American Heart

by Laura Moriarty

  He tilted his head at our sign. “What part of Minneapolis are you headed to?”

  “Downtown,” I said. It seemed likely Minneapolis would have one. “But any exit would be fine. We’ll just call my mom to come get us when she gets off work.”

  I wasn’t sure how that answer would go over, but he nodded like it made sense. “Listen,” he said. “Do you know how to change a subject? Like in conversation?”

  I blinked. “Yeah. I do it all the time.”

  “Then that’ll be your job. My brother and I are headed to Saint Paul, and we can detour over to Minneapolis if you want a ride with us. But you’ve got to change the subject when he gets going. Okay? That’s the deal. That’s how you pay for the ride.”

  I looked over his shoulder at his SUV. No one was in the passenger seat. His brother must still be in the store, or using the bathroom. And still no nudge from Chloe. It was up to me.

  I took my old phone out of my pocket. “Okay if I take a picture of your license plate and text it to my dad? Just for safety reasons?”

  “Whatever you want.” He was already headed back to the pump. “But it would probably be better if you were both in the backseat before he comes out. It’s my car, but he’s often under the impression he has a vote on things when he doesn’t.”

  I touched Chloe’s arm and hurried behind him, holding out my palm to a little hybrid to remind its driver not to run us down. “Hey! How will I know when you need me to change the subject?”

  He’d walked around to the driver’s side, but he was tall enough that I could see his face over the roof. When he opened the door, he looked like he was taking a deep breath before going underwater, and the water didn’t smell so good.

  “Believe me,” he said. “You’ll know.”

  I felt more at ease once we got in the backseat, because it looked like the driver had at least one kid, which didn’t seem like a serial-killer thing to have. The mesh net behind his seat had coloring books and a pack of crayons in it, and a half-sucked lollipop was stuck to my seat belt. Chloe and I were both wet and sniffing, and he turned up the heat while we waited for his brother, which was nice.

  “You live in Saint Paul?” I asked, trying to be friendly. Chloe was hunched over behind the passenger seat, breathing a little heavy. I didn’t want him to be freaked out.

  “Yup,” he said, and that was all. I got the message. He’d really only let us in the car so I could derail a conversation when necessary. And as there was no conversation going on just yet, he didn’t want to talk.

  The brother, when he finally came out, didn’t notice us at first. He was maybe preoccupied, trying to hold both a coffee and a soda while he opened the passenger door with the edge of his hand. It was only after he’d sat down and set both his cups in the holder that he saw us. He said “Jesus!” and put his hand to his chest, looking at me and then at Chloe like we were a big spider and a snake.

  He turned to his brother. “What the hell?”

  You could tell they were brothers. The one who’d just gotten in had the same deep-set eyes as the driver, and they both talked in a quick way, their words clipped. But the one who’d just gotten in looked like he was only regular height, and he was wider across the shoulders, even just wearing a flannel shirt.

  “Excuse me?” His eyebrows shot up. “David? Do you know there are two women in the back of your car? Who were not there before? Are you kidding me? You picked up hitchhikers?”

  He was yelling. Chloe probably couldn’t hear him as well, as she was sitting right behind him and had the protection of the seat, not to mention her clogged-up ear. She’d scooted right up against her door, her blue hat resting against her window.

  “This is Amy and Chloe.” The tall one, David, shifted the car into drive. “They need a ride to Minneapolis, and that’s not so far out of our way. . . .” He shrugged, then checked his rearview like there was really nothing more to say.

  “Unbelievable.” The brother yanked off his hat and threw it at the windshield. He had the same curly hair as his brother. “Un-buh-leev-a-ble. Wow.”

  Nice manners, I thought. I mean, we weren’t doing anything to him. If he faced forward, he wouldn’t even know we were there, except for us both sniffing our runny noses. I sniffed again, and we rolled out of the lot, the windshield wipers beating away snow. The brother picked up his soda and sucked it through the straw, glaring at the road ahead.

