The Road to You

by Piper Lennox

  “If you need money, you get a job,” she seethes. “You don’t steal.”

  “It wasn’t stealing. It’s abandoned property. And for the record, I have a job.”

  “You probably steal from the outlet, too.”

  “I didn’t steal anything from the outlet,” I say, getting angry myself. “And I don’t work there anymore. I do day labor and odd jobs, but it’s winter, so it isn’t paying great, okay? I’m saving up, and I figured...why not get some cash for that stuff, when it’s just sitting and getting ruined, anyway?”

  “Saving up for what?”

  My throat hurts. I blame it on the heater. “I don’t know. To take a trip, you know, get out of town. Move to a new place, start over.”

  “Why?”

  “Just to go. God, does it matter?”

  Lila sets her unlit cigarette in the cupholder and puts the car in gear. “Which pawnshop? I’m getting it back.”

  “It’s downtown. You’re going to hit a ton of traffic.”

  “I don’t care.”

  I rub my eyes to fight the oncoming headache. It’s been months since I’ve spent this much uninterrupted time with another human, and it’s a little exhausting. Of course, that might just be Lila herself. She’s kind of a whirlwind.

  “Fifth and Forge,” I tell her. “Next to the bike shop and that Vietnamese place.” I pause. “Across from the studio apartments.”

  “You better hope it’s still there.”

  “Yeah?” I can’t help but laugh. “Or what?” She doesn’t answer, eyes locked straight ahead on the road.

  “I’m sure it’s still there,” I tell her, feeling bad again. Her focus doesn’t relax, but her shoulders do, just a little.

  Five

  Lila

  “Sorry. When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

  I take a breath. “Can you please check again?” I ask, struggling to sound polite while this burly guy with a neck beard stands there, chewing sunflower seeds like cud. “It was pawned without my permission.”

  “That’s between you and whoever sold it.” He looks behind me, where Shepherd is turned away, messing with a metal lunchbox. “Hey,” he calls, “aren’t you the guy who sold it?”

  He freezes to the spot. I glance down just as he looks my way.

  “He misunderstood,” I tell the man. “He...didn’t realize I wanted to keep it.”

  The guy eyes Shepherd again, like he doesn’t believe me, but shrugs his shoulders, because it isn’t his problem either way.

  “All the jewelry we’ve got is in this case. If it isn’t in here, it was sold.” Now, he tilts his head at me, sympathetic. “Family heirloom?”

  “Yeah,” I sigh, my breath streaking the glass of the case as I comb it with my eyes for the fifth time.

  He scratches his beard, then hands me a notepad. “Tell you what,” he says, “I think I remember who bought it. I can’t tell you without their permission, store policy. But if you write your name and number down, I’ll see if they’d be interested in a buy-back with you or something, if they come through here again.”

  “Really?” I grab the paper and write my name and cell number. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not promising anything,” he warns me, “but I’ll try to help, if I can.”

  I thank him again before following Shepherd outside. He hesitates near my car.

  “You getting in?”

  “Wasn’t sure if you wanted me to or not.” He swings open his door and climbs inside. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter. I buckle up and start the engine.

  “No, I really am sorry. I feel terrible about it. I wish I could make it up to you.”

  “Okay. Let me go through Tillie’s stuff, back at the house.” After I merge lanes, I look at him. “What’s left of it, anyway.”

  “I didn’t sell that much, I promise. But yeah, that’s more than fair. It isn’t my house, anyway. I couldn’t stop you.” He checks his watch. Funny, he didn’t think to pawn that—not that it would earn him much. “When were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking right now.”

  “Now?”

  “I live over thirty minutes away. I’d rather not drive back out tomorrow if I don’t have to.”

  “No, it’s okay, I’m just...not used to being around someone this long.” He rubs his arm, and I swear I see him blush out of the corner of my eye. “I’ve gotten used to being on my own. Having my own space.”

  “Hmm. Well, maybe you squat in somebody else’s house, then.”

  He clicks his tongue. “I said it was fine. You don’t have to bitch about it.”

  “I’m a bitch? Says the asshole who pawned a baby’s locket?”

  “I didn’t know it was important. And by the way, I wasn’t calling you a bitch. I just said you were, you know...bitching.”

  “I have every right to bitch! You sold what might be the one thing my mom had for me on this entire planet, all for a stupid road trip.”

  “I said I was sorry. I said you can spend as much time as you want, looking through whatever, taking whatever you want to take. What’s the problem, here?”

  I hate his tone. He’s doing that thing where you keep unreasonably calm and measured, so the other person sounds crazy, even though their reaction—loud and outraged—is the right one.

  Two can play at that game, I figure.

  “No,” I say, mocking him. If he notices, it goes completely over his head. “That sounds perfect.”

  Shepherd

  She digs through Tillie’s closet and every drawer in her room for six hours straight. It’s dark before I risk knocking on the door.

  “What?”

  I push it open. She’s on the floor with papers and trinkets spread out around her. Nearly every candle in the house is lit, grouped on each ledge and tabletop. They make her shadow jump. Her hair looks like it’s glowing.

