Page 26 of Take Me Home

“You’re quiet.”

Only when Hazel spoke did Ash register the absolute silence they’d been driving in for the better part of an hour. She wasn’t even playing any music.

They’d traveled through the pine-dense and hilly parts of the state yesterday. Now, the West Texas plains stretched for miles all around them, gentle snow-dusted slopes that would continue to flatten throughout the five-hour drive, a lone oil pump seesawing lazily in the distance. Ash’s thoughts swung up and down just like it, imagining awful scenarios he might walk into at home, then reassuring himself with his mother’s refrain:Everything’s fine. No need to worry.

“Sorry,” Ash said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything. What are your parents like?”

Ash picked at a hole in his jeans, forcibly extracting himself from mental quicksand. “My mom used to be a painter. She teaches middle school art.”

Hazel nodded at the model of Maggie’s house in the back seat. “You get that from her?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“And your dad?”

“He’s a mail carrier.”

“Is he totally swamped right now with all the holiday mail?”

Ash let his eyes go unfocused on the mesmerizing rows of snow-sprinkled winter wheat through his side window. The furrows between the plants remained uncovered, making repeating outward avenues, one stark runaway line after another across the field. “He’s taking some time off this year.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Hazel said.

Ash swallowed. He could just tell her that his dad wasn’t on vacation, that he’d fallen from a ladder while cleaning the gutters the day before Thanksgiving. Two sentences maybe.

Except he didn’t want to open the door to having to say more, whether the fall was an isolated, freak accident, as his mother insisted, or a sign of deterioration, the benchmark of “normal” nudged back another yard or ten or fifty. With his father’s type of MS, they never knew when a relapse would hit, how long it would last, how severe the symptoms would be, though at least he still recovered between them. Relapsing-remitting MS tended to transition to progressive MS. In that stage, his father would never regain lost neurological function or mobility. Ash wasn’t particularly superstitious, but his stomach went leaden at the thought of speaking about it before he could assess his father for himself.

“We should eat there,” Hazel said as they passed a sign for the next town.

“Sure.”

Silence descended around them again until she said, “Did I snore last night? You seem tired.”

He turned his back to the window, willing himself to stay focused on her, to stop drifting. “Do you usually snore?”

“I don’t think so. Sylvia claims I talk sometimes, though.”

That morning, when he’d lain perfectly still half under her, he could have sworn she’d told him todo something. He thought for sure she’d woken up. Before he could ask for clarification or,hell, exact instructions, she’d grabbed his shirt and pressed herself against his hip, and he’d waited for her to make another move, pressing his itching palm flat against the bed so he wouldn’t sink his fingers into her soft thigh. He wouldn’t touch her unless he was sure she wanted it. But her breathing had stopped abruptly, and her body went rigid. Then, she rolled away.

“Crap, did I?” Hazel asked. “Like I didn’t word-vomit enough at you last night.”

“Lovely image.”

“How do you do that anyway?”

“Do what?”

“Jedi mind trick me into telling you things. I’m not usually so…”

Warmth filled his chest at the cute way she wrinkled her nose in embarrassment. “Forthcoming?” he said.

“Pathetic.”

“I don’t find you pathetic, Hazel. Not at all.”

Taking the exit into the tiny town, she held his gaze for a few seconds before returning her focus to the road ahead. “Looks like our choices are Whataburger or mystery Tex-Mex.”