Hush Little Baby (15 page)

We need to stop, eat, and rest. My car bounces from the long highway into the parking lot of a motel in the middle of nowhere, somewhere between Redding and the Oregon border. The neon marquee and blinking vacancy sign buzz through the fading evening light.

I leave the kids in the car and the engine running as I walk into the lobby. The wind whips through the parking lot just above freezing, and I wonder if perhaps I should have chosen to drive south instead of into the cold.

The room costs sixty-eight dollars, leaving me twenty-three.

Tomorrow I need to figure out how to get enough cash to carry us through. My mom’s out of the question, which makes my dad out of the question as well.

I clean Addie up in the bathroom and wash her underwear and pants. She doesn’t have a change of clothes, so I dry her bottoms with the hair dryer. It’s nearly seven when I’m done, and all of us are miserable.

Tired of the car, we walk the half block to the diner that advertises breakfasts for $4.99.

The restaurant is empty except for the waitress at the counter hunched over a magazine.

The kids each order chicken fingers, and I order a bowl of soup. A paltry dollar will be left for a tip when we finish.

I’m so tired as I sit waiting for the kids to finish their meals that my eyes begin to close.

“Daddy, Daddy.”

My eyes snap open, and my head shoots up.

Addie bounces beside me and points out the window. I follow the small finger as the taillights of a dark Cayenne drive half a block, then turn into our motel.

I throw money on the table, snatch Addie into a football carry, grab Drew’s hand, and race from the diner. Addie’s thirty pounds make my strides slow and quickly wind me as we run in the opposite direction of the motel.

Drew stumbles, and I screech for him to get up. His eyes are large as saucers as he scrambles to his feet, but he doesn’t cry. My fear is contagious and leaves no room for emotions.

There’s nothing but darkness and desert in front of us.

I’m panting now, my legs shaking like willow twigs. I slow, breathless, unsure where I’m running. Scared of what’s in front of me, more terrified of what’s behind.

Addie squirms to get down, and when I set her to the ground, she takes off back in the direction we came, back toward her father.

I hesitate, Drew by my side, and the awful thought occurs to me to let her run back to him, of how much quicker and easier it would be without her, how much more burdened Gordon would be with her. This all flashes quickly before I have time to censure the disgusting betrayal.

I’m not fast enough, but Drew catches her when she’s a hundred yards past the diner and still a hundred more from the motel. She writhes in his arms, but he holds her until I catch up.

At that same moment, the silhouette of Gordon appears in the door of our room. He’s in his uniform and looks very official. With my hand over Addie’s mouth, I pull her from the road and into the shadows. Drew squats beside me, his eyes full of worry, and I wonder about the damage I’m doing to them.

The Cayenne passes us and drives into the diner’s parking lot. I watch as Gordon opens the door and scans around him—looking at us, but past us—then disappears into the restaurant. When the door closes, I run. I don’t bother to strap the kids into their seats, and Addie tries to climb out, but I lock the doors. She screams, but the sound is muffled by the hammering in my chest. I push the accelerator to the floor and turn at the first opportunity, onto a thin road that stretches into the desert toward the dark foothills, a small vein leading to nowhere. I turn off the lights and drive by the million stars and the sliver of moon that shine overhead.

The gas gauge hovers at empty, and when I’m certain I’ve only enough gas to get us back to our start point, I pull to the side of the road and tell the kids we’re camping out for the night.

*  *  *

This is not a good plan. The desert holds no heat. I wrap the only blanket we have, the thin flannel Angels blanket I use at Drew’s baseball games, around both of them and return to the front seat to shiver alone.

“Mommy, I’m cold,” Addie says.

“I know, honey, but we need to stay here just for the night.”

Drew says nothing, and my heart swells with his stoicism.

Addie’s crying now, and it’s revving up to be a tantrum.

“I’m cold,” she says again, then launches into screaming as she kicks my seat, her shrieks ricocheting off the closed windows of the car.

I didn’t use a credit card. I didn’t give my real name, my cell phone is off. Yet he knew where we were.

“Mom?” Drew says behind me and through his sister’s hysterics.

I turn.

