Mazie Baby (22 page)

“No.” Her eyes pleaded, but a tinge
of fear and apprehension pinched at the corners. “I want to know.”

“Are you sure?”

Ariel nodded.

Mazie pulled a random picture from
the pile. “This is the second time he broke my wrist. I wasn’t documenting
things the first time.”

Ariel took the picture and ran her
finger over the image of Mazie’s left arm, black and swollen, bent slightly at
an awkward angle. “Is that when you had the purple cast?”

“Yup.”

“You said you fell down the
stairs.” She looked up at Mazie. “You fell down the stairs a lot.”

“I’ve never really fallen down the
stairs. Tripped on a laundry basket once or twice, but never hurt myself.” She
sifted through the stack and pulled out a shot of her broken ribs. “This was
another ‘fall down the stairs.’ Three broken ribs and a bruised kidney.” She
shuffled the deck. “Concussion and broken collar bone.” Underneath that picture
was one of her face, cut and broken, purple and black. She sighed. “This was
the accident that never happened. The one time he broke my nose.”

Ariel stared at each picture in
silence.

“Most of the black eyes I just
covered with makeup, but that time it was impossible. So he told people how I’d
been hit by a car in a crosswalk.” She shook her head. “I’m amazed everyone
bought the lies for so long.”

Ariel sniffed. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
She wiped her eyes. “I should have seen it.”

“No, no, no.” She turned her
daughter to face her. “You were a child. Still are a child.” She stroked
Ariel’s cropped hair. “None of this is your fault.”

“How long had you been taking the
pictures?”

“The last four years.”

“And you were going to leave him?”

“Yes. Planning to for the last
year. Saving money. Waiting for the right time. I knew it was time when he hurt
you. When he said —” She bit her lip. “It was just the right time.”

Ariel squinted. “Said what?”

“You don’t need to know
everything.”

Ariel turned her head and stared at
the window. “How did he die?”

“Like that. You don’t need to know
that.” Mazie gathered the pictures from the bed and picked up the ones that
landed on the floor. She turned to find Ariel reading the diary, her fingers
gripping the gold chain Cullen had given her. “You don’t need to read that.”

“I do. Please?”

Mazie shifted her feet and looked
to the ceiling. Had she written anything about what he said he’d do to Ariel?
No, not in the journal. Just in the note she left for the police. “All right.
But you don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“Are you hungry? It’s getting dark
out.”

“No.”

“Me neither. I have to call Rachel
back.”

“Does she know?”

Mazie nodded. “She’s trying to give
me a heads up on what the police know. But I think I might turn myself in.”

Ariel looked up from the diary.
“No! You can’t. What would happen to me?”

Mazie sat on the bed and engulfed
Ariel in her arms, kissed the side of her head. “I’m not sure. But I either
have to turn myself in, or we have to get out of here.”

“Why?”

“The police know I have Grandma’s
car. They’ll be looking for it.” A chill ran through her. “Damn, I have to go get
the car into the parkade. Then we’ll call Rachel and figure out what to do
next.”

~~~~~~~~

 “Oh, thank God. What took you so
long?” Rachel had connected within two seconds of starting Skype. She shoved a
mouthful of mashed potatoes in her mouth and washed it down with a slug of
beer. “I been sitting here playing solitaire waiting for you to call back. Got
George to bring me my dinner so I didn’t miss you. Sorry for the mouthful.”

Ariel smiled.

A vision of Ariel in a wedding gown
passed through Mazie’s mind. George walking her down the aisle, Rachel in the
front pew crying, Polly all pretty in lavender and pearls standing next to the
bride. And Mazie rotting in a jail cell.

“Can I talk to Polly?”

“Sorry, love. She’s having a bath.”
Rachel took a bite from a chicken leg. “Can I talk with your mom for a bit?”

Mazie squeezed in beside Ariel.
“It’s okay, Rachel.”

Rachel pursed her lips and stopped
chewing. “She knows?”

Mazie nodded.

“Everything?”

“Enough.”

Rachel put down the chicken and
leaned her elbows on Polly’s desk. “How you doing, honey?”

Ariel’s eyes filled with tears.
“I’m not sure.” She scratched at her cheek. “Did you know what he was doing?”

 “Not for sure. But I knew something
was happening. I could see it in your mother’s face. In his too. Seen it
before, with Polly’s father.”

Mazie gasped. “George hit you?”

“Not George. He’s my second
husband. First one is in jail for attempted murder.” She leaned toward the
screen. “Mine.”

Mazie covered her mouth with one
hand. “Rachel, I had no idea.”

“Yup. Polly was just an infant. Met
George a year later. Took a whole lot of wooing before he got past first base,
let me tell you.” She laughed. “But it was worth the wait. He’s a sweetheart.”
She pointed a finger at the screen and wagged it back and forth. “You remember
this, Ariel. A good man will never, and I mean ever, raise a hand to you. And
never force you to do things you don’t want.
Capisce
?”

“Yes ma’am. I understand.”

“Good. Now how are you going to
ditch that car and get out of Dodge? They know you passed through Temiscaming.
Something about a gas station and security cameras.”

“Rachel, you ought to be a spy.”

~~~~~~~~

Mazie knocked on the bathroom door.
“Are you ready, bug? We’ve only got a couple of hours before daylight.”

“Mother?”

“What’s wrong? Are you crying?”

“Mom, I’m bleeding.”

Mazie jiggled the door handle. “Unlock
the door.”

The knob clicked. Mazie opened the
door.

Ariel sat on the toilet, tissue smeared
with pink and dotted with red spots in one hand.

Mazie sighed. “Oh, sweetheart.
You’ve got your period.”

“Already?”

