She smiled weakly at him with her thumb still in her mouth.
“But you gotta stop this,” Carl pulled her hand down. “Try not to be so nervous,”
“I can’t help it!”
He couldn’t imagine how terrified she must have been. He’d make things alright for her soon though. They just had to get over the border.
The hours passed by quickly and soon they were the only car on the road. Anna was scared they they’d break down and not be able to get help or worse… they’d be found by the Mob and have no method of escape. But she calmed herself down eventually and dismissed her thoughts as childish.
As she looked into the darkness of the highway it seemed as though everything came to a head, or rather, she was suddenly conscious of her situation and the reality of everything hit her. For the first time she was acutely aware that her father was dead. She surmised that this was because the shock of the situation was eventually wearing off and leaving her raw with emotion. She looked to Carl, her saviour and her father’s murderer. She had given herself to him freely but did she even know who he was.
He sensed her anxiety straight away and looked to her:
“What?”
“I don’t know very much about you at all Carl Reiner…. If that’s even your name,”
“Where did this come from, eh?” he seemed amused at her befuddlement yet also offended. “What’s up? You can ask me anything you know,”
“Fine,” she thought for a second. “You said I reminded you of an old girlfriend, who was she?”
Carl shuffled in his seat anxiously and felt a twinge in his back.
“She was… she wasn’t really anything,” he lied.
She looked at him in disbelief.
Jesus, this girl can already see right through me… He thought to himself.
“Listen. I wasn’t gonna say anything but actually…. Your situation was so much like my old childhood neighbour. But she wasn’t so lucky. Her father killed her,”
“Oh……” Anna didn’t know what to say about that. “That’s terrible,”
“It was awful. It’s stayed with me forever. I always dreamed of saving her, you know, but I was too late. But at least I wasn’t with you,” he looked to her tenderly.
Anna felt tremendously special all of a sudden. “Thank you,” was all that came out. No words were good enough to describe what he’d done for her.
“Anything else you’d like to know?” there was a hint of annoyance in his voice because he didn’t understand why she cared about his past.
“Your family, you never talk about them,”
“I don’t have a family,”
“Not even a mother or father anywhere? Or a random cousin?”
“I’ve got no one but you kid. Like you said earlier we’re just orphans in an evil world,” his words came out sounding venomous.
The silence resumed to the car and Carl lit a cigarette with his eyes still on the road.
“Actually I’ve not been entirely truthful,” he exhaled smoke over the windscreen.
Anna looked to him suspiciously.
“I have a father….and a mother”
“Oh? Was your father as bad as mine? Is that why you never mentioned him before?”
“Not quite. In fact my Dad was pretty much perfect growing up. We were the best of pals. And he was prouder than anything the day I signed up for the navy,”
“So what happened?”
“Well… when I came back from Afghanistan… I had my problems for sure and not just my back. Just like you Anna, I have nightmares that haunt me every night. I can’t close my eyes without seeing them. But my Dad didn’t understand. Thought that all that crap was in my head and it was! But he thought I was just being overdramatic, that I was weak, that illnesses in the mind didn’t really exist,”
Anna looked out the passenger window with unflinching sadness. “I’m so sorry to hear that. That changes everything then,”
“No, it doesn’t,” he wound down the window and tossed his cigarette end into the road. “Anyway the last time I saw him, he said I was a lazy good for nothing for not being able to hold down a regular job after I was discharged. Said I enjoyed pretending to be ill, that I was doing it for attention. I’ve never spoken to him since.,”
The moment felt profound to Anna as she looked to the man beside her. She’d finally found someone that had stuck by her happiness and sorrow. In that second as the little car sped down the empty highway there was a palpable sense of trust between the new couple. They held hands and looked straight ahead.
“It won’t be long until we’re there. Just gotta keep going,” Carl nodded as he spoke.
CHAPTER 11