“Where are we going?”

I put my fist to my mouth to keep my emotions inside. I need to hold it together; whatever I do, I can’t lose it. I bite hard on my knuckle and squeeze my eyes, willing myself to be stronger than I am.

I have no idea where we’re going or how we’ll get there.

Gordon’s a cop. He’s resourceful, brilliant, ruthless. He has money, connections, time.

I’m just me—me with two kids, broke, and no plan. It’s only been half a day, and he’s already found us. No matter where we run, he’ll find us.
Where the hell are we?

I click the power on in the car to access my navigation system,
Searching for service.
And suddenly the monitor leaps to life as though it has claws. I grab the car manual and yank the fuse for the GPS system. How could I have been so stupid?

I turn the car around and drive back along the road we were on and toward our motel. The Cayenne is gone. I pull into the gas station and refuel. I buy everything the kids will eat from the minimart along with T-shirts and sweatshirts advertising Mount Shasta. I use my company credit card, and we get back on the road. Might as well add embezzlement to my list of crimes.

The warmth of the car and the exhaustion of the day lulls both kids to sleep within minutes, and I continue on, determined to make better choices this time.

At the next rest stop, I pull over and call home from the pay phone.

“Where the hell are you?” my mom asks.

“I need to talk to Dad.”

“No.”

“Mom, please, I need to talk to him.”

“And I need a smaller ass. Jill, this time you’ve gone too far. Gordon’s got half the force canvassing the state for his insane wife who took off with his kids. What the hell are you thinking? Gordon told me about the DUI. Christ, Jill, have you lost it completely, driving while drunk? And with the kids? And now, you just take them, as if that’s going to solve anything.”

I hang up. It would be easier to break through the Great Wall of China than through Grace Cancelleiri.

I return to the car and try to rest, but my thoughts won’t allow for sleep. I’m doomed. Like a chess game already destined for checkmate, Gordon’s three moves ahead of me and has set me up perfectly.

How easy it is to sabotage a life.

For a year, he’s used my vanity and pride to my own demise. While I’ve covered up his abuse, his deceit, his lies, he took every opportunity to flaunt, exaggerate, and advertise every mistake of mine.

Like a magic trick, the illusion is seamless and unchallenged, and without another explanation, it’s believed. Even my mom believes it. And when enough people believe the perception, it perpetuates itself—PTA meeting gossip, playdate whispers, Little League bleacher talk—until the deception becomes the reality.

In the mirror, I see Drew sleeping against the window. I stare at the slope of his cheek and the spiral of his ear.

Drew’s teacher, if asked, would testify that Gordon’s the greatest dad on earth while I would be maligned as the worst mother. I missed the conference, I send my son to school without lunch, I hung up on the room mom. Meanwhile, Gordon’s chaperoned dozens of field trips, he helped build the Christmas set. He’s handsome and charming and always holds the door open when the teacher walks through.

Drew’s issues—his problems with bullying, his lack of effort and focus—these problems are attributed to me. And I do deserve the blame. He picks on girls, doesn’t respect his teacher. Kids learn by example, and I’ve been a crappy role model.

My eyes skitter back and forth in my head in that strange state before sleep.
Live my life for a day, then let’s see your opinion of me
, I defend.

But even in the subconscious, I’m ashamed, certain Mrs. Kramer would have done better, been stronger and more able, figured out a way to stop it from happening, left before it went this far.

Gordon capitalized on every mistake I made, and I helped him. Even now, I’m nailing my own coffin. It’s only a matter of time until we’re caught, and when we are, as always, I’ll have made things worse.

I don’t need a crystal ball to foretell the future. In a day, a week, certainly before long, I’ll either be dead or in jail, and Gordon will be the victim and the hero, and Addie and Drew will be his.

Ask a hundred people who know us, and other than Connor and my dad, the other ninety-eight will testify Gordon’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and that I have serious issues. The setup was executed brilliantly, a masterstroke of cunning manipulation on a grand scale. And, as in
Hamlet
, the truth won’t be revealed until the final act, and even then, it still won’t be believed.

36

I
’m hungry and so tired my bones hurt.

