“No,” she says. “You said I’m Loretta Lynn? Well, Loretta always says what she thinks, and here’s what I think. You’re so damn scared all the time. Scared of being alone. Scared of being hurt. So fucking scared you’re all right with hurting other people. That’s why you were never there when I woke up in the mornings. Because you gotta be the first one to leave. The first one to walk away. Well, that’s too bad, because tonight, I’m walking away first.”
She turns around and walks toward the bright lights of the gas station’s windows. I start to run after her, but I trip and land hard on my hands and knees, scraping them all to hell. Utah’s leash slips from my fingers, and, like everyone else, my dog leaves me.
She runs to Agnes, bumping her head against Agnes’s thigh. Agnes stops walking and reaches down, groping for Utah’s leash. Then the two of them start heading for the door.
“Agnes!” I yell, getting to my feet and picking my bag up off the pavement. “Agnes! You ain’t taking my dog, Agnes!”
She stops again. This time, though, she don’t even look back. “You don’t even have food for her, Bo. And she hasn’t had water all day.”
“Agnes … Agnes, please,” I try one last time. My voice breaks. Weak and hurt and …
Scared.
But she finds the door to the gas station and opens it. Utah looks back at me, like she’s confused about why I ain’t following. Then Agnes gives her leash a light tug and the two of them go inside. I can see Agnes through the windows. I watch her walk to the counter to ask about the pay phone. I watch the cashier point toward one on the other side of the store.
I’ve already turned around and started walking down the road, alone, before she gets to it, though.
Because I can’t watch her dial the number. Can’t watch her wait for her parents. Can’t watch her leave.
Because she’s right: I’m a coward.
I turned seventeen on the day spring finally came to Mursey. For the first time in months, the grass didn’t crunch beneath my feet. And in my jacket, I even felt just a little too warm.
“It’s such a nice day,” Mama said as we climbed into the car that morning. “And on your birthday. Couldn’t be better timing.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m getting tired of wearing gloves. Makes it hard to feel things, you know? And when you can’t see, you’re hands are pretty much your eyes. Just another reason it sucks to be blind.”
“Yeah. It does, honey.” She said it real serious, even though I’d mostly been joking.
I’d gotten so used to talking like that with Bo—being honest but also making light of my disability—that I sometimes forgot that not everybody would respond the way she did. Most people in this town, and especially my parents, still saw my being blind as a tragedy. Something to be mourned.
Not Bo, though. She’d never pitied me. Not once. Not even on that day when she’d found me, lost in the woods. She didn’t see me as someone she ought to feel sorry for. She just saw me.
Speaking of Bo …
“Hey, Mama, are you making my birthday dinner tonight?” I asked.
“Of course.” The car made a turn, and I knew we were only a minute or two from school. “I was thinking some mashed potatoes, corn bread, and maybe fried chicken? Sound good?”
“Great. Can Bo come?”
I already knew the answer to this. Despite all my complaints about my parents, they’d really come around to Bo over the past few months. It had taken a while. Mama wasn’t so keen on her after the trip to the river that had got me grounded. But now Bo was at our house almost every weekend, and she ate dinner with us more nights than she didn’t. And if Bo wasn’t around, they wanted to know where she was. Her presence was pretty much expected.
“Of course,” Mama said without even having to think about it. “I just assumed she’d be coming. Do you wanna invite Christy, too?”
“Um … Maybe another time. She and Bo don’t really get along.”
“Oh. All right. Well, that’s a shame.”
“Yeah. But … since Bo’s coming over anyway,” I said, winding up for my real question. “Can I just ride the bus home with her?”
I felt dumb even asking. I’d gone to parties, drank beer, spent the night at a boy’s house—not that Mama knew about those last two. But still. I was seventeen now, and I wasn’t even allowed to ride the bus and walk home alone.
“Hmm.”
Hmm was a better start than an outright no.
“Bo can ride with me. That’s her bus anyway. Then we can walk home together.”
“Well …” Mama paused. “Is she good at guiding you?”
I had to hold back the groan I felt coming on. Mama had been the one to sign me up for mobility lessons as a kid. She’d seen me use my cane for most of my life. I didn’t need to be guided all the time. Especially not in the middle of the afternoon, when my vision was best, on a route I walked every Sunday morning with her and Daddy.
Still, I gave her the answer that would get me what I wanted. “Yeah. Real good. She’s guided me lots of times.”