I'm getting too good at writing notes that say good-bye. It's nice to feel like you're talented at something in life, but I'm not sure this is such a great thing to add to the list.
I didn't tell Tony why I was leaving. In the note, I mean. Just that I was. I couldn't bring myself to tell him about C.J. I guess it was partly because then he would know I lied to him. Even more than he already thought I did. But that wasn't most of it. Most of it was because then he would know I was just like his mother. That I was a mother who would leave her little boy with a father she knew was terrible. Like passing him off for the sake of my own safety. Like sacrificing him to some big angry God to save myself.
Then Tony would hate me. For being so much like his mother.
I could almost live with losing Tony. I can do losing. I've been doing it all my life. But if he hated me … I could never live with that. Same with C.J., I guess.
I woke Natalie with a finger to her lips, and she stayed silent. She was good at silent, Natalie. She knew all about what not to say and when not to say it.
Maybe that's why she's nearly three and almost never talks. Maybe she's afraid of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
I pulled the duffel bag across the carpet. Thank God for the new carpet. It hardly made a sound.
THE SUN WAS ONLY JUST BARELY UP. We couldn't see it or anything. We could just see that the sky was starting to get light.
I barely knew this place, but it was breaking my heart to have to leave it behind. But I had to go get C.J. I knew that now. Where I would go after I got him, well, I hadn't quite figured that out. But I had to get him. Now. Before he grew up and learned to hate me for what I didn't have the guts to do.
The morning air was already warm. More than warm, really. Not hot exactly, but sort of like hot in waiting. Like hot gearing up to go.
And it was clean.
It was different from the air in the city. Like you could blindfold me and plug my ears and I'd still know where I was. Just by the feel of the air.
I looked at the windmills again. For a long time.
I was wondering how I would ever be able to live without this place that I'd only known for about a day.
Turns out some places leave a tattoo on you that never goes away. And I hadn't known that. Because I hadn't known many places. Please don't ask me how I knew it would never go away. I just knew.
I guess Tony was mixed into that tattoo somewhere. But standing there on the highway, watching those windmills spin and smelling the desert air, I got the sense that this place could mark me forever all on its own.
I stuck out my thumb and we got a ride from an old man in a big Chrysler from the sixties. I was almost sorry he came along.
Kind of glad and sorry at the same time.
He smiled and said good morning and Natalie buried her head in my neck.
“Where to?” he asked.
I said we were going to the bus station.
I didn't have money for the bus. But I still had my pocketful of change. So I could call Stella, though I might have to call her collect. And she would probably buy me a ticket with Victor's credit card. Victor and Stella had plenty of money, especially since Victor never wanted to go anywhere and spend it.
We rolled down the windows because it was getting too warm already.
About a couple of miles later down the highway, Natalie's fur muff took off and flew. I guess she started to drift off to sleep and sort of loosed up her vise grip on it. It flew right out the window. I looked at it in the side-view mirror and watched it land on the center line of the highway.
Natalie started to cry right away.
“Want me to turn around and go back for that?” the old man asked. He was a pretty nice old guy, I think.
“No, thank you,” I said. “It'll be okay.”
I'd been wondering how I'd ever be able to bring myself to keep looking at that beautiful piece of fur. The only thing anybody—at least, anybody who wasn't me—ever gave Natalie. The constant reminder that this guy I left behind, the one I blew my chance with, had been sweet.
Not the best way to solve a problem, but at least it was solved.
The story of my life.
When I woke up, it was barely light. Not even quite dawn. But it was light. I think it was the light that woke me.
I was still on the lounge chair outside. But Maria wasn't lying on me anymore.
I got up, stretched. Went inside.
I could still feel that new feeling. That sense that everything had changed. That I had changed. And that there was no changing back.
And it's a good thing, too. Because Maria wasn't there.
The bathroom door was standing open, so I swung it wider and looked in. In case she was in the tub or something. No Maria.
I peeked around the screen, but Natalie's crib bed was empty, too.