  By the time we were on the entrance ramp to the interstate, Chloe had closed her eyes. I was hoping she was just sleepy, and glad to be out of the cold. But just as I was looking at her, she pressed her hand to her ear again. And then a tear slid out of her eye and down her cheek, leaving a shiny trail.

  I knew, right then, we were really in trouble. It didn’t matter that we’d finally gotten a ride—not with her ear hurting her enough that she would cry like that. For now we were warm in the SUV, flying past farmhouses and empty fields, and even other cars. But once we got to Minneapolis, we had the whole rest of Minnesota to get through. It wasn’t like her fever would just miraculously go back down, or the pain in her ear would stop. If anything, it would keep getting worse.

  I listened to the beat of the wipers, trying to adjust my hopes. I could ask the police, very nicely, to make sure Chloe got to a doctor. Before we even called them, I could get Chloe’s husband’s name from her, and get a message to him in Canada, and their son, so they could know how hard she’d tried.

  We’d been in the car for maybe twenty minutes when the shorter brother, the one in the passenger seat, slurped up the last of his coffee and started laughing. But it wasn’t a real laugh. It was an unhappy laugh, and too high-pitched to be anything but for show.

  “Pretty bold move, Big D. I’ve got to hand it to you.” He looked over at his brother. “Picking up hitchhikers. Really smart.”

  David shrugged. “Just thought I’d help them out.”

  “That’s nice. Interesting, really. As you won’t help your own brother.”

  David didn’t respond.

  “It’s just a loan I’m asking for. A loan.”

  David tilted the rearview mirror so I could see his eyes, and he could see mine. He bobbed his eyebrows at me like, Okay, girl, you’re on, and it was only then I remembered we had a deal.

  “How much farther to Minneapolis?” I asked. It was the best I could do. Chloe was still holding her ear, and now she was hunched forward again. It was hard to know if she was still crying.

  “About two hours,” David said, his voice as pleasant and sunny as a flight attendant in a movie. “Do you get up to visit your mother often?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I just usually come a different way.” I looked away so he wouldn’t see me wince in the mirror. I should have said no. I should have said I hadn’t ever visited her, not in Minneapolis, so it wouldn’t seem strange that I knew nothing about the city, or even where to tell him to drop us off. I wasn’t thinking. At least not as carefully as I should. It didn’t matter. We weren’t going to make it anyway. We were already done.

  The shorter brother turned around. “So what’s your story? You two just go around getting rides with strangers?”

  “Yup.” I held up my hands and waved them like they were little flags to keep his attention on me. But he turned a little more to try to look at Chloe over the edge of his seat.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Oh,” I said. “She’s just sad about my uncle dying. That’s why she’s here, visiting from Portugal. She’s my mom’s cousin, and she came over for the funeral. She doesn’t speak English. She’s okay though.”

  David tilted the mirror so I couldn’t see him anymore. He was looking at Chloe, too. “Is something wrong with her ear?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s giving her problems. My mom’ll get her medicine. She’ll be okay.”

  The brothers exchanged glances. I wiped my palms on my jeans.

  “Okay,” the shorter one said. “Well, which one are you? Chloe or Amy?”


  “I’m Amy.”

  “Okay, Amy. Let me ask you a question.” He put his left hand on the back of his brother’s seat and looked at me over his shoulder. “Do you think family should help each other out?”

  Up in front of me, the tall brother slapped his forehead. “Oh my God. You’re ridiculous, Adam. You’re a ridiculous person.”

  I cleared my throat. “Hey. Do you all know if you absolutely have to have ID to cross over to Canada?”

  They glanced at each other again. Sweat sprouted out across my arms and my chest, and I got so itchy I had to unzip my coat and shimmy out of it, my neck straining against my seat belt. I knew I shouldn’t have brought up Canada. I hoped David would just think I was doing my job and changing the subject. But part of me was still thinking maybe there was a chance for Chloe, even with the pencil in her ear. I was hoping these brothers might know some little trick for getting through the border, some secret that only Minnesotans were wise to. And maybe, if they understood what we were up against, they might even drive us all the way. I thought of football, the quarterback too far from the goal, the buzzer about to ring. A Hail Mary pass.

