by Hannah Tinti
When he came out of the bathroom, Lily was there talking to the nurse. “Where’ve you been?” she asked.
“It won’t be that much longer,” said Hawley.
“We’re out there waiting.” Whatever Mabel Ridge had said in the truck, Hawley could tell it had done its job. Lily was blinking at him with tight, tired eyes, and then they widened.
“There’s blood all over your boots.”
She was going to leave him, Hawley thought. Maybe not today but someday. Hawley couldn’t hide his Old Me, or detox from it or talk it away at meetings. He untied his jacket from around his waist and held it open. He gave his wife a good look.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Lily cried, and then she sneezed. It was a great big honking sneeze, exploding over the waiting room in a spray. Lily’s hands came up and covered her face, and then she sneezed again, and again and again. She swayed and Hawley caught her arm. Her face blossomed into splotches, her eyes became glassy as she sneezed and sneezed and sneezed, until everyone, even the homeless guy holding the ear, was staring at Hawley like it was his fault. And he guessed it was.
He walked his wife outside, back into the rain. The automatic doors opened wide and then shut the hospital away behind them. “It doesn’t even hurt,” he said.
“You looked like you were going to kill him,” said Lily.
“I wasn’t,” said Hawley.
“You looked like you were.” She sneezed again.
Hawley thought back to the way Lily had stepped out of the trees, holding the gun just right. Her arms braced and steady. Her eye trained on her target. All those hours spent practicing together in the woods. It had been for something, after all.
“You meant to shoot me?”
“Of course I did,” she said.
Her nose was running in two clear streams, one from each nostril, over her lips and down her chin, and yet she still looked beautiful. He stared into her torn-up face. She was scared, just as much as he was. Not about Charlie or her mother or even if Hawley would end up in jail, but whether or not they’d make it.
“It was a perfect shot.”
“Except for the tire,” said Lily.
“Yes,” said Hawley. “The tire.” His wife leaned into him, clutching the back of his shirt. Her cheek was warm against his chest, her hair frizzy from the rain. He pressed his lips to her neck and inhaled her skin.
He felt as if he could face a thousand Mabel Ridges.
They turned and went back inside the hospital. Hawley told the nurse he’d cut his leg open on a lawn mower. Before long he was stretched on one of the padded benches, holding his wife’s hand as the doctor stitched him up and gave him a tetanus shot. When they were finished, Lily bent down and kissed the black thread holding his skin together.
“That scar will always be mine,” she said.
“They’re all yours,” said Hawley. “Every last one of them.”
—
IT WAS AFTER seven when they finally stepped back into the hospital parking lot. Hawley could tell right away which car was his. The truck was lit up like a bar. Mabel Ridge had all the lights on, the overhead and the headlamps, too. The radio was playing full tilt and the windows were steamed. He could see the outline of Mabel Ridge and her hunched shoulders, perched in the driver’s seat.
“What’s he doing here?” she said when Hawley opened the door.
Lily got into the passenger seat. “He needed a ride.”
Charlie’s ribs were taped up, the left side of his jaw was wired and he had a metal splint across his nose. He was heavily doped, carrying a bag full of prescriptions, and slid into the backseat without a word. He’d been released the same time Hawley had, and when they offered him a lift, he just nodded.
“I’ve been out here for hours,” said Mabel.
Lily reached over and turned off the radio. She did not apologize.
“Why don’t you get in the back,” said Hawley.
“I nearly drove off.” Mabel Ridge wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel and slid out of the car. She got in next to Charlie and slammed the door behind her. Hawley turned on the air to clear the windows.
“Rear re ro ragain,” said Charlie.
“What did he say?” Mabel Ridge asked. “I can’t understand a word.”
They left the parking lot. Before long they were on the highway and the wind was whipping through the broken window. Hawley kept thinking how much faster they seemed to be going. He glanced at the clock but it was still frozen at 12:00. Hospitals always did this to him. Days became nights and nights became days.
“I want to know who this boy is,” Mabel Ridge shouted over the wind.
Lily turned her head. “He’s a friend.”
“Where are you taking him?”
“Rome,” yelled Charlie.
“He means home.” The kid had given them an address, not far from the woods. But now, as he glanced in the rearview, Hawley caught sight of the empty dog leash sticking out of the kid’s pocket and wondered if they should be bringing him home after all. More trouble was probably waiting for him there. Trouble enough to make him try to steal a car in the rain when he didn’t know the first thing.
Hawley turned toward the backseat. “We could drop you someplace else, if you want. Or if you’re still looking for a way out of town, I’ll buy you a ticket.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Mabel Ridge raised her voice. “This boy is hurt. He needs to be with his family.”
“He can make up his own mind.”
Charlie removed the ice pack from the side of his face. He looked out of the window for a while, watching the exits pass. Then he straightened up and caught Hawley’s eye in the mirror. “Rain!”
“What’s that?” Mabel was yelling now.
“Train!” Hawley put on his blinker and crossed two lanes and barely made the exit. The wind died down as the truck slowed and turned off the exit ramp, their hair and clothes settling and finally going still.