The freeway speeds toward me in the darkness, lights and signs flashing by in an endless stream. I’ve driven almost fourteen hours, and I don’t know how much farther I can go.

A lit freeway sign glows in the distance, and my tired eyes widen as the lights clarify into words. The billboard advertises my car, “
KIDNAPPED
CHILDREN
—
SILVER
LAND
ROVER
—
LICENSE
2
JVL
227.
”

An Amber Alert has been issued.

Kidnapped children.
I swallow hard, and my eyes flash to the rearview mirror. Square headlights shine half a mile back. My eyes flick from the mirror to the road, and at the first opportunity, I detour off the freeway and pull under the overpass.

When the car that was behind us passes overhead, I breathe and release the iron grip I had on the steering wheel.

How have I come to this place in my life? It’s incomprehensible. I’ve always considered myself a good person, a law-abiding, conscientious citizen, a dedicated mother, a loving daughter. Now I’m a fugitive from the law, a wanted woman, a child-endangering felon, as well as a job-ditching, embezzling employee, and a sick-father-abandoning daughter.

In front of me, my headlights illuminate a sign, “Welcome to Yreka, The Golden City.” Beneath the words are logos for the Kiwanis Club, the Lions Lodge, the Marines, and a dozen churches. We’ve arrived in quintessential America.

Freeways are no longer an option, so I forge forward into the unknown.

We turn onto a wide boulevard that leads to a downtown that, under different circumstances, I would admire for its well-preserved twentieth-century architecture—a definitive small western town of fine brick buildings, white wood trim, and colorful awnings over a patchwork of bars, stores, and restaurants. As it is, I quiver with nerves and pray the police aren’t patrolling the streets looking for my fugitive car.

We pass half a dozen hotels, and I choose the Mountain View Inn, a shabby, low-lying motel that advertises clean rooms and cable TV. Its courtyard design provides covered carports between the rooms.

I walk into the dark lobby, a dingy box that offers no seat. On the counter are a dozen pamphlets advertising hiking, biking, and sightseeing activities in Yreka and a buzzer. I press the bell and two minutes tick by. Then the door opens, and a hunched woman with gray hair smooshed to one side of her face shuffles toward me. She wears baggy sweatpants and a
Betty Boop
T-shirt that reaches her knees.

She squints at me, and I’m certain all she sees is a blur. I’ve chosen our hotel well. It’s unlikely this woman drives or will ever see the Amber Alert. I pay for a single night with Harris’s money, uncertain of tomorrow, and return to the car.

I back into the carport, and, using a penknife from the glove compartment, remove the front license plate. I carry each kid to the room, lay them on the single king bed, then crawl between them.

Addie’s body molds to mine, her back against my chest, and Drew rolls so our backs are touching—a child sandwich so warm and comforting that the troubles dissolve and I fall into an exhausted sleep.

37

I
t feels as though I’ve only just closed my eyes when pounding at the door startles me awake seven hours later.

I stare at the pale rectangle.

There’s no other way in or out of the room. Drew pushes himself up to sit sleepily and rubs his eyes. Addie stirs, but doesn’t wake.

I crawl to the edge so as not to climb over either of them, and the door pounds again.

“Jill.”

The voice surprises me so much I almost fall off the bed, then I leap from it and throw open the door. “Mom?”

I scan past her for flashing lights or for Gordon, but behind her is only the dusty morning and the ugly silhouette of the motel.

“Are you going to let me in?”

I step aside, and she walks past me, her familiar scent of lavender and Noxzema trailing after her.

Drew hops from the bed and into her arms as she bends to one knee, and she kisses him a dozen times until he’s squirming to escape.

She lets go and whirls to face me. “Better close that,” she says, gesturing toward the door. “Don’t want anyone to see us.”

I push the door closed. “How’d…?”

Drew sidles back to my mom’s side to huddle shyly against her hip, and my mom wraps a protective arm around his shoulder. “Drew called last night and read me the address from the notepad.”

I glance at the notepad on the table beside the bed.

Vaguely I recall hearing Drew mumbling while I slept, but I dismissed it as a dream.