“Well, twelve isn’t unusual.” She
pulled two feet of toilet paper from the roll, folded it into a makeshift pad,
and handed it to her daughter. “Just tuck this into your underpants. We’ll make
a quick stop at a drugstore and then you can use the bathroom when we stop for
gas.”

“What do I do?”

“Don’t worry, it’s all normal.
You’ll get used to it in no time. We just need pads.”

“Don’t you have any?”

“Only tampons, but you’re too young
for those.”

“Turn around?”

“Yes, sorry.” Mazie left the
bathroom and closed the door behind her.

The whole privacy thing was new this
past year. Before she turned twelve, Ariel pranced around her room naked, only
covered herself when her father was around, and even then, not always. When her
breasts started to bud and pubic hair sprouted, everything changed. Like it had
between Mazie and her mother all those years before.

They checked out of the hotel and
inched the car into the dark streets. The first gas station they came across was
attached to a small market. Mazie parked in back and they entered with hoodies
up and heads down. Mazie guided her daughter through the sparse array of feminine
hygiene products the market carried and dropped them on the checkout counter
along with a blue Sharpie, some sweet snacks for breakfast, and an extra-large,
extra-strong coffee with extra cream and twice the normal sugar.

Ariel went into the bathroom to
start hew new life filled with pain and discomfort. And blood. Mazie returned
to the car, tore the marker from its cardboard packaging and crouched in the
dark lot. On the front and back license plates, she changed the C into an O, a
three into an eight, and the F into an E. She stepped back to appreciate her
work. Not perfect, the blue was a bit darker than the plate colour, but flying
by on the highway at a hundred and ten kilometres per hour, it could pass for
authentic.

Once on the highway they headed west.
They’d scoured maps on the tablet the night before, finally settled on a final
destination — Cornwall. A hop and skip into the States if it came to that. And
a city Mazie had never visited. Never even passed through. Somewhere that no
one knew her name. Or her face.

Every car they passed, that came up
behind them, that sped along the highway in the opposite direction, was a
threat. She held her breath each time, waiting for the inevitable police cruiser.

When a sign announced that highway
one-forty-four loomed ahead, Mazie slowed, and turned south toward Sudbury. At
five twenty-three by the dashboard clock, the sun crested the horizon to the
left. A few kilometres down the narrow two-lane highway, a gravel road came
into view ahead. She checked the rear-view mirror. No one behind them, no cars
coming the other direction. She slowed and pulled onto the shoulder, then cranked
the wheel to make a sharp right. The road narrowed, the gravel soon disappeared
and they were bouncing between thick copses of fir and pine.

The axle groaned against deep ruts of
dried muck. “It must be an old logging road.” She slowed and swerved until the
path disappeared altogether and they were surrounded by nothing but wilderness.

“Look at those trees. You think I
can manoeuvre the car in there?”

“Maybe.”

Mazie eased the gas pedal and sandwiched
the car between the firs. Branches screeched across the metal body, one side-view
mirror snapped off. No more than ten yards in, the tires caught on something
and the wheels spun. She turned to Ariel. “This is it. The car’s final resting
place.”

Ariel opened the door. It clunked
against a tree. “Mom, I can’t get out.”

Mazie opened the windows. “Crawl
out.” She popped the trunk. “Grab everything you can.

Ariel took her CDs and put them in
the bag with their remaining snacks. Mazie gathered up loose change and anything
usable. She ran her hands over the steering wheel. “Sorry, Dad. I know how much
you loved this old beast.”

She reached one arm out and rested
her purse on the roof of the car, slid her head and shoulders through the
window, and shimmied out of the vehicle.

She dodged branches and fought her
way to the rear of the car, pulled luggage from the trunk and turned to see
where they’d come from. “Bit of a hike back to the highway.”

Ariel rubbed her arms against the
cool of the dawn. “Then what?”

“Hope for the kindness of a passing
motorist?” She flashed a fake smile and bounced her eyebrows up and down.

“Yeah, one that’s not a serial
killer.” Ariel pulled the handle of her suitcase up.

“Or a cop.”

A loud snap echoed through the
forest. Mazie and Ariel froze and stared at one another. Mazie scanned the area
and hesitated at the motionless form of a deer not twenty feet away. It stared
back at her, flicked one ear and blinked.

“Well, at least it’s not a bear.
Let’s get out of here.”

They jogged down the road, their
luggage bouncing in the ruts. When they got to the gravel, they slowed to a
walk and dragged their bags across the small rocks.

They walked along the shoulder of
the highway until engine sounds echoed between the banks of trees. If it looked
like there were lights on the roof, they’d hide in the thick trees at the edge
of the road. But every time, it was only a car with a roof rack.

Twenty minutes later a van crested
the hill and headed toward them. Mazie put out her thumb. Ariel sat on the
blacktop and rubbed her shins. The van slowed and pulled to the side. An older
man sat behind the wheel, a grey-haired woman in the passenger seat. The woman
rolled down her window. “Now what are you young ladies doing hitchhiking in the
middle of nowhere? Do you know how dangerous that is?” Liniment and cinnamon
wafted from the open window.

“Yes, ma’am, we know.” She motioned
to Ariel. “Would you be able to give me and my daughter a ride to the next
town? We just need to find a bus station.”

“We’re heading home to Sudbury.
That work for you?”

“That would be wonderful. Thank
you.”

The man leaned over his wife’s lap.
“You hop in back.” His door clicked open. “I’ll get your bags.”

“That’s okay, sir!” Ariel grabbed
her suitcase. “We can do it.”

The man smiled and saluted her.
“Yes, ma’am.”

Mazie and Ariel piled their luggage
into the back of the van and climbed in through the sliding side door.

The woman twisted around in her
seat. “I’m Effie, and this is my husband, Edward.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” Mazie
reached forward and shook Effie’s hand. “I’m Charlotte. This is my daughter,
Clementine.”