The stroller was in a closet off of the office and Mary set it up, unfolding it quietly, straightening the bar between the wheels. When everything was ready, she went to Diane’s room. She cracked the door only slightly at first, peering at her mother who was lying above the covers, her bathrobe still on, her arms crossed over her chest as her head lolled back. Her mouth was open and her breath sounded wet and thick. Mary opened the door just wide enough to slip through, then she walked silently and quickly to Hannah’s crib and leaned over.
Hannah was awake and on her back and looking at the mobile that hung above her bed. She grabbed her feet, covered with the pink flowers of her onesie. When she saw Mary, she smiled.
“Hi, Bunny,” Mary whispered, beaming back at her.
Then she reached down, scooped her up, and was out the door before any sound could disrupt Diane’s leaden sleep.
“We’re going on a trip,” she cooed, as she held Hannah tightly against her chest. “Just you and me.”
In the office, she set Hannah into the stroller and fastened the straps. Then she unlocked the door, propped it open with her hand, and wheeled Hannah out. The cold rain hit Mary’s face immediately, and she blinked against it, adjusting the cover to the stroller to shield Hannah. “Don’t worry,” she said, her voice gentle as she tucked a thick blanket around her. “It’s just rain.”
With her hood up, Mary lowered her head against the wind as she walked, charging down the sidewalk without looking up. She saw the blinding brightness of headlights as cars approached, heard the splash of their tires against the wet street as they passed. It was a little more than a mile to the bus station. There would be a bus leaving just after one in the morning.
Mary walked quickly, and the calves of her jeans were soon soaked with water, making them stiff and cold. She thought about where she would go, what she would say once they were in the city. There were shelters, Mary knew. She could say they needed help. She could say that they had no place else to go.
When they were halfway there, Hannah started crying and Mary stopped the stroller, lifted her sister out, then zipped her into the inside of her coat, where she held her with one hand, pushing the stroller with the other. And against the dry warmth of Mary’s chest, Hannah found comfort.
They arrived at the bus station with less than an hour to spare, and Mary unzipped her jacket and lifted Hannah out as she looked around for a bathroom; she needed paper towels to dry off the stroller. The yellow cinder-block walls were made yellower still from the humming glow of the fluorescent lights overhead, and faded posters of destinations hung crookedly. Sedona. Las Vegas. Miami. After they got to the city, they could go anywhere. Mary caught the ticket agent’s eye through the Plexiglas he sat behind.
“Is the 1:05 on time?” she called. The few other passengers waiting for the bus looked up as they sat on plastic chairs that were bolted to fixed metal bars.
He nodded, regarding Mary from behind his spectacles.
“Where’s the bathroom?” she asked.
Without a word, he pointed toward the hallway that ran parallel to his perch.
“Thanks,” Mary said, as she started toward it. “We’re going to get everything nice and dry,” she whispered to Hannah. “So that you can just sleep on the bus.”
In the bathroom, Mary took a paper towel and rubbed it over her wet face. She took another and wiped down the vinyl of the stroller while balancing Hannah on her hip. Then she walked back out to the waiting room and up to the clerk.
“One,” she said, reaching into her back pocket. “For the 1:05.” Then she tilted her head toward Hannah, adjusting her weight to better balance her. “Plus a child.”
“Child’s free,” said the clerk, as he licked his finger and reached toward a stack of tickets.
Mary took one of the many empty seats and put Hannah on her lap facing her. She brought Hannah’s hands to her cheeks and smiled, feeling her cool fingers on her face. Then she clapped Hannah’s hands together. Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man.
She would miss Diane, of course. She did love her mother. But Diane was condemned by the effort she put into raising Mary. By her desperate tactics. By the threats and punishments leveraged to try to rein in a willful and wild daughter. Diane was condemned by being a mother. But Hannah . . . Mary loved Hannah boundlessly.
“We can pretend we’re princesses,” whispered Mary, bringing her nose to Hannah’s. “Whose castle and fortune were stolen. We can pretend we used to dress in silk and diamonds.”
The station’s waiting room all but emptied when the bus boarded. The driver helped Mary stow the stroller in the under-bus compartment, then Mary took the black rubber-treaded steps up. She took a seat at the very back of the bus next to the bathroom, watching the other passengers settle in, watching them let their heads sink back. Both the girls slept on the way into the city, Mary’s head resting against the cool glass of the window, Hannah’s body warm on her chest. The bus’s interior was dim and quiet, and the roads were empty as they glided over the interstate, the speed bringing Mary peace.
Mary and Hannah were the last to disembark at the terminal, to make their way down the bus’s long center aisle. They were the last to see the two police officers waiting at the bottom of the steps, one of them lifting his radio the moment his eyes made contact with Mary’s.
It wasn’t long after the bus first set off that Diane had woken up. And after thirty minutes of searching on foot, she had called the police. Mary was memorable and so she was easy to find. The clerk at the ticket window had given her up before the bus had even reached the turnpike.
Diane would meet them at the police station, still in her robe as she sat in the waiting room, her hair still wet at the roots from walking around in the rain. Mary would meet her eyes and Diane would bring her hands to her face and she’d weep—huge aching sobs shaking her shoulders. And Mary would want to go to her, but she’d resist and she’d hold Hannah tightly until her mother looked up at her and with swollen eyes, nod. Fine, she’d say. Fine.
Soon after, Diane would switch her shift at the casino from afternoons to nights. She’d spend the day with Hannah at the motel, then she’d turn her over to Mary, kiss them both on the forehead, and leave.
Twenty-four
1989
What came after Mary and Hannah left the swamp that second time was this: years. Vast expanses of time that sped by like the flat empty land where they were spent. They passed those many days in the middle of the country, in towns that rose up out of the yellow horizon like islands, isolated and hours from the next.
As Mary drove between those towns, she used to watch the storms gather in the sky, their opaque gray clouds churning, bending earth and air toward them. They called them twisters in those parts.