“Ra,” said Charlie. Then he limped away toward the station.
When Hawley got back to the truck Lily was sitting on the hood. Mabel Ridge had taken the keys and locked herself inside the cab. Hawley thought back to the morning, when he’d watched his wife waiting on the platform.
“I don’t know why I asked her to come,” said Lily.
“You’re going to get all wet,” said Hawley.
“I’m already soaked.”
Hawley walked around the truck and stuck his head inside the broken window.
“Look,” he said. “Maybe you should just leave.”
Mabel Ridge pressed farther into her seat. “I came to visit my daughter.”
“You came to meet me, and we’ve met.” Hawley reached through and unlocked the door and opened it. Then he opened the back of the truck and slid the giant suitcase out and set it on the asphalt.
For a moment they both remained fixed in place, staring each other down. The woman’s eyes were furious. Ramming speed. But Hawley had seen much worse than Mabel Ridge. He took hold of her arm.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” she shouted. She threw his hand off, but Hawley knew fear when he saw it. Mabel climbed down from the truck. Then she wrapped her long fingers around the handle of the suitcase.
“You don’t know anything about my daughter,” she said.
“I know enough,” said Hawley. “I know not to lose her.”
Mabel Ridge threw the keys at his feet, then rolled her suitcase around to the front of the car and stood in front of Lily.
“You could have married that nice Gunderson boy. He would have treated you right. And you would have stayed at home, where you belong.”
“I don’t belong there,” said Lily. “I never did.”
“You’re wrong.”
Mabel Ridge said this with so much conviction that Hawley almost believed it was true. He looked over at his wife but her face was unreadable. Lily climbed down from the hood. She put her arms around her mother and held her close. Mabel’s fingers came off the suitcase and pressed against her daughter’s back, stroking her hair. Then Lily put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, just as she had in the car, and pushed the woman away.
“There’s a northbound train leaving at nine o’clock.”
Mabel Ridge snatched up her suitcase again. “You’re going to be sorry.”
“I know,” said Lily.
Hawley got the yellow umbrella out from under the seat. Then he came around with the keys, and this seemed to spur Lily’s mother into action. In one swift movement she turned and hurried off toward the train station, dragging the wheeled suitcase behind her.
The umbrella unfolded just as it did before, the beehive made of dollar bills opening for business, the metal arms snapping the logo into place. Hawley brought it over to Lily, who was sitting on the bumper, watching her mother’s retreat.
“I checked the schedule before we left this morning,” she said. “I must have known this would happen.”
“I can go after her,” said Hawley. “Give her the umbrella, at least.”
“No,” said Lily. “This is our umbrella.”
They sat together under the yellow dome as Mabel Ridge marched into the gloom. At one point her suitcase got caught between two closely parked cars, but she managed to wrest it free. She used the station’s handicapped entrance, zigzagging up the ramp, the wheels of the bag rumbling against the concrete. Once she’d made it to the overhang, she stopped and shook her jacket free of water. There was a spotlight at the entrance and they could see her clearly as she turned to glare back at them.
Hawley felt his wife flinch. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. Then he lowered the umbrella, until Mabel Ridge was out of sight, and it was just the two of them again. The fabric shuddered against the raindrops, but inside their small shelter Lily’s face was radiant. He kissed her. After a moment, she kissed him back, pulling at his hair. Hungry.
“I promise,” she said, “I’ll never shoot you again.”
The Net
MARSHALL HICKS CAME IN FOR Loo’s breakfast shift at the Sawtooth at eight in the morning and ordered hash browns and the meat lover’s special without meat: cornbread and stuffing and mashed potatoes. He also ordered a banana split.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said when Loo brought him his cornbread.
“Waiting for what?”
“For whatever it takes.”
It had been two weeks since they were arrested in the Firebird. She had thought of Marshall every day but she had not called him, even after she’d found his mother’s petition in the back of the car, the pages wrinkled and smudged with dirt. Now the clipboard was underneath Loo’s mattress—hundreds of signatures making no difference in the world at all.
“I need to talk to you,” said Marshall. “Can you take a break or something?”
The boy looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He was wearing his shirt and tie but the legs of his pants were splashed with mud. He reached for her hand and Loo wanted to take it but instead she shoved both fists into her apron pocket. She felt the bills there, all of her tips, folded over, and in her head she heard Hawley’s voice. He would have walked and you would have gone to jail. The cook hit the bell for pickup. A group of fishing widows called for refills. Joe Strand and Pauly Fisk were eating breakfast with their sons, and now they waved Loo down for their check. She turned her back on Marshall and his meal. She was grateful for a reason to walk away. Folks at the counter were already whispering, and the rest were glaring at him over newspaper headlines: NOAA SETS NEW CATCH LIMITS and CAPTAIN TITUS STRIKES AGAIN.