Donna Hayes put down the telephone. She rubbed her trembling, wet hands on the covers, and sat up.
She had known it would happen. She had expected it, planned for it, dreaded it. Now it was upon her. “I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour,” he’d said, “but I knew you’d want to be informed immediately. Your husband was released. Yesterday morning. I just found out, myself…”
For a long time, she stared into the darkness of her bedroom, unwilling to swing her feet down to the floor. Darkness began to fade from the room. She could wait no longer.
The Sunday morning air was like cold water drenching her skin as she stood up. Shivering, she bundled herself in a robe. She stepped across the hallway. From the slow breathing inside the room, she knew that her twelve-year-old daughter still slept.
She went to the edge of the bed. A small shoulder, covered with yellow flannel, protruded from the top of the covers. Donna cupped it in her hand and gently shook it. Rolling onto her back, the girl opened her eyes. Donna kissed her forehead. “Good morning,” she said.
The girl smiled. She brushed pale hair away from her eyes and stretched. “I was having a dream.”
“Was it a good one?”
The girl nodded seriously. “I had a horse that was white all over, and so big I had to stand on a kitchen chair to get on him.”
“That sounds awfully big.”
“It was a giant,” she said. “How come you’re up so early?”
“I thought you and I might just pack our bags, get in the Maverick, and take ourselves a vacation.”
“A vacation?”
“Yep.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
“Wow!”
It took nearly an hour to wash up, dress, and pack enough clothes for a week away from the apartment. As they carried their luggage down to the carport, Donna fought a strong urge to confide in Sandy, to let the girl know that she would never return, never spend another night in her room or another lazy afternoon at Sorrento Beach, never see her school friends again. With a sense of guilt, Donna kept quiet about it.
Santa Monica was gray with its usual June morning overcast as Donna backed onto the road. She looked up and down the block. No sign of him. The prison authorities had left him at the San Rafael bus depot yesterday morning at eight. Plenty of time for him to arrive, look up her address, and come for her. But she saw no sign of him.
“Which way do you want to go?” she asked.
“I don’t care.”
“How about north?”
“What’s north?” Sandy asked.
“It’s a direction—like south, east, west…”
“Mom!”
“Well, there’s San Francisco. We can see if they’ve painted the bridge right. There’s also Portland, Seattle, Juneau, Anchorage, the North Pole.”
“Can we get there in a week?”
“We can take longer, if we want.”
“What about your job?”
“Somebody else can do it while we’re gone.”
“Okay. Let’s go north.”
The Santa Monica Freeway was nearly deserted. So was the San Diego. The old Maverick did fine, cruising just over sixty. “Keep an eye out for Smokey,” Donna said.
Sandy nodded. “Ten-four, Big Mama.”
“Watch that ‘Big’ stuff.”
Far below them, the San Fernando Valley was sunny. The smog’s yellow vapor, at this hour, was still a barely noticeable smudge hanging low over the land.
“What can your handle be?” asked Sandy.
“How about ‘Mom’?”
“That’s no fun.”
They nosed down toward the valley, and Donna steered onto the Ventura Freeway. After a while, Sandy asked permission to change the radio station. She turned it to 93 KHJ and listened for an hour before Donna asked for an intermission, and turned the radio off.
The highway generally followed the coast to Santa Barbara, then cut inland through a wooded pass with a tunnel.
“I’m sure starving,” Sandy said.
“Okay, we’ll stop pretty soon.”
They stopped at Denny’s near Santa Maria. They both ordered sausage and eggs. Donna sighed with pleasure as she took her day’s first drink of coffee. Sandy, with a glass of orange juice, mimicked her.
“That bad?” Donna asked.
“How about ‘Coffee Mama’?” Sandy suggested.
“Make it ‘Java Mama,’ and we’ve got a deal.”
“Okay, you’re ‘Java Mama.’ ”
“Who are you?”
“You have to name me.”
“How about ‘Sweetie-Pie’?”
“Mom!” Sandy looked disgusted.
Knowing they would have to stop for gas within an hour’s driving, Donna allowed herself three cups of the dark hot coffee with breakfast.
When Sandy’s plate was clean, Donna asked if she was ready to leave.
“I have to make a pit stop,” the girl said.
“Where’d you pick that up?”
Sandy shrugged, grinning.
“Uncle Bob, I bet.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I have to make a pit stop, too.”
Then they were on the road again. Just north of San Luis Obispo, they pulled into a Chevron station, gassed up the Ford, and used the toilets. Two hours later, in the bright heat of the San Joaquin Valley, they stopped at a drive-in for Cokes and cheeseburgers. The valley seemed to go on forever, but finally the freeway curved upward to the west, and the air lost some of its heat. The radio began to pick up San Francisco stations.
“Are we almost there?” Sandy asked.
“Where?”
“San Francisco.”
“Almost. Another hour or so.”
“That long?”
“Afraid so.”
“Will we spend the night?”
“I don’t think so. I want to go far, don’t you?”
“How far?” Sandy asked.
“The North Pole.”
“Oh, Mom.”
It was after three o’clock when Highway 101 sloped downward into a shadowy corner of San Francisco. They waited at a stoplight, turned, watched for signs marking 101, and turned again: up Van Ness Avenue, left onto Lombard, finally up a curving road to the Golden Gate.
“Remember how disappointed you were the first time you saw it?” Donna asked.
“I’m still disappointed. If it isn’t golden, they shouldn’t say it is. Should they?”
“Certainly not. It is beautiful, though.”
“But it’s orange. Not golden. They ought to call it the Orange Gate.”
Glancing out toward the open sea, Donna saw the front edge of a fog mass. It looked pure white in the sunlight. “Look at the fog,” she said. “Isn’t it lovely?”
“It’s okay.”
They left the Golden Gate behind.
They passed through a tunnel with a mouth painted like a rainbow.
They sped by the Sausalito off-ramp.
“Hey, can we go to Stinson Beach?” Sandy asked, reading the sign for the turnoff.
Donna shrugged. “Why not? It won’t be as fast, but it’ll be a lot prettier.” She flicked on her turn signal, followed the curving ramp, and left 101 behind.
Soon they were on the Coast Highway. It was narrow: far too narrow and far too crooked, considering the steep drop just across the left-hand lanes. She drove as far to the right as the road would allow.
The fog lay just offshore, as white and heavy as cotton batting. It seemed to be moving slowly closer, but was still a good distance away from shore when they reached the town of Stinson Beach.
“Can we spend the night here?” Sandy asked.
“Let’s keep going for a while. Okay?”
“Do we have to?”
“You’ve never been to Bodega Bay?”
“No.”
“That’s where they filmed that movie The Birds.”
“Oooh, that was scary.”
“Should we try for Bodega?”
“How far is it?” the girl asked.