I kneel down and hold out my arms. Drew stumbles into them, and I hold him tight. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into his ear. “This must be crazy scary for you.”
His head nods against my cheek.
“You did the right thing. You can always call your nana if you’re in trouble.” I’ve told him this since he was a baby, and her phone number was the first one I had him memorize. As uncertain as I am about her devotion to me, I’m certain of it for my kids.
I stand. “Did you tell Gordon?”
Her face goes pale, and she looks as though she’s been slapped. “You think that little of me?”
I shake my head at the ground. “I think you think that little of me.”
The blush of anger replaces the pallor, and we’re back in familiar territory.
“Jill, why didn’t you tell us what was going on?”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here to help.”
“Why? Yesterday you were helping Gordon.”
“Yesterday, I didn’t know…” Abruptly she stops, her mouth clamped to prevent the rest of the sentence from tumbling out.
“Didn’t know what?” I demand.
She kneels down and faces Drew. “Drew, why don’t you go take a nice warm bath?”
She’s a better mother than I’ll ever be. It didn’t even occur to me to worry about Drew listening to our damaging conversation. Drew shuffles off and I glance at Addie, who still gently snores on the bed.
I turn away so my mom won’t see me swallow my shame.
They have Gordon, and they have me—poor souls, they rolled craps in the parent lottery.
When I turn back, surprisingly my mom isn’t looking at me with judgment, but with concern.
“I’m here to help,” she repeats.
“Why? Yesterday you were reading me the riot act and demanding I come home. Now you’re here to help? Why?”
“You’re my daughter.”
“Get out.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Out.” My finger points to the door.
Her chin shifts forward a centimeter. “Jill, stop being ridiculous. You can’t do this alone.”
My head shakes violently. “I’ll take my chances. Why are you here?”
She looks away, her eyes on the carpet at my feet, and something in the slope of her shoulders and the shadow of disgrace on her face sends a chill down my spine. It takes more than a subtle scare to shake up my mother.
“What did he do?” I gasp. “Is Dad okay?”
“He’s fine.”
I scan her face and body for damage. “What did Gordon do to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Mom?”
“He just scared us, that’s all.”
“How?”
“It’s not important. We’re fine.”
“Mom?”
“Jill, drop it.” Her tone leaves no room for debate, then her expression softens, and she looks at me with genuine regret on her face. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
My eyes move to the wall and a seam of wallpaper that’s begun to separate. “You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“I would have.”
“You would have believed Gordon was abusing me?”
“I would have. If you had talked to me…”
My head snaps back. “If I had talked to you, you’d have told me I was insane.”
Her head shakes back and forth, and she glubs several times, then she sets her lips into a tight line. She knows, as well as I do, she wouldn’t have believed me.
“I’ve never seen that side of him,” she says finally. “Then Connor called…”
My mom’s still talking, but I’m no longer listening.
Connor.
In all the craziness, I didn’t think to call him, to tell him what happened, to tell him about Jeffrey and that I was okay and why I took the kids. I imagine him pacing his condo, waiting for me to come home, calling the police…
calling the police!!!
He’s going to tell them I was on my way to see Jeffrey at the Compton site. My fingerprints will be on the lock, my footprints in the gymnasium. Every
CSI
episode I’ve ever watched runs through my mind.
“Jill? You okay?”
“They’re going to think I killed him.”
“Killed who?”
But I can’t explain, my brain fully occupied with Jeffrey’s dead stare.
“The man who died in Compton?” my mom says. “Why would they think you killed him?”
My head snaps up. “You know about that?”
“Connor told me. He thought that’s why you took off. You saw that man dead and snapped.”
“Do the police know I was there?”
Her brow wrinkles in confusion.
“Did Connor call them?”
“I don’t think so. Connor was concerned when Harris called and told him the client you’d gone to meet had been killed, so he called me. I told him you’d taken the kids, and that’s when he explained what’s been going on.”
The oxygen returns to the room.
“And now, Jill, you’re going to tell me the rest. Enough’s enough.”
Tell her the rest.
