would I have reacted to such news? What did running away like this mean anyway, if not a total break with my family? What did I expect them to do once they had discovered what I had done? Forgive me? Wish me luck? Tell me they understood? Once I left the house with Daddy’s money, it would be the same as hearing they had died. I’m sure it will be similar for them in relation to me, I thought.
I had been dreaming and fantasizing about this for so long that now that the reality of our actually going ahead and doing it was here, it still seemed like an illusion. It wasn’t until I pulled into our driveway and confronted our big home that I began to feel afraid. Could I pull this off? Could I really do this? Was I a terrible person for giving Del such assurances, such hope?
I sat for a moment in the SUV with the engine off and the lights off, my body trembling. I almost wished I would be discovered, but no lights went on in the house and no one came to the front door.
Back in his house, Del was packing, getting ready to start a new life with me. His grief was being smothered with the fresh new prospects I had given him. I had to succeed now. I had to do what I had promised. I got out quietly and scurried around the house to the window of Daddy’s den. There, I took a deep breath and then climbed back through it into his office. For a long moment I stood listening, half expecting to hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs, but I heard nothing. The maids were in their rooms. It was eerily quiet.
I went to Daddy’s desk drawer and felt for the safe key. When I had it, I paused again to listen. There was just the sound of something creaking in the walls, a pipe or maybe just the house itself settling into a cozy rest for the evening. My heart started to thump so hard, I could actually feel the blood being rushed through my body when I opened the safe and felt inside for the cash box.
If there was any chance of Daddy forgiving me for my past actions, it was soon to end, I thought, but I had long gone past that moment. I had to harden myself against him, Mommy, and Carson in order to continue. I thought about the way Daddy looked at me now. I thought about Carson’s washing his hands of me, and I thought about Mommy telling me I was too far gone for her to interfere. As far as they’re concerned, I rationalized, I’m no longer part of the family anyway. What am I risking?
I opened the cash box, took out the money, and stuffed it into a manila envelope on Daddy’s desk. Then I closed the box and put it back in the safe. I locked the safe and replaced the key in the top drawer. Once again, I paused to listen and heard nothing.
Good-bye Daddy, I thought as I stepped up to the window. Good-bye to seeing all the disappointment in your face, to hearing your voice harden with threats and the imposition of new punishments. In the end you will be happy I’m doing this. Think of all the relief I will bring you.
And good-bye to you, Mommy. I’m sure you’ll be upset for a while, but some new social event will come up, and then you will have all the pressure of Carson’s wedding. That will take your mind off me, won’t it? It seems to do it for you now, to the extent that I’d just as well not be here.
And Carson, my reluctant brother, how happy you will be. Just think, you no longer will have to make up any excuses for me or try to avoid me. You can go on and believe you were an only child after all. Your sister was a fiction. What sister? Never heard of her.
You’re all going to be happier, and there is no question in my mind that I will be, so good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, I thought, and went out through the window. I closed it behind me and walked slowly around the house and back to the SUV. For a moment I stood by it, looking up at the darkened windows and thinking about Mommy dreaming her happy dreams and Daddy feeling safe and contented beside her. I wondered just how long it would take them to realize I was gone.
I even imagined the scene at breakfast.
“Henderson,” Mommy would say after sitting awhile and discovering I hadn’t come down to breakfast. I hadn’t even made a sound: no shower going, nothing.
Daddy would lower his
Wall Street Journal
.
“What?”
“Teal hasn’t come to breakfast, and she has to get to school.”
Daddy would sigh in annoyance and call to the maid to tell her to knock on my bedroom door. She would, and then she would return to tell them there was no response. Now, infuriated, Daddy would get up and pound up the stairs to my bedroom. He would thrust open the door and stare with confusion at my still-made bed.
“Teal?”
He would look into the bathroom and see I wasn’t there. Confused, but more angry than worried, surely, he would come flying down the stairs and announce I wasn’t in my bedroom. The bed, in fact, looked unused.
“What?” Mommy would say. “That’s impossible. She didn’t leave the house, and she certainly wouldn’t make her bed.”
Daddy would stand there a moment thinking, and then he would turn and march out to look for the SUV. When he saw it was gone, he would come stomping in, screaming about me. He would go to the phone, vowing to have me arrested again and this time, put into jail for years if he could.
Mommy would try to calm him, but soon she would feel she was getting too stressed over it and retreat. After all, she had to be ready for some luncheon or another and she couldn’t very well go looking like a ragtag woman.
Daddy would call Carson and they would console each other and repeat to each other how terrible I was, how utterly hopeless I was.
“Don’t get sick over her,” Carson would advise.
“I won’t do that,” Daddy would vow, and he would gather his wits, call the police, and then go to work.
I played this whole scenario in my mind as I drove back to Del’s house. In a way it made me feel good about what I was doing, and in a way, it made me feel even sadder.
Whatever, I told myself. It doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter anymore.
It’s too late to turn back, and it’s too late for regrets.
When I arrived at Del’s house, I saw the lights were on and at the door, I saw two old suitcases. It wasn’t until then that I realized I had nothing but what I was wearing and the money in the manila envelope.
He stepped out and looked at me.
“Get what you need?” he asked.
“I just got the money,” I said.
“Wasn’t there something important to you, something you had to have?” he asked. “Pictures, dolls, anything you wanted to take with you?”
I thought for a moment and shook my head.
“No,” I said.
And finally, I had a reason to cry.
