And she had seen the lights of Hope, dammit, through the dark and the rain— it had been only a mile from the highway, probably less. She had stayed on the road these last twenty minutes and more. There was no Hope!
She had done well to get this far. None of them would have believed she was capable of it— withdrawing the money without Graham knowing, staying dried out for three whole months, getting to know the kids again, teaching them to trust her, buying a car, having her license reinstated, picking Lacey up from school and Alan from day care when Maisie was having her hair done. She had planned it all by herself, and none of them had suspected what she was up to. She had been born in Canada and so she could claim to be a Canadian; once she got her kids across that border, it was going to be the Devil’s own fight for those two to get them away from her again, if they ever found her. She had done very well, and only this expletive rain had stopped her from making the border in one big rush. They were probably still checking all the motels within a hundred miles of home, and here she was, almost out of reach.
Swish-swash, swish-swash
… even on high, the wipers could barely keep up with the rain. It filled the headlight beams with silver dashes and furred the roadway with a silver mist, and if it hadn’t been for the rain she’d be a hundred miles farther ahead, safely over the border. But Hope had dissolved in the rain and washed away. The last forecast she’d heard had promised sun and high temperatures for the next three days, and chance of precipitation, zero. Why could she never bet against odds like that? This was the sort of rain for monsoon places, the tropics, not the sort of anemic drizzle she’d expected in North Dakota— or possibly Minnesota, she wasn’t sure, but not yet Manitoba.
The radio was silent now, after thirteen hours of Lacey twiddling knobs, pressing buttons, and jumping from one shrieking rock station to another, from country to western and back again. That was one small blessing from the rain: it had finally soaked into the aerial or something, and suddenly all they’d been able to get had been static, a strange, waily sort of static, and even Lacey didn’t want to listen to that. Al had gone to sleep in the back, after fourteen hours of bawling and vomiting, and that was not a small blessing. Lacey was drooping into the corner and might even go to sleep soon, too. Then she could keep driving and might even make the border— if it was still open at this time, whatever time it was. The digital clock on the dash had started dancing around on its own, too, going backwards at times, and leaping all around the day. If the rain was getting into that, then maybe the whole obscenity car was about to rust solid and stop dead.
If it didn’t, she would. Even talk from Lacey would be better than driving them all into a ditch. Except the country was so flat that the ditches looked almost safe; hard to say for sure when all she could see was a bright mist in the headlight beams and outer space beyond that in all directions.
“When we get to Hope, we’re going to get a nice motel, honey,” Ariadne said. “With soft beds and all warm. Won’t that be nice?” Lacey, probably, nodded.
“You talk to Mommy, honey. Help keep me awake.”
“What do you want me to say, Mommy?”
“Whatever you like.”
The road started to wind, unexpectedly, after a thousand miles of checkerboard straightness, and she slowed down, aware that she was cornering badly and that driving in this state was crazy. What was there to wind around on land this flat? Couldn’t they even build a straight road?
How long since she had seen another car? “Where are we going to, Mommy?”
“I told you, dear, we’re going to Canada. We’re going to have a nice place to live, you and Alan and me, and Mommy’s going to teach piano.”
“Will Daddy come and visit us?”
Not if I can help it.
“I don’t know, darling.”
“Will Maisie come and visit us?”
Over my dead body!
“No, honey, not Maisie.”
Thunk!
Bounce.
Thunk
and re-
thunk
… the damn pavement had ended, and she was driving on gravel. That settled it— she was lost.
“Will Peggy come and visit us?”
“No, dear, but maybe we can get you another pony to ride.” Wanted: two-bedroom apartment, willing to accept ponies. Large balcony essential.
She was lost. She didn’t know which way was north or west or east or straight up, and there wasn’t anything to see. She came to a four-way junction, and all four roads looked exactly alike in the rain; there were no lights anywhere. She had driven off the edge of the world. Keep straight on, then.
“Don’t want another pony. Want Peggy.” More suppressed sobbing; the kid was as pooped as she was.
Then there was a light, a single star through the water-slicked windshield. Star of Hope? A very small Hope, then. A farm, obviously— this great waste of blackness must be one of those super-size, mechanized farms that the magazines told about. That was why there was only the one light.
“See that light, honey? Over there? I’m going to drive in there and ask where we are, because I think we’ve taken— ”
“We lost, Mommy?” Panic!
“No, dear. But I think Mommy took a wrong turn and I’ll stop and ask the lady at the farm.” The light was about a hundred yards back from the road, and she braked carefully— this was no gravel road, this was mud— slowed down to a crawl, and turned very carefully into the hundred-yard driveway. The car continued to turn after she told it to stop, apologetically slid backward off the driveway, and came to a complete halt.
Ariadne ran through her restricted collection of obscenities under her breath. She dropped the gear shift to L and stepped on the gas. The wheels said, “Mmmmm!” and the low corner sank appreciably lower. She tried R, and it sank lower still.
She turned off the motor and then the lights, and there was nothing except the dark roar of rain on the roof.
She stretched and rubbed her eyes and then looked over the seat. Alan was still out cold, a marble cherub under his rug with his thumb in his mouth and one arm around his teddy. In sudden panic she recognized the silence and looked at Lacey, also fast asleep, face pale in the darkness. She must have dropped off about thirty seconds before this unspeakable ditch grabbed them.
The rain roared on.
If there was nobody home at that light…
Ariadne checked her watch, and it was only nine o’clock. Well, they wouldn’t be in bed yet, and she couldn’t have been driving for fourteen hours, although she was almost certain it had been later than nine in the coffee shop. Now, did she dare leave the kids alone? If they woke up with her gone, they’d be terrified. But to wake them up and drag them along that soggy road in this rain would be more cruel still. She had a raincoat, somewhere in her grip in the trunk, but almost nothing for them, just what they’d been wearing… and Alan’s indispensable teddy, thank the Lord.
She would have to leave them, be quick, and hope that they stayed asleep. Alan was comfortable, and even Lacey had settled into the corner in not too bad a position. The first thing would be to get her raincoat and a decent pair of shoes out of the trunk, then run down to that house and ask if they had a tractor. Even if they charged her fifty bucks, it would be worth it.