When Carlos came back to the truck, Henry saw tears in the big man’s eyes.
“Go,” Carlos said. His voice was almost a whisper.
They never talked about it. Henry would never know exactly what happened in that hamlet. Growing up in the South, Henry had run into plenty of racist bastards, secret racists who assumed he was one of them because he was white, and they’d launch into a casual discussion which had nothing to do with race, and then they’d use a word Henry despised and somehow make a conversation about pickup trucks or lawnmowers or beer out of it. Thinking about it now, seeing his friend hurt in a way Henry could never understand, he wished he’d knocked a few more fools who’d used that despicable word off barstools.
Henry and Carlos were like brothers, yet there was no way Henry could really know what it was like to be a black man, judged and weighed and deemed lacking by an ignorant and pervasive few, based merely on the color of his skin.
Coming at Nashville from the west, they waited at a checkpoint on the outside of Bellevue, an affluent suburb of brick homes and rolling hills. Traffic in both directions was at a standstill, and there was nothing to do but wait. They’d learned from other travelers that there was no good way into town, so they’d settled on the most direct route.
Some vehicles overheated, some ran out of gas. Civilians helped each other out, pushing cars to the side of the road. Whoever was making the logistical decisions clearly either did not give a damn, or they were blatantly inept. While Henry drove in the eastbound lane, he passed the checkpoint going the other way. There were two separate checkpoints. It made no sense.
“They don’t want people coming or going,” Martinez observed. “They don’t want to stop traffic entirely because then it’ll look like they’re the bad guys. Maybe that’s what this is. Either way, they’re strongly discouraging travel in or out.”
The rain was cold, misting, and gray. It was the kind of winter day in Nashville Henry had come to loathe. He longed for the sun on his face, Suzanne at his side, and a band playing reggae music by the ocean.
The people leaving Nashville carried their lives with them. There were cars and trucks and vans loaded with children, mattresses, grills, boxes, bags, toys, and hope, and the people had a way of shaking their heads at Henry, as if to say “What are you thinking? You’re going the wrong way!”
It was almost midnight when the crash happened, although the collision itself was hardly a wreck, a slight smack between a van and a pickup truck going the other way. What happened afterward wrecked lives.
KEY WEST, FLORIDA
Mary’s death cast a pall over the group. Suzanne felt guilty, sweaty, sticky, despondent, angry, claustrophobic, and frightened. Her friends were worse off than she was.
Bart retreated into a gloomy fortress of silence and stone. He seemed to never sleep, and paced the house and grounds like a wolf in a zoo, until he wore a path around the perimeter of the grounds. His communication was a monosyllabic, a word or two at best.
Bobby found a bottle of rum, and then another.
Ginnie smoked a whole lot of weed, but she did not get the giggles or the munchies. She was lethargic, weepy, and cracked. She talked about her parents and her childhood, and sometimes she would follow Suzanne around until Suzanne would snap at her.
“Ginnie,” Suzanne said, “shut up.”
“What? I’m sorry; it’s just that I keep thinking about, you know, my folks, and whether they’re okay, and Miami without power for so long and stuff.”
“I know. Now leave me alone.”
“All right, dude.”
“Don’t call me dude again. Ever.”
“Well, damn.”
“Get a grip, Ginnie. I need you. But I need you to be you. Not this vapid dingbat you’ve decided to turn into. You’re smart and capable. Be that girl. No, be that woman.”
“Okay,” Ginnie said. And then went off to smoke a bowl somewhere. There was no water, food, or electricity, but somehow, there was still plenty of marijuana.
Greenburg thought trying to make a run for Cuba was a good idea.
“We can all go on either my boat or Bart’s. We’ve got the fuel.”
“Nobody is stopping you,” Suzanne told him. “If you want to try, go for it. You might be better off. It’s a day trip. I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving my home for someone to burn. I’m not leaving because this is where Henry is going to try to go. I’m not risking the pirates that are out there preying on people, and we’ve all heard the stories now, and I’m not going to take my child out there with them.”
“Henry’s dead, Suzanne,” Greenburg said. “Face it. We can get off the island and go to Cuba and be there tomorrow. Hot showers, electricity, no bands of thugs shooting at us.”
“Have at it, Greenburg,” Suzanne said. “You should go.”
“I meant only we should all go—”
“Got that. Not happening. If you want to make the run, by all means, go for it. I’m not going.”
“You’ll get your ass shot off,” Bobby said from the couch, curled up with a bottle of Jamaican rum. “And even if you don’t, you’ll be in Cuba.” He snorted.
Greenburg left the next morning, just before sunrise, and Suzanne never saw him again. She hoped he made it to Cuba, and that he was welcomed there by salsa and ceviche and cigars.
Taylor was the perpetual optimist, the sweetness and light that kept Suzanne going.
“When’s Daddy coming home?”
“Soon,” Suzanne said more times than she could count. Sometimes they were fishing at the dock, other times Taylor was going to sleep with her softie-soft, and other times just eating a piece of grilled fish.
“And he’ll bring me a present. ’Cause he does when he comes home and maybe he’ll get me some ice cream. With sprinkles.”
“Yes, baby.”
“Is Miss Mary in heaven now?” “Yes.”
“Is she happy there? Are there unicorns and ice cream? Miss Mary liked them. She’s happy, right? You’ll see her again and you’ll still be friends in heaven?”
“Yeah, honey. We’ll still be friends in heaven.” “What if you die?”
“What do you mean, child? You know we all die. Just not for a long, long time.”
“But Miss Mary wasn’t old. You said she died. She’s in heaven.”
“Right.”
“So what if you die. What if Daddy dies? Will we be friends up in heaven?”
“We won’t die. Not now.”
“But you said everybody dies.”
“Yes.”
“But you wouldn’t leave me, right?”
“Well,” Suzanne said, feeling overwhelmed and underprepared and inadequate and untrue, “someday, I’ll die. And someday, so will Daddy, because that’s how it is. But not for a long time, okay? Don’t worry about it.”
“But you can’t die! You can’t be in heaven and leave me here by myself!”
“Baby, not for a long time. Please, don’t get all upset.”
“Promise!”
Suzanne gazed into the eyes of trust and earnestness and faith absolute and she did what any parent would do. She made the promise and felt like a traitor.
What do I really believe? I do believe in heaven, and a God that cares about us. It’s hard to remember that sometimes. But look at this child. She’s my leap of faith, my proof in a higher power.
“Yay!” Taylor said, and then scurried out of the room, the problem solved. That Taylor believed in Suzanne so much that a mother’s love could defeat death with a single word made Suzanne want to smile and weep at the same time.