  “Found a light bulb that works,” I tell her, holding up the lamp from my room.

  “Thanks.” She watches as I plug it in, then laughs when the bulb immediately pops.

  “Shit.” I can’t help but laugh, too. “That was the last one in the house.”

  “You know,” she teases, “you could just go buy some more bulbs.”

  “I have,” I tell her, unplugging the lamp. “This place has really old wiring, though. Lights go out constantly. And last week, the microwave broke from a bag of popcorn.”

  “You could buy a new microwave.”

  “I guess I keep telling myself I’m leaving soon, so why bother replacing anything else,” I confess.

  “How soon is ‘soon,’ exactly?”

  “Whenever I feel like I’ve saved enough money to start over.” The truth is, I have about $400 saved now, all of it stuffed underneath my mattress, along with Tillie’s car in the garage. Not much, but enough. I could leave at the drop of a hat, if I wanted to.

  So why haven’t I?

  “Uh, anyway,” I say, getting to my feet, “I was just wondering if you were hungry.”

  Lila tosses a stack of bills onto the bed and sighs. “Yeah, I should eat something. What do you have?”

  “Canned pasta.”

  I expect her to pull a face, but she nods. “Okay. I’m guessing you eat it cold?”

  It takes me a minute to realize she’s poking fun at me, not criticizing. “Yeah,” I smile, “but I do have a functional stovetop, if your majesty would prefer it warm.”

  “Cold pasta is fine,” she laughs quietly. “Thanks.” When I’m out in the hall, she adds, “And a glass of wine, if you don’t mind sharing? That’s an impressive collection you’ve got down there.”

  “It’s your mom’s, actually,” I call, taking the stairs two at a time, “but sure.”

  When I come back upstairs—two cans of pasta and two spoons in one hand, and a bottle of wine and one glass in the other—she’s sitting with her back against the bed, crying.

  “Hey, you all right?” I kneel beside her and look at what she’s holdin
g: the same photo that was in the locket, but much bigger. She passes it to me. On the back, in Tillie’s handwriting, it reads, “Kathryn, two months.” There’s a heart in the corner.

  “This must have been the last photo she had of me,” she whispers, “since it’s the one she gave to the agency.” She lets it flutter it to the floor between us. “Which means she had me for two months before....” Her voice trails.

  “It also means she tried,” I offer. “Raising you on her own, I mean. If...if that helps.”

  She nods, but it doesn’t look like my consolation worked.

  “In the letter she wrote me,” she sniffs, “she said she thought about me every day.” She shakes her head. “But then, why didn’t she try to find me?”

  “Maybe she did.” I haven’t spent this much time with another person in six months, more if you don’t count Tillie, but I haven’t had to comfort a sad person in God knows how long. I feel too rigid as I sit next to her, our shoulders touching, but she relaxes against me, anyway. “Adoption laws are really strict and weird.”

  “She knew my parents.” Lila wipes her nose with her sleeve, a habit I should find disgusting but, with her, find kind of cute. “Or at least, she knew their names. She mentioned them in the letter. And she was just half an hour away, all this time. So she could have found me, if she wanted.”

  Before she can cry again, I pass her the glass and open the wine. The slight pop as the cork slides out echoes around the room.

  “Tillie was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. If she didn’t look for you, it would have been because she wanted you to have that choice. Not because she doesn’t love you.”

  In the candlelight, with her features blurred, Lila’s expression looks so expectant. She has no reason to trust me, but here she is, hanging on my every word.

  She doesn’t say when, so I fill her glass close to the top. She drinks about half in two sips. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “No, really. Tillie was so loving towards everyone, even complete strangers. I mean, she took me in, and she barely knew me. So I can’t even imagine how much she must love you.”

  Lila’s tears keep falling, but she seems calmer. She finishes her wine, then grabs the bottle for another, looking at me from behind her hair. “You aren’t having any?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t drink.”

  “Oh. Sorry, I wouldn’t have asked to have any if I knew that.”

  “No worries.” I pull my soda from my coat pocket. “I prefer cola, anyway.”

  She smiles. We tap our drinks together.

  “Shepherd?” she whispers. She stretches out her feet and pushes the stacks of paper away, plowing through the pages like a shovel in fresh snow.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you, for helping me feel better. I’ve had a really hard week, and...and it feels like it’s all hitting me at the same time. It’s nice to talk to somebody.”

  Her head tilts against my shoulder. I’m convinced she can hear my heartbeat, it’s so loud. “No problem,” I tell her.

  This, I remember, is what I’ve missed most about being around other people: contact. It isn’t something you realize you’ve gone without, until you’ve got it again. Until another person touches you in the quickest, breeziest way, totally unaware she’s made any difference at all.

  Lila

  I want Shepherd to kiss me.

  It’s stupid, I know. I just met him, and I’m tipsy and crying and weak. And wouldn’t I be inviting him to do exactly what I let Donnie do to me a few days ago—take advantage of a girl when she’s at her most vulnerable?

  I’m tired of thinking, and overthinking. So what if I want a kiss, or maybe more? I deserve to feel something good. After all, that’s the real reason I climbed over the console and let Donnie think he had me again, for one afternoon.