Mabel Ridge leaned forward. She took hold of her daughter’s sleeve. “Lily,” she said. “I’m not going to allow this.”
Lily cracked the front window. “It’s none of your business.”
“Yes it is,” said Mabel Ridge, tightening her grip. “There are guns in this car. I found one under the seat and bullets in the glove compartment. I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into. But I’m getting you out.”
“I’ve got a license,” said Hawley.
At this point Mabel had nearly climbed into the front seat. In another move, she would be sitting between them. “I’m not going to watch you wreck your life again. We’ll get this marriage annulled. You’ll move back home, where it’s safe.”
“She’s safe with me.”
The older woman ignored him. “If he won’t let us go, I’ll call the police.”
“Ron’t,” said Charlie.
Lily unbuckled her seatbelt. She turned onto her knees and put a hand on Mabel Ridge’s shoulder. Then she pushed her mother back into place, until the woman was sitting next to Charlie again. “You’re not calling anyone.”
The light turned green. Hawley waited to see if Lily would let go of her mother, and when she didn’t, he wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist, then hooked a sharp left and pulled into the train station. Lily eased back into her seat, but she kept her eyes locked on Mabel Ridge, daring her to move. As soon as the truck stopped, Charlie hopped out and started running.
“Hang on,” Hawley called. He opened the door.
Charlie was already two cars away but when he saw Hawley coming after him he stopped. “Ron’t runch re.”
“I’m not going to punch you.” Hawley took out his wallet. “I promised to pay for a ticket. You can use it or you can save the money for later.” He gave the kid some more cash, on top of what Lily had already paid him. Enough to get out of the state.
Once he’d pocketed the money Charlie put his hand out. He shrugged and Hawley realized he was saying goodbye. The boy’s hand
was bony and thin. As he shook it Hawley wondered how long he would last out in the world.
“Ranks,” said Charlie.
“Your jaw will feel better in a couple of weeks. Don’t go through the pain meds too fast. Cut the pills if you need to. And find some straws. They help a lot. You can steal a bunch from the concession stands, where they keep the napkins and the ketchup.”
Charlie nodded and clutched the bag full of drugs to his chest. It started raining again and he took another step away in his purple sneakers. In the distance a train blew its horn. They could both hear it making the approach. The boy seemed nervous. He glanced at the platform, then back at Hawley.
“You’ll be okay. You can get a job changing tires.”
“Ra,” said Charlie. Then he limped away toward the station.
When Hawley got back to the truck Lily was sitting on the hood. Mabel Ridge had taken the keys and locked herself inside the cab. Hawley thought back to the morning, when he’d watched his wife waiting on the platform.
“I don’t know why I asked her to come,” said Lily.
“You’re going to get all wet,” said Hawley.
“I’m already soaked.”
Hawley walked around the truck and stuck his head inside the broken window.
“Look,” he said. “Maybe you should just leave.”
Mabel Ridge pressed farther into her seat. “I came to visit my daughter.”
“You came to meet me, and we’ve met.” Hawley reached through and unlocked the door and opened it. Then he opened the back of the truck and slid the giant suitcase out and set it on the asphalt.
For a moment they both remained fixed in place, staring each other down. The woman’s eyes were furious. Ramming speed. But Hawley had seen much worse than Mabel Ridge. He took hold of her arm.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” she shouted. She threw his hand off, but Hawley knew fear when he saw it. Mabel climbed down from the truck. Then she wrapped her long fingers around the handle of the suitcase.
“You don’t know anything about my daughter,” she said.
“I know enough,” said Hawley. “I know not to lose her.”
Mabel Ridge threw the keys at his feet, then rolled her suitcase around to the front of the car and stood in front of Lily.
“You could have married that nice Gunderson boy. He would have treated you right. And you would have stayed at home, where you belong.”
“I don’t belong there,” said Lily. “I never did.”
“You’re wrong.”
Mabel Ridge said this with so much conviction that Hawley almost believed it was true. He looked over at his wife but her face was unreadable. Lily climbed down from the hood. She put her arms around her mother and held her close. Mabel’s fingers came off the suitcase and pressed against her daughter’s back, stroking her hair. Then Lily put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, just as she had in the car, and pushed the woman away.
“There’s a northbound train leaving at nine o’clock.”
Mabel Ridge snatched up her suitcase again. “You’re going to be sorry.”
“I know,” said Lily.
Hawley got the yellow umbrella out from under the seat. Then he came around with the keys, and this seemed to spur Lily’s mother into action. In one swift movement she turned and hurried off toward the train station, dragging the wheeled suitcase behind her.
The umbrella unfolded just as it did before, the beehive made of dollar bills opening for business, the metal arms snapping the logo into place. Hawley brought it over to Lily, who was sitting on the bumper, watching her mother’s retreat.
“I checked the schedule before we left this morning,” she said. “I must have known this would happen.”
“I can go after her,” said Hawley. “Give her the umbrella, at least.”
“No,” said Lily. “This is our umbrella.”