I was just about to go up to the house to look for them when my eyes landed on the closet. The doors stood open wide, and Maria's clothes were no longer hanging there. And her duffel bag was no longer lying on the floor. I just kept looking for a long time, trying to catch up to a place in my mind where I would know what that meant. But I guess I must have wanted not to catch up to that place. I must have wanted that a lot. Because it's pretty obvious. I mean, there aren't a lot of things that could mean. Really just the one. But I just kept staring.
Then I looked at our bed. And, you know, before I even did, I think I knew what I would see there. I don't think it was even a surprise. Not by then.
I must've walked over and picked up the note. But I don't remember doing that. I just remember sitting with it, on the edge of the bed. I have no idea how long.
She said she had to go back.
She said it was true what she said about loving me, but she had to go back.
She said she was sorry.
That's all she said.
I can't tell you how long I sat there holding the note, or what I was thinking. I'm not even sure I was thinking. I think my brain was switched off in a way I couldn't completely control. But I remember my first thought after that long gap. She might only have left a few minutes ago. It might not be too late to catch her.
I ran out to the street. A neighbor was watering in his front yard. The house right across the way. An older guy maybe in his sixties, bald, in his bathrobe.
“Hi, Sebastian,” he called to me. “We're really glad you're here.” And he waved.
I had never met him or seen him, and at first I had no idea how he knew my name or why he was glad I was here. But I guess everyone in town had been expecting me. Which I don't think I could have wrapped my brain around at any time. Just then it was all quite beyond me.
I ran up to his fence. “Did you see a woman and a little girl leave here this morning?”
“Sure, just a few minutes ago,” he said. “She walked down to the corner of the highway there and caught a ride.”
“Caught a ride?”
“You know. Stuck out her thumb.”
“Oh. Right. Thanks.”
I started running in the direction of the highway. Why, I guess, is hard to explain. Because I had just missed her. Because the ride would have to let her off somewhere. Because the alternative was to do nothing. Because I had to change the ending of the story.
What good is a love story without a happy ending?
Halfway to the highway I realized I hadn't even asked which way she had gone. But I didn't even need to, really. West. The bus station was west. So, when I hit the highway, I went west.
Now, this highway is really just a road with a lane in each direction. And there was nobody out at that hour, anyway. So I ran right down the center line. For about two miles. Could even have been three. I think at some point I might have questioned myself about what I was doing. But, if so, it was in a muddy sort of way. Mostly I just ran. I thought I was going to run forever. I could have. I was into something that was hard to stop. I don't think I could have stopped if I hadn't seen something lying in the middle of the road.
At first I thought it was an animal. I thought it was a rabbit or a cat that had been killed by a car. But when I got closer, I saw it had no head. No feet. No shape to identify it as a living thing. It was just a piece of fur. I stopped in front of it. Squatted down and picked it up.
It was the rabbit-fur muff.
I just squatted there for a minute or two, holding it in my hands. Feeling the softness. In the distance I saw the windmills spinning, but really more in my peripheral vision. But I was aware of them.
Then a car went by, swerving around me and blaring its horn. I didn't move.
First I thought maybe she threw it away on purpose. Not Natalie. She wouldn't. But maybe Maria did. Maybe she didn't want anything to remind her of me.
But then I had another thought, and I liked this one better. I decided that Natalie threw herself half out the window again, to see the windmills. And this time the fur muff didn't land on anybody's feet. This time it flew out the window and landed on the road. And Maria was too timid and shy to ask the driver to stop and go back.
I would never know which was true. But I burned the image of the second story into my brain. I wrote it like a piece of history, so I would always remember it just that way.
I couldn't get up and run anymore, because I knew it wouldn't do any good. And because all the energy and all the fight had drained out of me. As a direct result of knowing it wouldn't do any good.
I stood up and turned around and saw Grandma Annie in her old blue and rust-primer truck. She was just sitting off on the shoulder of the road, watching me.
I got up and walked over. “What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“I saw you running down the road.”
“Aren't you even going to ask me why?”
“Don't really have to.” A long silence. I was looking down at the tarmac. “Come on,” she said. “Get in.”
I walked around and climbed in the passenger's side. Pulled the door shut behind me. The window was rolled down, so I leaned partway out and watched the windmills. So I wouldn't have to look at her. I was waiting for her to turn around and drive us home.
