Lena Read Free

read it so I stuck it in Dion’s knapsack.
    â€œThank you, sir. I’m sure our mama will get it right back in the mail to you.”
    â€œThat’s fine. Just so long as it goes from my hand to yours.”
    Larry looked over at me again. After a moment, he smiled. It was a sad smile.
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    â€œYou tell your mama she’s doing a fine job, you hear. You tell her she’s raising two good boys.”
    I nodded, feeling my own smile coming on. I was doing a fine job raising us. A fine job.

Two
    It was near daylight when Larry pulled into one of those all-night diners just outside of Owensboro, Kentucky. “You-all wait here,” he said. “I’ll get directions to the hospital.” He disappeared inside and I rolled down my window and took a look around. Owensboro looked bigger than a lot of other towns we’d been through. We’d passed lots of tobacco fields and what looked to be factories. I stared out at the silos and barns, near-black in the half-light of daytime, and at the remains of cornfields picked clean as skeletons. Then I sighed and leaned back against the seat.
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    Larry came out carrying a brown paper bag. “Brought y’all some sandwiches,” he whispered, climbing up into the truck and handing me the bag. “Ham and cheese. Y’all do eat ham, don’t you?”
    I nodded. “Thank you.”
    â€œThank you,” Dion mumbled.
    Larry smiled and started the truck up again. “Seems everybody’s not eating something these days—no meat, no dairy, no wheat. Seems like somebody’s just trying to keep farmers out of work, that’s all. Hospital’s only four miles down the road. Lady in there said you can’t miss it.”
    Dion fell asleep again as we drove, her breath soft against my shoulder.
    When Larry tried to pull his rig up to the hospital, a guard told him he’d have to park at the Trailways station across the street. Larry frowned as he backed up.
    â€œSee what I mean about anything could happen?”
    I nodded. Dion woke up and looked around, all sleepy-eyed.
    â€œWe here already?”
    Larry pulled to a stop. I climbed down from the truck and kicked my legs out a bit. Dion climbed down and did the same thing.
    â€œYou take this,” he said, getting out of the truck and pressing some bills in my hand. He took a look around the station. “I gotta get moving but you kids take care of yourselves.”
    He gave us a look. “Don’t talk to no strangers.”
    â€œWe won’t,” me and Dion said at the same time.
    Then Larry was climbing back into his truck and backing it out of the Trailways station. One day I’d get me a truck. Eat up a whole lot of road.
    â€œHe was nice.”
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    â€œYeah,” Dion said. “I wish I was his kid. Wish I was going home to his house.”
    â€œNo you don’t. You wouldn’t be with me then. You want to be with me, don’t you?”
    Dion looked away from me and nodded. “I have to pee,” she said, and went on inside the station.
    I took my knapsack off my shoulder and hunkered down on it. There wasn’t a soul around and from the way the sky looked, all pink and new, I figured it wasn’t even six o’clock in the morning.
    â€œIt’s gonna be a pretty day,” I said softly when Dion came out a few minutes later. I rubbed my eyes, hard, making believe there was something in them. I missed Chauncey, missed going to Marie’s house on Saturday mornings. Her house was always clean and warm and there was always lots of good stuff to eat like somebody had just gone food shopping the day before. I wanted to pick up a pay phone and call, say, Hey, Marie, I’m sorry I left in such a hurry. Wasn’t nothing you did, you know. But I couldn’t. What if my daddy had police tapping the phones in Chauncey? What if Marie’s own daddy answered and took to asking me a million questions to find