The clock on the motel nightstand read 8:49 A.M. and there was a frame of silver light around the drapes. David rolled over, wincing at the stiffness of his body but careful not to make a sound. He couldn’t remember his dreams, but he found both his pillow and the stuffed elephant damp and his eyelids puffy. Ellie was still asleep beside him, her back to him, her legs tucked up beneath her so that the heels of her feet nearly rested against her buttocks. She still hugged the shoe box against her. David wondered what dreams were currently shuttling through his daughter’s head.
In the bathroom he hid the stuffed elephant back inside the duffel bag, washed his face and hands, changed into a pair of jeans, then carefully tucked the Glock into his rear waistband. His Pearl Jam T-shirt was long enough to cover the handgun, but he still felt conspicuous. If someone happened to see the bulge, it might draw unwelcome attention. It was safer to leave the gun behind, so he stowed it back inside the duffel bag. Lastly, he removed the wad of cash from the bag and stashed it in his pocket.
Before leaving, he wrote Ellie a note on the back of an old receipt he found in his wallet and stuck it to the door with a gob of chewing gum; she would see it if she went for the door. Then he slipped out into the harsh daylight, wincing.
In the car, he drove not in the direction of the highway, but down a narrow whip of unnamed blacktop that wound behind the motel and ultimately ran through a rural downtown area. Most of the shops here were closed—permanently, it seemed, given their state of disrepair, the blackened shop windows, the fans of unruly blond weeds bursting from cracks in the sidewalks—and even the scant few cars flanking the curb looked like they had been deserted a long time ago. The only living soul was a homeless man in tattered clothing huddled in the doorway of an abandoned building. There was a sandwich board propped up beside him, the words on it printed in accusatory black capitals—THIS TERRIBLE FATE IS YOURS ALONE.
Just when he considered turning around and heading back to the motel, David discovered a convenience store on the corner of an otherwise empty intersection. There were lights on inside, and the door was propped halfway open with a brick.
As he negotiated the Olds into one of several empty parking spaces along the curb, a lone dog, ruinous with mange, trotted across the intersection. It paused in the middle of the street as David climbed out of the car, perhaps alerted to the movement, and stared at him, its tongue unfurled from its mouth, its wolfish ears twitching. The thing did not have a tail, so David couldn’t tell if it was simply curious or meant him harm. Judging by the look of the thing, it didn’t seem like it would have very much to wag about.
David entered the convenience store, dodging between curling strips of flypaper that hummed audibly. His arrival triggered an electronic chime that sounded like a doorbell. The place was empty, without even a clerk behind the counter. Despite the chill in the air, large black flies thumped lazily against the light fixtures. The aisles looked like they hadn’t been restocked in a decade, and indeed, there was the distinct aroma of spoiled meat hanging thickly in the air. He wondered if the place had been abandoned.
It was less like a 7-Eleven and more like one of those sundry gift shops that populated the boardwalks of beach towns, with novelty T-shirts, souvenirs, and stuffed animals hanging from wire carousels. There was a food aisle, comprised mostly of canned goods, bags of chips, and dry, packaged noodles; a clothing aisle, with gaudy summer clothes and silly hats on display; a hardware section; and a rack of magazines—mostly pornographic—against one wall.
David crossed up and down the aisles, grabbing items at random. When he came upon a Cinderella toothbrush, he pried it from the wall peg. Yet a moment later he wondered if perhaps Ellie would think it silly, childish, and if he should opt for a simple adult toothbrush for the girl instead. These are the decisions that plague my mind now? He nearly laughed aloud at the thought. And in the end, he decided to buy both the adult toothbrush and the Cinderella one. Just in case.
He went to the magazine rack, too. Aside from the porno rags, there were celebrity tabloids, teen magazines, automotive catalogues, and even a booklet with a marijuana leaf on the cover. No newspapers, though, which was what he really wanted. It occurred to him that he had no idea if his daughter read any of this stuff—the teen mags, the tabloids, comic books. She wasn’t that type of girl. He didn’t think so, anyway. In the end, he decided to bypass the magazine rack altogether.
It could have been a shopping trip just like any he’d made in his lifetime . . . until he paused beside a hat rack, a plan forming in his head. He selected a nondescript blue baseball cap from the rack—emblem-free and just about as unmemorable as a hat could get—and realized that he would have to explain much of this to Ellie upon his return back to the motel. If he was going to do this, to put this plan into action, then she would have questions. He couldn’t lie to her forever.
He decided to buy the hat.