“Did she have any money?” I heard her ask me. Her voice sounded strangely far away. Like I was partly asleep.
“I don't think so. Why?”
“Maybe she's at the bus station.”
“Your neighbor said she hitched a ride.”
“Maybe she hitched a ride to the bus station. Let's go see.”
“Did my mother go home?”
“No, honey. She's still here.”
A few miles later she looked over at me. Looked at the rabbit-fur muff I was holding tightly in both hands. “She must've dropped it by accident. No way she'd let it go on purpose.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That's what I was thinking, too.”
? ? ?
MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE I WAS SO UPSET. Because the morning was playing out like a dream. A weird, bad dream. But I fell into my Tony role. When I jumped out of Grandma Annie's truck and ran into the bus station, I felt like the Tony in the movie, running up and down the streets calling for Maria. But I guess I rewrote a little history there, because I realize now he wasn't calling for Maria in the movie. He thought she was dead. He was calling for Chino to come kill him, too.
But he found his Maria all the same. And I found mine.
She was sitting on a hard wooden bench with Natalie by her side. Sitting up stiff, with her back weirdly straight. Looking at something right in front of her, maybe, or maybe at nothing. I couldn't tell.
It was Natalie who saw me. And gave me away.
She pulled her thumb out of her mouth and said, “Hi, Tony.” Clear as a bell.
Maria looked up at me, her face dissolving into layers of shame and guilt and regret. All the things I never wanted to see on her face. There they all were. It was all I could do not to look away.
I sat down next to her. Gave Natalie back her rabbit-fur muff.
“Thank you, Tony,” Natalie said.
Nobody had said a word so far except Natalie.
“You're welcome. Come home with us.” But of course I said this second part to Maria.
She shook her head. “I can't.”
“You had money for the bus? Why didn't you tell me?”
“No. I didn't have any money. I called my sister. And she bought me a ticket.”
“You don't have to go back. Come home with us.”
“No. I can't. I have to go back.”
“Why?”
“I have to go get C.J.”
My stomach cramped painfully at the mention of that name. But then I also started thinking that it probably wasn't Carl. The way she said she had to go get him.
“Who's C.J.?”
She wouldn't look at me. Just kept looking down at the linoleum of the bus station floor. “Carl Jr.,” she said. I still didn't get it, and I guess she could tell. “C.J. is my little boy.”
“You have a son?”
I heard myself asking the question, as if from the outside. Like a voice that sounded enough like mine, but didn't feel connected.
“I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I knew you wouldn't take me with you if you knew I had two kids. I didn't even think you'd take me and Natalie. But I couldn't leave Natalie. But I thought I could leave C.J. But I can't. I have to fight for him. No matter what I think will happen.”
I sat back on the hard wooden bus bench. Felt the cool, smooth wood against the hard knobs of my spine. The conversation under the stars came into my head again. It's weird how something that's already happened can change. Just by keying in some new information.
After about an eternity I said, “Why did you leave a note that made it sound like you were leaving forever?”
Her eyes came up to mine and I saw she was crying. But silently. I hadn't even known.
“Well, I can't just come back and live here with two kids.”
“Why can't you?”
She looked into my eyes for a strangely long period of time. I tried not to squirm.
“ We can't fit four of us in that tiny little place.”
“Then I'll get a job, and we'll get a bigger place.”
“Really, Tony? Two kids?”
“Is this dangerous?”
She looked down at the dirty floor again. Didn't answer.
“Maybe you should leave Natalie here with me.”
For two reasons. So Natalie couldn't get hurt by Carl, or taken away by Carl. And so I knew for a fact that Maria would have to come back to me.
Three reasons. So I wouldn't be all alone in my tiny new house in the waiting.
“She wouldn't stay with you.”
“We like each other.”
“She might cry the whole time.”
“Better that than take a chance on her getting hurt.”
A long silence.
Then Maria said, “Natalie, would you be okay with Tony for a while? I promise I'll come back as soon as I get C.J.”
“When?” Natalie asked.
“About a week, I think. Will you be okay with Tony?”