What exactly does that mean? The rest back to my childhood, back to the beginning of my marriage, to the end of my marriage, to yesterday? For forty years, I’ve told my mother almost nothing, now she wants me to tell her the rest. Where do I begin? Do I want to begin? I don’t. Like a kazillion times before, I don’t want to tell her anything.
“Tell me, Mom, when Connor told you what’s been going on, that Gordon was abusive, that he was trying to destroy me so he could take the kids, did you believe him?”
My mom leers at me. “Of course I believed him. Why wouldn’t I believe him? I absolutely believed him.” She’s speaking so quickly and repeating herself so much even she doesn’t believe the lie. Her chin falls to her chest and stays there shaking back and forth. “I just…He’s always been…I thought the two of you were happy.” Her face lifts, and there’s so much regret etched in the lines that the words are lost in the sincerity of her remorse. “I’m sorry.”
I bite my lip, the tears I’ve been holding back for a day now threatening to erupt.
“How could this be happening?” she says. “I don’t understand.”
I shake my head again, and my voice is so low that I barely hear it. “You can’t understand, no one can understand, because none of it makes sense.” My words gain momentum as I tell the horrible truth about my life, until the words tumble like an avalanche. My mom’s eyes are wide with astonishment, and her face is pale, and she looks a lot like Addie does when she wakes from a bad dream.
I’m amazed how quickly the retelling of nine years is summarized, and after only a few minutes, I’m giving the CliffsNotes on Gordon trying to extend my life insurance so he can kill me and how I found Jeffrey dead, which drove me to taking the kids. “It sounds crazy, and it is crazy, but it’s also the truth, and you can believe me or not, but whether you do or not, it won’t change what I’m doing. If he catches me, he’ll kill me, and if he kills me, nobody will be there to protect Addie and Drew.”
“But Gordon’s always been…”
“He’s not!” I snap. “Whatever good thing you’re about to say about him, don’t. He’s not a good man, a good husband, a good father. And if you can’t just believe me, then you should go, because I have no proof. Jeffrey’s death will be called a robbery that will never be solved, and everything else I’m telling you is just my word. So you either believe me or you don’t.”
My mom’s brow furrows, and I can see she’s trying hard to understand. “Just give me a minute to catch up. I just don’t understand why he killed this Jeffrey man.”
“Jeffrey was trying to help me.”
The furrow unfurls and understanding crosses her face. “You were having an affair with him?”
I nod, and my mom nods along with me, and for a moment, I wonder why there’s no condemnation.
But I know why—the reason glares between us—and hypocritically, I feel anger at her betrayal of my dad and I wonder how many times she strayed. But at the moment, there’s no room for any more emotion, and I let it go.
“Jeffrey confronted Gordon, and Gordon killed him,” I finish.
“You know this for sure.”
“He killed him with a shotgun. It’s difficult to explain, but it was meant as a message for me.”
“Jill, isn’t it possible it’s a coincidence? The murder was in Compton.”
My head hurts—it’s pounding from exhaustion and stress and hunger—and I’m tired of trying to explain the inexplicable. “Mom, you don’t need to be involved. I appreciate you coming here for the kids’ sake…”
“And yours.”
“But truthfully, you should go.”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Pushing me away.”
“It’s just, on this one, I need you to just believe me.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Because Gordon scared you and Connor called you. You still don’t believe me.”
“Well, you haven’t exactly given me much of a chance.”
“You’re my mother. You shouldn’t need an invitation.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Turn this around. Since you were a baby, you and your father have been in your own little private club without any room for a third, so don’t you dare tell me I should have shoved my way into your life. I’m here now.”
And for a moment, time stops, and our history blares between us. And like a thousand other times, we’re stuck—my mom trying to force her way into my life a day late and a dollar short—and me determined to prove I no longer need her, all the missed mother-and-daughter moments from my childhood creating an impenetrable barrier between us.
“Nana!”
My mom kneels to receive a catapulting Addie into her arms. I wipe the tears from my cheeks so Addie won’t see them and stumble to the bathroom to check on Drew.
