I can’t. Too tired. The bones and muscles just won’t do it any more. I just can’t.
She looks back along the road. Anything else coming? No. No reprieves there. Not a light in view.
With the handbag appended to her forearm from its strap and the sack of baby things over her shoulder like a hobo’s swag and Ellen’s weight sweetly painful in her arm she walks forward to catch up to the truck and find out what fate awaits her.
64
She trudges into the light with a stoic readiness to accept whatever will be.
He jumps down from the passenger side of the truck-a tall narrow stick of a man. His back is to the light so she can’t see his face. He’s got shaggy hair like a hippie from the sixties; he’s bony and angular in some sort of windbreaker.
She says, “Thanks for stopping. We could use a lift.”
He’s getting a look at her now. “What happened to you?” His voice is soft and pleasant; no special accent but he talks very slowly, measuring the words.
“We’re all right. We just need a ride.”
“I’ve got a first aid kit in the cab. You’d better paint those scratches. Here, let me give you a hand with the baby.”
“I’d rather-can you take these things?”
He takes the sack from her. “You’re holding the baby in the wrong hand.”
“What?”
“For climbing into the truck. You need your left hand free.”
“Oh.”
He swarms up into the cab and for a moment he’s out of sight. Then he reappears, head down near the seat cushion-he’s leaning across from the far side and now he extends his arm down and points. “Grab that chrome rail with your left hand. Put your right foot on that step. Okay, that’s good. Now hike on up and swing your left leg into the cab. Come on.”
He’s got a grip on her arm and it’s a good thing because there’s a moment’s disequilibrium hanging in midair when she feels as if she’s going to pivot right out and fall.
He pulls her in onto the seat. Under the dome light she peers at Ellen, whose face is screwed up into a comical squint against the brightness; she’s pawing at the air with both tiny hands.
“Okay Sluggo,” she says, “calm down a minute. Everything wet under there?”
She looks at the driver. “I didn’t realize these things were so high. It’s like climbing to the second floor. Where’s that bag of things? I need a diaper.”
“Right behind you.” He reaches around and produces it.
It surprises her to see a rumpled bed-sheets and blanket and pillow-arranged crosswise behind the seats.
While she rummages for a diaper the driver is pulling a professional sort of first aid kit out from under the dash. “Any cuts on the baby?”
“I don’t think so.”
She removes the old diaper and wipes the baby with a tissue and rolls the baby over to examine her from all angles. Now ladies and gentlemen I want you to look very carefully and you’ll see what is truly meant by the expression Mother Love. I think I broke my Goddamn arm and forty-’leven other bones but there isn’t a single bruise on this kid’s delicate skin and I want that to be entered into the books by whoever’s keeping score up there when it comes to parceling out that term in purgatory.
The trucker says, “You look like you lost an argument with two miles of barbed wire.”
She replies with the first thing that pops into her mind. “My husband had too much to drink. He beat me up and threw us out of the car. I hope he drove into a tree.”
She fastens the clean diaper and settles Ellen in her lap. “Right, Sluggo. That better now?”
The driver takes a bottle of alcohol out of the first aid kit and opens it to soak a cloth pad. He waits until she takes it from him and begins to dab her face; he points toward the huge outrigger mirror beyond her window and she’s surprised to see that it’s at an angle where she can see herself in it. She begins gingerly to wipe at the scratches.
He says in a soft dry voice, “Your husband must have about sixteen real long fingernails.”
It makes her look at him-really take a look-for the first time. He’s younger than she thought at first. No more than her own age; no more than early thirties; perhaps even younger. The long hair is coal black. He’s got a narrow blade of a face but attractive in its way. All his bones seem unusually long; perhaps it’s only because he’s so thin. He has large hurt eyes.
She meets his gaze. “I got into a bramble patch.”
“I can believe that, lady. My name’s Doug. What’s yours?”
“Jennifer Hartman. This is Wendy. Say thank you to Doug, Wendy. What’s your last name?”
“Hershey. Douglas V. Hershey. Like the candy bar or the town in Pennsylvania. No relation to either. Where you from, Jennifer the Mauled?”
“Baltimore. We took a vacation in Canada. Some vacation. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Frank’s drinking, I really don’t. There, I guess I’ve got the worst of them washed off. Nothing seems to be bleeding now-I guess I don’t need bandages. You wouldn’t happen to have some water and a couple aspirin, would you?”
“No, sorry. Coffee in that Thermos.”
“Thanks.”
She uncaps it and the rich aromatic steam hits her nostrils. She pours into the cap. “Want some?”
“You go ahead.”
She knocks it back, not minding when it scalds her throat. “God that’s good. I don’t know how to begin to thank you for picking us up.”
“You ready to go now?”
“Any time.”
“Here we go then.”
He switches off the interior dome light and his hands jab at various levers and buttons and the big steering wheel. It all looks more complicated than the controls of Charlie’s airplane. The engine begins to growl and the steel floorplates begin to vibrate under her feet, reminding her of the blister on her heel. Doug Hershey checks his mirrors and eases out the clutch and the rig begins to gather speed down the shoulder of the highway.
He says, “There’s an all-night truck stop about twenty-five minutes down the road. I was going to stop there anyway.”
I don’t want to show myself in any damn highway cafe around here, she thinks. But what am I going to do about it?
Well you’ve got twenty-five minutes to figure that out.
The noise increases. Pretty much up to speed now, the rig moves out into the traffic lane and the driver relaxes back in the seat, hanging one wrist on the near rim of the wheel, glancing down at the baby asleep in her lap. He says something she doesn’t catch.
“What?”
He rolls up the window. The blast of wind diminishes. He says, “I said she’s a cute baby.”
“Yes. She’s very special.”
She feels lightheaded with exhaustion. Her eyes move fitfully around within the unfamiliar enclosure. It has a smell-old leather, metal, engine oil, tobacco-that infuses her with deja vu.
Of course. It was the smell of her father’s camper pickup.
The seat is high and firm; her feet barely reach the floor. The truck rides more gently than she thought it would but she keeps one hand protectively on the baby just in case.
She says, “If there’s someplace that’s not out of your way where we can catch a bus-”
“Albany be all right? I’m picking up the thruway there, heading on west.”
“What are you carrying?”
“Syndicated Van Lines. I’ve got a couple households full of furniture. People moving out west. I’ve got a two-bedroom house to Salt Lake and a three-bedroom to Portland.”
“That’s a long way to drive by yourself.”
“I pull over and sleep a few hours every now and then.”
He’s got both hands on the wheel now; he’s scowling. Suddenly he says, “I hate getting shoved into a position where I have to play God, don’t you? Where you have the power over somebody else’s life that you didn’t even ask for?”
The earnest plea in his voice surprises her. She only watches his face, illuminated by the faint green glow of the dashboard and the on-off-on-off reflection of headlights off the dotted white stripe in the highway.