Fortunately, Shawn and Patty Girl were so exhausted and groggy, they didn’t realize we were putting them into the rear of the SUV along with some of their things. We set up pillows and blankets for them and finally started out. Once we left the city streets and got onto highway I-90 toward Buffalo, I remarked how asleep the world looked this late at night. My excitement had kept the adrenaline flowing, but now that we were gassed up, packed, and on our way, my body began to soften.
Del said very little besides dictating the directions. The route west was something he had long ago committed to memory. I remember someone in history class in my public school asking our teacher why it was that people always seemed to head west to start new lives, explore, and make discoveries. He thought for a moment, nodding and smiling at the question, which was apparently a good question to him, something that gave him a chance to leave the prescribed curriculum for a moment, to be philosophical and original.
“I don’t know exactly,” he replied, “but if you think about it, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Maybe we all just follow the sun. Maybe we all believe it knows where it’s going,” he added with an impish smile. It was one of those rare moments when something was said or done in a classroom that stuck with me.
Do we really know where we’re going? I wondered.
As we drove into the night, the darkness, interrupted now with only oncoming or passing vehicles, grew thicker. I know it was just my imagination, but it seemed as if the SUV was battling harder to move forward. I felt like we were inside a balloon, pressing harder and harder against the unexpectedly thick walls, stretching them and waiting to finally pop out and be free.
“How are you doing?” Del asked.
“Okay,” I said in a voice smaller than I wanted it to sound.
I wanted him to be assured of my confidence and my determination. I wanted to fill him with courage and resolve, to believe that we could overcome whatever obstacles awaited us and solve any problem simply because we were young and free and bold. We could shut the door on our pasts firmly and finally. We could forget everything and live only in the present.
I remembered another thing from a classroom discussion, this one in science class. My teacher was telling us that one thing that distinguished man from the lower forms of life was his ability to draw upon memory and to foresee. And I remember thinking, but what if your memories were full of pain and what if you saw only danger and trouble in the future? What was the benefit of that? I almost asked him, but I anticipated some scientific, textbook answer that wouldn’t really address my thoughts, so I didn’t. I simply left class thinking the stupid ant or worm was better off. At least, better off than I was.
“We can’t drive all night, although it’s probably better. Less chance of being tracked and spotted,” Del said. “I’ll take over when you feel you’re too tired, okay?”
“Yes, fine. I can drive a little more,” I assured him.
He turned the radio on but kept it very low so as not to disturb Shawn and Patty Girl. In the rearview mirror, I saw how they were sleeping in a sweet embrace, safely surrounded by their childhood dreams. I envied them.
Del didn’t look tired, but he was quiet.
“We’re doing the best thing,” I said. “You’re probably right in thinking the social services people would be at the house in the morning.”
“I know,” he said.
“Count the money,” I told him to help build his confidence. I pushed the manila envelope over, and he opened it and took out the bills.
“They’re all hundreds,” he commented. “There’s so many, they don’t look real.”
“They’re real, believe me,” I told him.
He started to count.
“I thought you said something about ten thousand dollars,” he said. I saw he wasn’t finished yet.
“That’s what I overheard. Why?” I asked, afraid I hadn’t taken enough.
“I’ve already reached ten thousand and there’s more, a lot more, maybe another ten.”
“That’s good for us!” I cried.
“I don’t know,” he said, wavering. The sight of so much money frightened him. “Your father might not want to write off this much.”
“Don’t worry about it, Del.”
“Maybe your parents won’t be as happy to see you gone as you think, Teal.”
“Trust me, they will.”
He continued to count.
“Twenty-two thousand,” he reported, took a deep breath, and put it all back into the envelope.
“That should get us where we want to go and help us get started, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m tired now,” I told him. “You can drive.”
If he was at the wheel, he would think less about it all, I thought. I slowed down and pulled to the side of the road. Cars whizzed by. More people than I thought traveled late at night. Maybe they were all running from something, too.
Del got out, went around the SUV, and got behind the wheel. I slid over to the passenger’s seat. He adjusted the driver’s seat, and we were off again. When we drew closer to Buffalo, Del decided we should pull into a motel.
“It will be daylight soon, and I’ll feel better if we’re off the highway, resting.”
“Sure,” I said. “Whatever you want to do.”
Del wasn’t happy with the first two motels we found off the exit. He thought they were too busy and too close to the highway. He drove on until we found a motel that looked out of business. Its sign had some blown letters, and there were only two other cars parked in front of units. The office was small and very dimly lit.
“I’ll check us in,” he said, taking out one of the hundred-dollar bills from the envelope. “Watch the kids.”
He got out and went into the office. I saw he was standing at the desk for quite a while before a short, bald-headed man in a white undershirt came out of a back room. He scratched his head and looked past Del at the SUV. For a moment I thought there would be a problem, but then Del showed him the money, and he nodded and turned around to fetch a key.
“That’s Norman Bates’s older brother,” Del muttered, getting back in. Norman Bates was the name of the psychotic killer in the movie
Psycho
. I laughed nervously.
We pulled in front of unit twelve, and Del handed me the unit key.
“Open the door first, and then we’ll bring in the kids,” he said.
Calling Shawn and Patty Girl the kids really made me feel that we were a family now. I hurried to do it and prepare one of the double beds for them. He carried the two of them in his arms, neither really waking up. I took Patty Girl and gently placed her in the bed. He put Shawn in, and we tucked the blanket in around them.
“I wish I could sleep like that,” Del said.
“Me, too.”
“We’ll bring in what we need for them tomorrow,” he said, and went into the bathroom. I fixed the bed for us and took off my sneakers, jeans, and blouse.