I didn’t know what else to do but sink back down into the seat and watch her stumble toward the door. The general store’s windows were murky, so I could only see a few shapes inside. There was nothing around here; it was more desolate than even Cobalt.
I think it’s probably time for you to go back to New York.
After a while, I checked my watch. Stella had been in there for six minutes. She was probably chatting to someone at the counter, perhaps about the jackalope. Or perhaps she was talking about me. That I wasn’t as accomplished as her other grand-niece, Samantha. That I was testy and lazy and not married and that I didn’t have a job. That I was using her as an excuse.
I don’t need to be saved. That was what I got. If I didn’t save her, if I didn’t do these things, who would? And what did she think, I was running away?
I hit the steering wheel, annoyed, and turned the car off. The ground was crunchy beneath my feet. Dust swirled. But then I wondered, why bother? If Stella didn’t want to go to Cheveyo-if Samantha had said something to her, if she wanted to give up, whatever-then why was I pushing for it so much? Why shouldn’t I just let her be?
But then the fear took hold of me again, the fear of so many things. I pushed my way through the market’s door.
Bells jingled. An older woman behind the counter looked up. Beneath her were different coffee cans full of fishing worms. In the back of the market were a few refrigerators full of beverages, and to my right were aisles stuffed with candy and chips. A dilapidated hot-dog machine squeakily rotated in the corner. Stella was gone.
My heart started to pound. ‘Help you?’ the old woman behind the counter asked. There was a large wad of something in her mouth.
‘Did an older woman come in here?’ I asked.
The woman lazily pointed a bony finger toward the back. ‘Bathroom.’
The door to the bathroom was unmarked, but I could see a key with a fish-shaped keychain hanging out of the knob-I assumed Stella had unlocked it and then forgotten to pull it out. ‘Stella?’ I knocked on the door. With the store’s country music blaring, I couldn’t really hear anything. ‘Stella?’
She didn’t answer. I thought of her stubbornly in there, waiting it out until she knew we wouldn’t be able to go to Cheveyo. I don’t need to be saved. The words washed over me again and again, like a hose that sprayed down a criminal upon entering prison.
‘Open the goddamn door.’ I pushed against it. And then, it gave. She hadn’t even locked it. I half-fell inside, taking in the yellowed toilet, the cracked sink on the far wall. There were Stella’s high-heeled green shoes, cockeyed on the tiles. There was her hand with her boysenberry-red nails-always painted, because chemo had turned them black-curled inward in an awkward pose. Her purse gaped open, and a few of her pill bottles had spilled onto the floor. Their tops all said Charles Kupka’s Drugs, The Finest Apothecary in Western Pennsylvania.
‘Oh my God,’ I whispered, sinking down to Stella. Her cheek was pressed against the dirty tiled floor. Her wig had fallen off, revealing a fluff of thin hair underneath. And underneath that, I could see her skull, transparent and vulnerable. A noise came from somewhere, something that sounded like an animal wail. I didn’t realize for a while that it was me.
Strong arms lifted me up. A man in a plaid shirt and a beard pressed me against him. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, patting my shoulder. Behind him stood the woman at the counter, her mouth a straight line, her fingers dancing nervously against the hem of her t-shirt. ‘It’s okay,’ the man repeated. I tried to find something to stare at, to fixate on. There were cheerful posters for Pepsi, M&M’S, a promotional deal between Willie Nelson and Marlboros. As they pulled Stella out, I reached forward and touched the edge of her wig, adjusting it so that it was straight again. Her arms hung down limp, bathed in her satin gloves. From this angle, if I squinted, with the gloves and the hair and her pale profile, she looked like she could be a vamp in a big-screen musical, carried on the shoulder of an adoring male fan, ready to revive and break into her big show-stopping, tap-dancing number. Any minute now, she’d do it. Any minute now.
24