She didn't answer. Just stuck her thumb in her mouth.
I lifted her gently off the seat beside Maria, and she didn't object. Just buried her face in my neck.
“Please be careful,” I said.
“I will. I'll call you at your grandmother's when I get there. And when I get C.J. So you'll know I'm okay.”
I started getting scared, thinking about what had happened last time she saw Carl. I started thinking that maybe leaving C.J. where he was had been good logic in the first place.
“Maybe—”
“No,” she said. “I have to do this. I have to.”
She dug around in the duffel bag and pulled out a few things. Made a neat little stack on the bench beside her.
Two little dresses.
Three pairs of clean white underwear, unbelievably tiny.
A soft-bristled hairbrush.
A toothbrush with a plastic handle shaped like a teddy bear.
A VHS tape of The Wizard of Oz.
“Why do you have to do this again?”
“So C.J. will never talk about me the way you were talking about your mother last night.”
“Oh,” I said.
I scooped up the pile of Natalie's things. What else could I say? It had been the truth. All of it. It was way too late to take any of my words back now.
GRANDMA ANNIE WAS WAITING FOR ME in the truck, with the engine still running. I climbed in and set Natalie on my lap. Carefully laid Natalie's things on the passenger side floor at my feet. Put the seat belt around both of us.
“It's a long story,” I said.
She just nodded, and then put the truck in gear.
“HE'S GOING TO KILL HER,” I said. “Why did I let her go? It was so stupid. He'll kill her. She'll never make it back here in one piece. I should have gone with. At least tried to protect her.”
I was sitting at the breakfast table with Grandma Annie and my mother, who had joined us silently and without warning. Or permission. I was staring at a glass of orange juice I had no intention of drinking. My stomach felt like someone was squeezing it with pliers and then twisting. I was holding Natalie on my lap, her thumb in her mouth, her eyes shut tight and pressed against my neck. Her usual death grip on the fur muff. I realized too late that I probably shouldn't have said those things in front of her. I was feeling bad about that.
It was the first time I had spoken. And the words had just gone out in general. Just flowed out to fill the kitchen. I had not been speaking directly to my mother. And I had not looked at her once.
Grandma Annie said, “She was right, though. When she said you had to stay out of it. He'd kill you quicker than anybody.”
First there was just a long silence. Longer than a normal lag in conversation. Also quieter than your average silence. I didn't know it was an important silence. At the time. Although I guess in a way I could feel something starting to build.
Then, out of nowhere, my mother said, “He can kill me.”
I only knew it was my mother because it wasn't Grandma Annie and it wasn't me. I hadn't heard her voice since I was seven. I couldn't even decide if it sounded familiar or not.
“What?” I looked up at her. I couldn't help it. It had just been such a weird thing to say. “What does that mean?”
“It means just what I said. I'll go with her and try to protect her. If he wants to kill somebody he can kill me.”
Another long silence. I'm pretty sure no one else knew what to say, either.
Then my mother said, “I better hurry, if I'm going to catch her.”
Grandma Annie followed her away from the table. Out into the hall by the front door. I could hear quiet whispers of their voices. Just a few sentences each. I was about to get up and move closer. I wanted to hear what they were saying.
Before I could, I heard the jingle of car keys as my mother grabbed them up off the hall table. I heard the door open and then slam shut.
I looked up to see Grandma Annie in the kitchen doorway. She looked worried and far away.
I said, “What just happened?”
“You were here as much as I was, honey.”
“But why would she do that?”
“Oh, honey. Use your head.”
I felt insulted. Belittled. But I figured she was just worried, so I worked on letting it go by.
I tried to understand what had just happened with my mother. I really tried. But I still didn't get it. “I'm sorry. Maybe this stuff is obvious to everyone. But it's not obvious to me. I really don't understand. She doesn't even know Maria.”
A long silence. I was beginning to think she would never answer me.
Then she said, “Longer you live, honey, the more you see everybody's just running around looking for a do-over. Chance to go back to their worst mistake and get it right this time.”
I said, “Oh.”
Then I spent the rest of the morning being afraid that Carl would kill Maria and my mother. But I never said so out loud.