Page 89

ABI
“Mom, I have to pee.” Zeke’s hot breath fills my ear with his whisper. His hands are cupped around his mouth and he squirms in the back of the old red pickup truck. The stranger up front plays Kenny Chesney on the aftermarket stereo and every few minutes he spits black saliva in a bottle, his lip puffed out from a wad of dip. The bottle has filled halfway in the three hours we’ve been driving.
We’re another couple of hours from the border where he’ll drop us off at a bus stop and then head back to Texas. We got lucky. Of all the weeks there could’ve been a gun convention in Vegas, this was the one, providing this kind man to drive us miles and miles away from Devin. Or at least I keep telling myself we’re lucky. Never in my life could I have imagined climbing with my son into a stranger’s pickup. There are greater dangers that await us than hitchhiking. I keep telling myself that, too.
“Okay, sweetie,” I whisper back. I smile encouragingly at Zeke and ruffle his hair. He leans into me with his head buried in my side. He’s been in this same position this whole drive.
“Excuse me, sir?”
The man, Patrick, turns his head to the side and cranks the knob on the stereo to lower the volume. “You say something, doll?”
Doll. He’s called me that three times now. I really hope that’s a Texan thing.
He spits into his bottle again.
“Sorry, I know you’re on a schedule, but could you please stop at the next gas station? We need a bathroom break.”
“That’s no problem.” Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror and he gives me a toothy grin, exposing yellowed teeth from tobacco use.
“Thanks!” I say, smiling back.
I hug Zeke to me and look out the window so I don’t have to meet the man’s eyes anymore.
We drive another twenty miles before we reach a gas station, and Zeke fidgets the whole time. I’ve been praying he doesn’t pee his pants on the seat of this guy’s truck. Kindness only extends so far, but it doesn’t help that Patrick insists on taking the ‘scenic route’ where rest stops are few and far between.
As soon as Patrick parks, Zeke bolts, hurrying into the store.
“Thanks again,” I say before following after Zeke. I’m not comfortable letting him out of my sight for any amount of time, and I’m not sure when that will change. It took months the first time around.
When I get the door open, I see Zeke at the counter bouncing with his hands over his crotch. The gas station attendant points and tells Zeke the bathrooms are outside the store, around the corner.
He turns and nearly bumps into me. We hurry together out the door and around the building. I avoid looking through the windshield at Patrick as we pass.
Zeke protests when I make him go into the women’s room where I can be with him, but it doesn’t take long before he gives it up. He throws open the door and sprints to one of the stalls, slamming the stall door behind him.
Chills rush over my skin when I glance around the dirty bathroom, and my nose scrunches from a putrid smell coming from no place in particular. The white sinks are streaked with a rusty brown, and the two facets are covered in the same. One drips and the sound of the water hitting the sink echoes off the cinder block walls.
I shuffle and my shoes make a sticky sound. I lift up one, peering at the bottom of my shoe, and frown. I shouldn’t expect more from a little rundown gas station bathroom out in the middle of nowhere, but would it kill them to mop?
The toilet flushes and Zeke appears from the stall a changed kid. He walks up to the leaky faucet and turns the knob, and water bursts out and sprays all over Zeke’s T-shirt. He doesn’t seem to mind, and when he finishes up, he goes to shut it off, but there’s still that drip.
“Leave it,” I say, touching his arm. “Patrick is probably getting impatient.”
“I don’t wanna go with him.” Zeke frowns. “Can’t we get our own car?”
I shake my head. “Sorry, buddy. We don’t have much money. Let us get settled and I’ll find a job. Maybe we’ll be able to get one in a few months.”
“Where are we going?” he asks when I urge him in front of me out the door. Fresh air hits me in the face and I suck it in.
“Wherever you want, bud.”
I pick up the pace and nudge Zeke forward with my hand on his back. When we round the corner, I see someone bent over with his head level with Patrick’s rolled down window. I don’t get a good look at the man, but I know who he is by the way the hairs on the back of my neck shoot up and ice crystals form in my veins.
I go completely still.
“Mom?” Zeke tugs on my hand. Parked next to the red pickup is a black Nissan. One resembling the car that followed me weeks ago.
I spin around and yank Zeke by his hand with me back to the bathroom. I throw open the door and hurry inside, ignoring Zeke’s protests.