  When I pull back and lift my chin, he looks at me with his eyebrows raised. “What?”

  “Nothing.” I sip my wine and pretend to study some papers. “Just thinking, you know...you look kind of cute, in the candlelight.”

  He laughs. “That’s enough wine for you.”

  “You don’t think you’re cute?”

  “No, I know I’m cute.” Now I laugh—a real one, the noise shattering the cold, still air, and surprising us both. “I’m not sure why you’d think so, though.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m essentially a bum.” He stretches out one leg, resting his arm on his other knee and motioning to the room. “I’m squatting in a house where everything’s broken, eating canned pasta and crackers every night.”

  “You need to work on your flirting.”

  He smiles faintly. “You don’t really know me enough to like me, that’s all. And what you do know about me should have you running in the other direction. I guess I’m wondering...why you’re not.”

  “I don’t know,” I confess. I stare down into my wine, tendrils sticking to the glass with every swirl. “Maybe you’re more charming than you think.”

  “Or maybe,” he says, getting to his feet and stretching, “you’re emotionally compromised from losing your dad and finding out you were adopted, all in the same week.”

  “Yeah, maybe. And?”

  “And,” he continues, hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, “I would feel bad if I took advantage of this situation. You’re not thinking clearly. Having sex with you when you’re like this...it wouldn’t be right.”

  “I never said anything about sex,” I point out. “All I said was that you look cute.” My hands pick up some papers, eager for a distraction. I was hoping he’d kiss me and initiate something more, but I’m not about to let him know that. And I’m definitely not going to beg. If he doesn’t want to fool around, I’ll live.

  “It’s not that I wouldn’t,” he adds. “Under the circumstances, though.... I mean, you’re—you’re pretty, and nice, and....”

  I hear him getting embarrassed, but hide my smirk.

  “…just that we don’t really know each—”

  “Whoa.” I shush him, then wave the papers in my hands. “What’s this stuff about Texas?”

  “What stuff?”

  “This.” I shake the stack again. “It’s all these printouts about Texas—real estate listings, map routes.”

  He kneels on the floor and reads over my shoulder. “Huh. Tillie did always talk about taking a trip there, one day. She wanted to travel all over. I guess this was her research folder or something.”

  “But real estate listings? For just a trip?” I feel the drunken fog in my brain lift considerably, everything clicking as I come across a listing with her handwriting, big bold letters in pink marker: “GOT IT!” Around the address, 1922 East Cedar Court, is a heart—with the same swooping tail as the one on my baby photo.

  “That’s where she is,” I whisper. I look up at him. “She’s in Texas.”

  Six

  Shepherd

  “You’re coming with me.”

  It’s been three days since I met Lila. I haven’t seen her since. After she found that stuff on Texas, she started jumping to conclusions left and right, and nothing I said could talk her out of going.

  “You don’t even know if she’s there or not,” I’d protested, while she got up and paced Tillie’s bedroom.

  “So, what, I shouldn’t even try to find her?”

  “Okay, say she is in Texas. That’s still an entire state to comb through.”

  “This listing,” she said, pointing to the paper on top of her stack, “is hers.”

  “You’re telling me she bought a house,” I said slowly, “in another state, on a whim, without telling her tenant? Without selling the house she’s already got?”

  “This is a rental.” She pointed to it again, but her hands were waving it around so much, I couldn’t read it. “That’s totally plausible, her renting a house for a few months, right? You just said she wanted to take a trip there.”

  “Yeah, w
hen she retired—along with a million other places.” I sighed. “Look, Tillie obviously doesn’t want anyone to find her, or she wouldn’t have taken off like she did.”

  Lila got quiet and perched herself on the edge of the bed. “Are you saying she wouldn’t want me to find her?”

  “No,” I said, suddenly aware I was walking on eggshells. “I’m saying Tillie didn’t leave a trail to wherever she went, and that...that it’s gotta be for a reason.”

  “She left this trail,” Lila argued, and shook the stack again.

  That was that, it seemed. I couldn’t talk sense into her. Even my suggestion of writing a letter to the address first was shot down: she didn’t want to wait.

  She went home around dawn, shivering in the front hall while I wondered why, exactly, I was even trying to change her mind. What did I care if she wanted to go on a wild goose chase? I didn’t even know her.

  “Thank you,” she said, pushing her hair back from her face. “It was nice of you to answer my questions, and let me go through all that stuff.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  When I reached past her to open the door, she put her hand on my arm, stopping me. The heat from her palm seeped through my sleeve.

  “If she comes back here, or if you hear anything….” She chewed the inside of her cheek.

  “I’ll keep you updated,” I promised.

  She smiled, wrote her number on a paper towel, and left. The very first bit of sunlight hit her hair as she walked down the driveway.

  I spent the next two days doing whatever odd jobs I could find around the neighborhood: raking leaves, chopping wood, clearing gutters. When I had downtime, I kept busy cleaning Tillie’s house, suddenly ashamed of all the things I’d let fall to the wayside.