They sat together under the yellow dome as Mabel Ridge marched into the gloom. At one point her suitcase got caught between two closely parked cars, but she managed to wrest it free. She used the station’s handicapped entrance, zigzagging up the ramp, the wheels of the bag rumbling against the concrete. Once she’d made it to the overhang, she stopped and shook her jacket free of water. There was a spotlight at the entrance and they could see her clearly as she turned to glare back at them.
Hawley felt his wife flinch. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. Then he lowered the umbrella, until Mabel Ridge was out of sight, and it was just the two of them again. The fabric shuddered against the raindrops, but inside their small shelter Lily’s face was radiant. He kissed her. After a moment, she kissed him back, pulling at his hair. Hungry.
“I promise,” she said, “I’ll never shoot you again.”
The Net
MARSHALL HICKS CAME IN FOR Loo’s breakfast shift at the Sawtooth at eight in the morning and ordered hash browns and the meat lover’s special without meat: cornbread and stuffing and mashed potatoes. He also ordered a banana split.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said when Loo brought him his cornbread.
“Waiting for what?”
“For whatever it takes.”
It had been two weeks since they were arrested in the Firebird. She had thought of Marshall every day but she had not called him, even after she’d found his mother’s petition in the back of the car, the pages wrinkled and smudged with dirt. Now the clipboard was underneath Loo’s mattress—hundreds of signatures making no difference in the world at all.
“I need to talk to you,” said Marshall. “Can you take a break or something?”
The boy looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He was wearing his shirt and tie but the legs of his pants were splashed with mud. He reached for her hand and Loo wanted to take it but instead she shoved both fists into her apron pocket. She felt the bills there, all of her tips, folded over, and in her head she heard Hawley’s voice. He would have walked and you would have gone to jail. The cook hit the bell for pickup. A group of fishing widows called for refills. Joe Strand and Pauly Fisk were eating breakfast with their sons, and now they waved Loo down for their check. She turned her back on Marshall and his meal. She was grateful for a reason to walk away. Folks at the counter were already whispering, and the rest were glaring at him over newspaper headlines: NOAA SETS NEW CATCH LIMITS and CAPTAIN TITUS STRIKES AGAIN.
The New England episode of Whale Heroes had finally aired. Loo had tuned in, hoping to see Marshall on television, but all she got was his stepfather, the wiry, ex-hippie captain of the Athena, who cursed a salty mean streak that was bleeped for audiences, and maintained a beard that reached the middle of his chest. Flanked by a crew of large-chested coeds, Captain Titus discussed the decline of the codfish next to the carcass of a beached whale. He then conducted a dissection of the whale, pulling out the contents of the stomach and matching them to a chart demonstrating the collapse of the local ecosystem. A marine sanctuary, he said, would not only reinvigorate the North Atlantic cod population. It would also provide a vital feeding ground for migrating humpback whales. He called three senators on a satellite phone to demand an investigation into overfishing near the Bitter Banks, then he chased down a trawler that was dragging for cod and dove into the water to cut their net with a bowie knife, sending a mountain of skates and flounder and seaweed and crabs spilling back into the ocean. The episode ended with the captain and his team being pelted with water cannons by a flotilla of local fishermen. Loo had recognized many of the same ruddy faces that morning at the Sawtooth, eating bacon and eggs.
Agnes waved Loo down at the coffee station. Her stomach pushed against her muumuu. Her body had swollen so much she’d had to remove her piercings. Without the stud in her lip she looked much older, even with the pink hair and eyeliner. She gestured with a packet of Sweet’N Low.
“That boy looks hungry.”
“I’m trying to get rid of him.”
“He’s here for you?” Agnes tore the paper in half. “You better hope hi
s mother doesn’t find out.”
“She already knows,” said Loo.
Agnes raised her painted eyebrows. “Mary said you got him arrested. And then your father beat him up.”
“It was a misunderstanding.”
“You seem to have a lot of those.” She rubbed her belly with the palm of her hand. “You know Gunderson’s brothers want to fire her.”
“Because of us?”
“Because of that,” said Agnes, pointing across the restaurant.
Over in Loo’s section, Jeremy Strand and Pauly Fisk, Jr. were standing at Marshall’s table. Jeremy still smelled of sauerkraut, and Pauly junior still thought he was going to be a rock star. Since graduation they’d been working as fishermen, but now, with the catch limits, they had been laid off and were living in their fathers’ basements. The boys were talking low and Marshall shook his head. Then Jeremy knocked the meat lover’s special into the boy’s lap. Two old-timers sitting at the counter glanced up from their plates. Another set down his newspaper and coffee. The rest of the customers stared at Marshall Hicks while Jeremy and Pauly junior walked out the door and got into their fathers’ cars and drove away.
Agnes snatched Marshall’s ticket out of Loo’s hands.
“I’ll drop the check,” she said. “I know how to make men disappear.”
But Marshall didn’t leave, despite the food in his lap and despite Agnes’s lousy service. He cleaned up in the bathroom and returned to his seat. He waited out all of the dirty looks from the fishermen. He ordered French toast. He ate every last bite. And when the breakfast rush subsided and Loo’s shift was over, he followed her outside.
“What do you want?” Loo asked.
