“Walk, pace, hike, stride, skip, hop.” He could do any of those today. He could do all of them. He’d do better if he had shoes on, but he could walk home. I know you can, Kitt. “Can, could, would, should.”
“Okay, let’s get your momma home.” Truck bent and picked up Vanna Mom, ignoring her protests that quivered in the air, making her sound like a bowl of jelly looked. She clattered like their dishes behind the little doors in the kitchen did when the trucks drove up and down their road, back before the water claimed the bridge. Kitt glanced up, saw her hands were folded in her lap, fingers grub-white and holding on tight to the ones next to them. Packed as tight as people in a church. “Here is the church, and this is the steeple.” Let’s go home, Kitt. “Home, house, building, residence, structure.”
He turned to walk up the path, trying to match Truck’s pace, his legs stretching far to make up in extension what he lacked in length. Truck laughed and Kitt sighed to hear the woman’s laugh, too. “Maybe you could walk a bit faster, son?” Walk, pace, hike. He could hike. He hiked with Vanna Mom a lot; he could hike, even without boots. He hiked up the path and heard Truck say, “Good job, son.”
Vanna
So cold, she thought. Eyes closed, she leaned against Truck’s chest, feeling the swaying jostle of his every boot fall to the path winding through the woods. Kitt’s footsteps preceding them, his bare soles slapping against the mud and dirt leading them home.
Her terror when he bolted from the house had been nearly paralyzing. He had always been a wanderer, but not a runner. She didn’t anticipate his actions like she would have if it had been a common occurrence. But it wasn’t. I could have scripted it, otherwise.
Thank God, Truck hadn’t gotten far and heard her screams. Otherwise she might still be roving the paths through the woods, not thinking, just reacting. And Kitt would be lying in the water, cold and still. She shivered at the thought and Truck’s arms tightened around her, his voice murmuring, “Nearly there, darlin’.”
I really, really like it when he calls me that, she thought and allowed her head to tip sideways, pressing her cheek against his chest. There was something she wanted to tell him, but after he jumped to the wrong conclusion this morning, it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. What I’d like to tell him is “You got it wrong, Truck.”
“What’d I get wrong, darlin’?” In her imagination, his voice deepened, gained an edge of roughness.
“This morning. I wasn’t kicking you out. I liked having you there. You got it wrong.” The racking shudders had finally fled her bones, but they took all her remaining heat along with them. “That hurt.” Everything hurt, and her skin felt as if she had spent too many hours exposed on a mountaintop, sun-raised blisters flaring painful heat all along the surface of her skin. “Freezing burns, I did not know that.” Even the words in my head are slurring now, she thought, “I wanted you to stay. I danced with you. You saw me.”
Her head tipped back against his arm and she looked up, holding her eyes open with effort in order to see his strong neck and that beautiful, full beard. “I just wanted to explain about Kitt.”
“Hold on, darlin’. Nearly there. Hold on.” If possible, his voice gained another layer of tender on top of the gravel-filled demand.
“Okay.” Her eyes sank closed, and she floated down into the exhausting and blistering cold.
Truck
“Kitt, I need you to open the door.” The boy moved to do that, stepping back to hold the screen wide and Truck pushed past the only partially closed inside door. “Where’s the bathtub, son? We need to warm your momma up.”
She was so cold, and had gone still over the last mile, her body loose-limbed in his arms. He hadn’t really been worried about hypothermia until her speech had turned delirious, then he realized she had stopped shivering, the clicking of her teeth ceasing as she fled consciousness.
Kitt led the way up the stairs and Truck used the heel of his boot to push the front door shut before following. They turned right at the top of the stairs and into what looked like the master bedroom and Truck paused a moment, taking in the only room in the house that held character. Decorated in warm, rich colors and fabrics, it held a large, tall bed covered in plush blankets and throw pillows. The walls were covered in paintings and pictures, and he knew he would enjoy spending time in here plucking at the threads of his Vanna’s personality, learning what made her tick.
First you need to warm her up, he heard and grinned. “Warm her up, and wake her up,” he said aloud, agreeing with Tish for once.
“Present,” Kitt said, stopping in the middle of the room and holding out the object in his hand, tattered paper nearly gone; the black rectangle bearing only a few remaining scraps. Truck looked down to see Kitt’s muddy feet had left a smudged trail all the way across the polished wood of the floor.