When I return, Addie and my mom are playing tic-tac-toe on the bed.
“Mom, you shouldn’t be here,” I say.
“Where should I be?” She puts an “X” in the wrong spot, and Addie quickly scrawls in her “O,” declaring herself the winner with a whoop and holler.
“I could be in real trouble, and you could be in trouble if you help me. Plus, who’s taking care of Dad?”
“Jan.”
Aunt Jan is my mom’s best friend, and she’s much more nurturing than my mom could ever be. My dad’s in good hands.
“Still, you need to go. If you help us, you’re aiding and abetting, and that could be serious.”
“Sounds exciting.” She wrinkles her nose at Addie and smiles.
“Mom, this is serious.”
My mom stands from the bed and smooths her linen slacks. “Jill, you’re right, this is serious, and if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here. But it is, so I’m here to help.” She opens her purse and holds out an envelope. “It’s not a lot.” She looks a bit embarrassed. “But at the moment, it’s all we can afford.”
“You’re helping us continue running?”
She nods. “I don’t necessarily believe Gordon killed anyone or is going to kill you, but I believe you believe it, and that’s all that matters.”
My dad’s stroke devastated my parents financially. I haven’t asked, but I know my mom no longer shops at the department stores she used to frequent, and unlike all the years I can remember, mostly they eat at home.
“Mom, I can’t.”
“You can and you will. It will hold you over until you figure out what you’re going to do.”
I nod and take the gift. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to repay you.”
“Don’t worry about that. Just get yourself somewhere safe and take care of these kids.” She squeezes Addie’s cheeks until her lips pucker like a fish.
“Now we’d better get this show on the road. When Gordon discovers I’m not home, he’s going to get suspicious, and it wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out I wasn’t flying to Medford, Oregon, for my health, and a phone call to the phone company will lead him here.”
I nod, then tell her about the Amber Alert advertising my car.
She swallows at the word “kidnapping.”
“We’ll take my rental car and get you some new wheels,” she says, sounding very Bonnie and Clyde.
* * *
The little white building in Altamont, Oregon, has a sign that says, “Benjamin’s Buggies,” and parked in front of it are a dozen beat-up cars with neon green signs advertising great deals. The least expensive car on the lot is an ugly white 1988 Chevy Corsica advertised for $1,600. My mom flirts with the comb-over salesman, sweet-talking the price down to $1,300, and I shell out the precious bills. Without counting, I know there are seven bills left. I have $700 to restart my life.
My mom hugs each of us extra hard, and when she pulls away, there are tears in her eyes, and I realize this might be the last time I ever see her.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She tilts her head. “This isn’t your fault.”
“About us.”
She puts her fingers to my lips.
“A lot of the things happen that we never intend.”
We both smile devastatingly sad grins, both of us wishing we had a redo or at least time to give it another try.
If only…
the two saddest words in the world.
As I hold her for possibly the last time, I can’t remember loving her so much.
W
e slept at the Altamont Motor Inn and got back on the road this morning.
I choose to stay on the 97 since it’s been lucky for us so far. I drive toward the border, hoping to find a safe place for us to hide out until I can figure a way for us to cross into Canada.
Since we passed Bend, Oregon, three hours ago, there’s been nothing but sagebrush and desert around us. Now in front of us is the Columbia River; we can either cross over it and continue north, or turn and travel along it.
The epicenter of this decision is Biggs Junction, population twenty-two, which comprises a truck stop and a dim motel with a blinking vacancy light. We get a room, then head to the truck stop for dinner.
At the table, I give Addie and Drew each a penny and tell them to flip it in the air. One head we turn left, two heads we turn right, no heads, we continue straight ahead. Tension fills the air as the coins determine our destiny.
Two heads, a positive sign. Tomorrow might be our lucky day.
C
olor leaks into the gray world as the sun lifts from the horizon, flooding the desert with gold, then painting in the colors like a paint-by-number scene—blue sky, olive scrub, a dash of purple, and a streak of rust. I drink a cup of instant coffee and watch the show through the dusty window as I wait for the kids to wake.