  David shifted the mirror again. “I hear they’re pretty strict about it. As much for getting out as for going in. Are you headed to Canada?”

  “I was thinking about it,” I said, like I hadn’t really made up my mind.

  They didn’t say anything to that. After a while, the shorter brother, Adam, looked back over his shoulder and smiled at me. It was the kind of smile guys give you when they know they’re pretty cute. I guess he was, for being over thirty.

  “Okay, Amy,” he said. “Back to what I was asking about helping family. I understand you’re probably thinking about it now, because of your uncle dying. Your whole family is probably thinking about what really matters right now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking over at Chloe, who was rocking back and forth a little, still holding her ear. David cleared his throat.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s really snowing out, isn’t it?”

  David nodded, giving me an appreciative look in the mirror. “It is! And you know it’s only going to get worse, right? They’re saying more snow, all day tomorrow. It’s really going to hit.”

  I shook my head. As if things weren’t bad enough for us. Even if somehow, by some miracle, Chloe’s ear stopped hurting, we’d have to hitch the rest of the way up Minnesota in a genuine snowstorm. Chloe was still rocking back and forth.

  “Like an actual blizzard?” I asked. It was all I could think of. I sounded like a ding-a-ling.

  “Okay, enough about the weather.” Adam turned around again, just looking at me. “So back to what I was saying about family, Amy. It’s Amy, right?”

  I nodded.

  David raised his chin to the mirror. “They’re saying two feet of snow, even more in the northern part of the state. Probably not the best time to visit Canada.”

  Adam waved him off again. “Okay, Amy. Let me give you a hypothetical situation.” He turned back and touched the knee of my jeans, just for a second. “If you had disposable income, like say, enough that you just went to France with your spouse and two children for Christmas, and aside from that, every year you could afford to send both kids to private school as well, and you had a nice SUV that never broke down, and so did your spouse, everything was wonderful, et cetera, and then your brother, your brother who used to beat the crap out of anyone who picked on you when you were growing up, and let me tell you, that kept him busy . . .”

  He paused to give me a look like, You know what I mean. Turned around the way he was, I couldn’t believe he didn’t notice Chloe rocking with her head down just behind him.

  “Okay?” he continued. “And let’s say this brother had fallen on hard times, and he didn’t even have a car anymore, and he’d just been rebuked by his own parents, his own mother and father, for having the audacity to come to them for help.” He held his hand out to me, palm up, like I had something to give him. “If this brother then came to you, asking for just a few thousand dollars, just what he needed to get back on his feet, let me ask you, Amy—would you let him borrow it?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I knew I was supposed to be hired for David. And maybe, being distracted by Chloe, I wasn’t listening as close as I should have. But the proposition sounded reasonable to me.

  David cleared his throat. “Um, Amy, he’s leaving out a few details. Like that he plans to get on his feet at a poker game down in the Keys, which is always his plan.” He held up one finger. “Unless it’s a plan to invest in a company that doesn’t actually exist, or a plan to flip a house with a bad foundation and problems with black mold in the vents.” He glanced at his brother. “And he’s leaving out the thirty grand I already lent him.” He lifted his hands off the wheel to do quote marks around the word lent. “And also the fact that he thinks it’s beneath him to get a regular damn job.”

  “You did lend it to me, David. It was a loan. Okay? We all get that it was a loan. Everyone understands that.”

  I slid my eyes over to Chloe. She was clutching at her ear like she wanted to pull it out of her head. I could think of nothing to do or say that would help her. I was trying to make something click into my brain, some plan, but it wouldn’t come.

  “And also,” David said, looking at me in the mirror. “This is the first time our parents have actually said no to him, because they’ve finally figured out that he will bleed . . . them . . . dry. And he just spent our mother’s seventy-third birthday making her feel bad about it.”

  “No,” said Adam. “That is not what I did.”

