But that was it. They wanted to help her but they needed her, too, and their need was heavy. They thought she was older than she was, but she wasn’t. You couldn’t actually be older than the number of years you had lived. She was ten. She felt as if they were sitting on her head.
This morning, hours before the train to Boston was scheduled to depart, she had slipped out through the basement bulkhead, walked off Eastern Point, and ridden the bus to Lanesville. A few quarrymen sat in back but none seemed to recognize her, and even if they had, it would have been Johnny Murphy they saw. Leverett Street was dusted in snow. She climbed the hill in the trees, the duffel pulling her back, her concentration so great she nearly passed the house. The Davies’ chimney trickled gray smoke, residue of last night’s fire. The Solttis had bought a car—it sat like a black rock in their yard. Even Mrs. Greely’s house was dark, and silent. A wan light spread through the trees. Lucy had stayed on Eastern Point through Christmas, had gone to Mass with Emma in a new church, had done what she could to avoid cruelty. January was setting in now. The door to the perry shack squealed at her touch and she stepped in quickly to find the place scentless. Her breath jumped in front of her. She moved cautiously to the window.
With the curtains gone from the house, she could see easily into the front room, and in the front room, to her surprise, she saw Roland sitting in his chair, asleep. She had imagined that to see him she would have to creep to the bedroom window, but this—it was almost too easy, and sad. Had he slept there the whole night? She left the shack and went closer, until her face met the window and she saw that this man, covered in a blanket, was not Roland. She nearly banged on the window. What had happened to Roland? What had Emma done? Then the man’s face fell to the side, exposing a peculiar, lobe-heavy ear. Roland’s ear. He had shaved, that was it. She had never seen him without a beard. His face looked strange, doughy in places, the lines around his mouth deeper than she would have guessed, his skin fish white and soft. His sudden bareness seemed to suggest he had nothing to hide. Lucy went hot with guilt. She had overreacted. She had ruined him. He had brought her up as his child and she had ruined him. She let her forehead fall against the window and stared. But the noise made Roland flinch. His eyelids quivered and his hands emerged from the blanket to pull it tighter across his middle and his fingers were the same, thick and scarred, and Lucy’s fear was simple enough to flatten her doubt and push her down the hill, running the whole way, the duffel banging her knees, until she reached the bus stop, a panting boy.
The trees change. The hills grow steeper. A family of deer stares calmly at the train as it roars past. Lucy wonders how they know not to be afraid.
The sun sets. Her sandwiches are long gone.
In the dining car, where the walls are still decorated for Christmas with musk-scented wreaths and velvet bows, Lucy chooses a table in the corner and keeps her eyes down. But the place is nearly full and a woman asks if the seat across from Lucy is taken. Lucy shakes her head, resisting the urge to check that her hair is still well tucked into Jeffrey’s cap. She hopes Janie will forgive her for taking all her pins.
The woman is built like a tree trunk, Lucy thinks, the same from top to bottom, her brown velour dress probably bought for this trip given how she picks at it as she gets settled, pulling at the shoulders, tugging at the neckline. Her expression is similarly scattered: apologetic yet eager. For a large woman, her eyes are small. Her fidgeting calms Lucy—it suggests the woman will not look closely.
“Are you going all the way to Quebec by yourself?”
Lucy nods. The motion is like a hand opening a gate—it shakes loose her loneliness.
The woman smiles as she examines the menu. “What are you, twelve?” she asks. She raises a thick, gloved finger for the waiter, and Lucy nods again.