Page 70

Jessica

The Excursion smells like coffee. It bounces over the dirt road and across a cattle gate.

When I finally get to a gate, it takes me a full minute to find the clicker, clipped to the visor.

I press it and the gate slowly opens. A few minutes later, I reach the paved state road and jam the accelerator down.

I inch to the edge of the seat to ease the strain on my short legs, and watch as the speedometer slowly climbs up the dial.

It’s starting to get dark, and I lean to the left and turn on the headlights.

I can’t believe I’m free. My heart beats rapidly, and I force myself to breathe in and out slowly, like Mom taught me to do when I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack.

The SUV goes off on the shoulder, shaking violently, and I let off the gas and steer it back onto the road.

I’m not really sure I should be driving.

I’m definitely impaired, though maybe a cop would give me a pass if they pull me over.

I tap at the display screen, but there’s no navigation. Head north, she said. Like I know what direction is north. I do the familiar rhyme— rises in the east, sets in the west —and verify that I’m heading to the right of the sunset. North.

The radio is on, and it’s playing “Exes” by Tate McRae. I try to picture Dr. Joe bobbing his head to the beat, but I can’t. Maybe it’s the nurse’s playlist.

I’m struck with the memory of her swinging down that frog, right on top of his head. The exhausted victory on her face when he collapsed. That is an image that will stick with me for a while. If she is my mother, it’s not a bad image to remember her by.

I didn’t lie to Dr. Joe. My mom never said anything that made me suspect adoption.

Other than her being old and not wanting to talk about my dead dad, there were no signs.

We were just alike, the two of us. Like peas in a pod; she always said that.

Once, when I was mad because she wouldn’t let me go to Universal Studios on a school night, I told her that we weren’t like peas in a pod, that she was stupid and mean and I hated her, and now I wish .

.. I wipe at my eyes and slam my hand on the steering wheel and wish more than anything that I could go back in time and take it all back.

She was the greatest mom in the world. The only mom I wanted.

It probably wasn’t true, what the nurse—my aunt—said.

I mean, these people kept me prisoner in some kind of fake crazy house, then both tried to kill me, so the thing about her being my real mom was probably a lie also.

I don’t want to be related to that woman back there, even if she did save me at the very last second.

The road curves to the right, and I grip the steering wheel tightly, then let out a shout of joy at what appears around the bend.

A gas station.