  I didn’t know if I was supposed to keep trying to change the subject. I was thinking I understood the problem, which was that the shorter brother, Adam, was a screw-up. But as soon as I heard myself think that, I felt ashamed. Screw-up was an Aunt Jenny term. She’d used it to describe my dad once, though as far as I knew, he didn’t borrow money from people. He’d just been a drinker. That’s how he’d died, though. He’d had a big screw-up at the end. But I always thought it was a point in his favor that he’d at least tried to walk home from the bar that night, when his car had been right in the bar’s parking lot. He’d known he was drunk, and he didn’t want to hurt anybody, maybe. So he’d walked. And that meant he wasn’t completely bad. Not completely a screw-up. Aunt Jenny said he probably just walked because he was scared of getting a DUI. But I liked my way of looking at it, and she didn’t know any more than I did what was in his head that night.

  Adam was still talking. “If Mom was upset, it wasn’t because of anything I said. It was because she wanted to help me, but Dad wouldn’t let her. Because he’s controlling”—he pointed at his brother—“like you.”

  Chloe started to moan, low at first, then rising up, like somebody pretending to be a ghost on Halloween. I stared at her, openmouthed. Both brothers turned around. David looked back at the road, and then turned back to Chloe again.

  “Whoa,” Adam said. “She’s really not doing well.” He gave me a hard look. “What does she have, exactly?”

  “She’s got water in her ear,” I said.

  “Like swimmer’s ear? Just water?”

  I nodded. “I guess it’s infected.”

  He made quick eyes at his brother and turned back to the windshield again. The snow was coming down harder now. Already the fields and tops of tree branches on either side of the highway were blanketed white.

  Chloe moaned again. I started to shake my head at her, but that wasn’t fair, or even reasonable. If she could have stayed quiet, she would have.

  David tilted the mirror at me. “She sounds like she needs a doctor.”

  I waited for Chloe to speak. If she wanted a doctor, if she wanted to give up, she should be the one to say it. She was silent, so I shook my head.

  “She’ll be okay when she gets the medicine. My mom has medicine for her.”

  “Antibiotics? Your mom has antibiotics?”

  I nodded. My teeth
were chattering, and I wasn’t even cold.

  David’s deep-set eyes got even smaller. “Why does your mom have them? Why doesn’t your cousin, or her cousin, have them herself?”

  I tried to think. The brothers glanced at each other again. I had nothing to say. I was all out of lies. I had nothing.

  “Listen,” David said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m getting off at the next town, and I’m taking her to an ER.” He nodded at his brother. “Put in our location and find the closest one that comes up.”

  “No!” I slapped the back of his seat. “No! Don’t do that!”

  Adam nodded, his bottom lip sticking out. “This is a great idea you had, by the way, bro. Picking up these two. Seriously a smart move on your part.”

  “Shut up.” David looked back at me in the mirror. “Why don’t you want her to see a doctor? Are you worried about money?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I could say yes, but it seemed to me, just from the tone of his voice, that money wasn’t a good enough reason not to go to the ER. He’d drive us there anyway.

  “Amy,” he said, not as friendly now. “What’s going on?”

  I shook my head. There was nothing to lose anymore. But I wouldn’t give her up, not without her permission. I’d wait for her to do it herself. I could tell Caleb I’d done everything I could. I could tell myself that too. But I wanted, so much, for her to keep holding on, at least until she really couldn’t.

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Adam said. He laughed in the high-pitched way again. “Think, David. She can’t take her cousin, or whoever that is, to the ER. And she just asked about Canada. That’s where they’re headed. Without ID. Okay? Use your head. I don’t think the cousin is Portuguese.”

  I could see David’s eyes in the mirror, the new understanding lighting in. His hand moved fast through his curls. “Oh Jesus,” he said. “Oh God.”

  Adam turned back to me.

  “What’s the deal?” He pointed at me. “You’re a little liar, okay? And so help me, don’t you lie anymore. I mean it. Tell us what’s up, right now.”

  I couldn’t speak. I mean really, physically. It was like my tongue wouldn’t work. I was that scared.