“I know.” Oh God. I’m so busted. “I don’t know what she was thinking.”
“Oh, I do,” the cop says in an amused voice. “We found her hitchhiking.” He points to the sloppily written sign on Gran’s chest, which I can now read: IHOP or Bust.
Gran’s hands wave around as her prickly tone carries across the sand. “Unless you boys are going to take me out for pancakes with raspberry sauce, I’m not going anywhere.” You can tell this stalemate has been going on for some time, because the officer hangs his head in defeat. I’m guessing they don’t make a habit out of forcing little old blind ladies jonesing for pancakes into the back of their patrol car.
I go in for the rescue. “Gran,” I say soothingly with my arm around her shoulder, “let me get you home. We can make pancakes there.” All eyes rove to Dom and his souped-up motorcycle.
“You don’t have a car,” Officer Obvious states.
“I’ll take her on the bike.” When multiple eyebrows rise, I realize how absurd it sounds. I put my hands on my hips. “What? I can ride it. I’ve done it before.”
Dom laughs nervously. “What she means to say, officers, is that she’s ridden with me lots of times. Since she doesn’t actually possess a license for a bike”?—?he shoots me a look?—?“clearly she cannot drive her grandmother home. I think we should call your parents, Ry. Or maybe these fine officers won’t mind giving you two ladies a lift?”
“I would like that young man to take me home on his motorbike!” Gran exclaims. When one of the officers starts to object, she holds up her hand. “Do not get on my nerves. I am a grown woman and I know my rights. I’ve been denied things because I am black. I’ve been denied things because I am a woman. And I’ve been denied things because I am blind. Damn it, I’ve been denied pancakes! By golly, you won’t deny me this.” She shoves past the officer toward the general location of Dom’s voice. “I can sit on the back for one little mile, yes I can.”
Both officers shrug their shoulders, probably glad for the oddball situation to be over. But one guy gives me a stern look as he flips his notepad closed. “Keep a better eye on her from now on. Would you like a ride back to the house?” he offers.
“No, thanks. I’ll walk.”
Dom looks at me helplessly as one of the policemen gives Gran a hand getting on the bike. “I see who Ryan takes after,” Dom says to her. She wears a huge smile and claps like a little girl when he starts the bike up. Her plump cheek presses to his back, and she wraps her arms tightly around his middle. I watch the clouds of desert sand kick up as they putter slowly down the road, the wake of her laughter trailing behind. I walk through their cannon smoke of dust.
Something rustles behind me, and I spin around.
A tangle of sagebrush rolls past like it’s running from something. Each tumbling scrape on the dusty road is a whisper.
How could you?
My legs twitch with the urge to run, but the brush and the phantom voice are rolling toward my house. So I stand stone still, barely breathing, and wonder if I’m imagining the things I’ve seen and heard.
How could you?
I remain motionless, frozen with fear as the desert breathes, unfazed, around me, until the sagebrush and the voice fade to nothing in the distance.
When I finally arrive at my driveway, lightheaded and jumpy, Dom is walking out the door with a miserable expression. His face is like a fierce angel from a painting?—?powerful, unyielding, but soft, too. He throws his leg over the bike seat. His tortured dark eyes smolder with cinders of a sad truth.
“Your grandmother told me that if I really loved you, I’d be gone before your parents show up.”
Gran’s right, of course. I’m already in enough trouble. It wouldn’t help for them to find him here. He sits on his bike, waiting for me to say or do something. I’m not sure what he wants from me until he softly clasps my hand and pulls me to him, burying his face in my hair. He inhales, breathes me in. “Real love doesn’t leave. It stays put.”
My face stings where it’s pressed against his T-shirt. I feel a fight in me: my promise to my father versus the familiarity between Dom and me. Passion is there, like a coal buried deep in my stomach that refuses to burn to ash. But I don’t feel the pull to him that I should. Every memory I see of us together taunts me like a book I wish I could live in but know I can’t. There’s that drumming heart again, but it’s a melody I can’t appreciate the way I’m supposed to. I’m not crazy. I’m not. But I don’t understand why my emotions don’t match my memories.
Why don’t I feel anything?