Runaways (29 page)

We were all chanting it by the time we entered Morrisville. The sky had darkened and there was a light drizzle falling. One of Gordon's windshield wipers was badly worn and only streaked the right side. I tried not using them.

“You go right down Main Street,” Theresa directed, “and then you turn on Fourth and I'll show you. Thank you, dear.” She smiled at Butterfly. “What a sweet child. You know, my mother said I was a pretty little girl. She said all the men would give me a penny and I would do a little dance. My father could whistle whole symphonies.

“He was a happy-go-lucky man,” she said, “but he never made a good living. Not like my husband, who sold good soles and saved . . . saved so many.” She paused and wiped her face with her hand. “I'm tired. I'm glad I decided to go along with you girls.”

I reached Fourth Street and turned right. It looked like a shabby neighborhood to me. The houses were old, worn, the small patches of lawn bald and messy, full of weeds and garbage. One even had some old tires on it. We didn't see many people. The rain started to fall a little harder.

“Looks like I should have remembered my umbrella. I don't think it was supposed to rain, though.”

With the dark clouds above, the drizzle falling, the neighborhood looked even more dismal. The gutters weren't very clean and in front of one house, four dogs had turned over a garbage can and were chomping through whatever food remains they could find.

“You don't live here, do you?” Raven asked.

“Oh no. I live nearby,” she said. “When you come to the corner, turn left and I'll get out,” she said. “I can walk a little. You've been very nice, but I just can't ask you in. My house is a mess and I'm tired. I'm going right to bed. I'm sorry.”

“That's all right,” Crystal said. “We have a lot of traveling to do and have to make as much distance as we can before it gets dark.”

“Thank you, dears. Thank you, thank you,” she said moving in her seat.

“Here?” I said.

“Thank you, dears. Thank you.”

I stopped and Crystal opened the door. Theresa started to slide out. She paused and turned to look back at Butterfly.

“Don't you sell anyone any of your curls. And watch out for men who wink when they smile. Good-bye,” she said with a wisp of a smile.

“Good-bye,” Butterfly said sadly.

“Good-bye,” Crystal told her. Raven said it too, and I followed. Crystal got back in the car and for a moment, we watched Theresa James waddle up the sidewalk. She paused near an open lot. I started the car.

“We better get back to Main Street,” Crystal said. “We'll find our way to the main highway easier.”

“Right.”

I turned into a driveway and backed up. As we started down the street again, we saw Theresa off to the right of the vacant lot. She put her bag down by a large cardboard box. I slowed to a stop.

“What is she doing?” Raven wondered aloud. We all did.

A moment later, she got down on her knees and she crawled into the box. My heart did a flip-flop.

“Crystal?” I cried.

“She's homeless,” Crystal said. “You know, I thought she might be. There was something about her and that odor of burnt wood. Everything she told us was either a dream or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Or she's the worse kind of orphan there is, Butterfly, a mother forgotten by all her children.”

“How can we leave her sleeping in a box?” Butterfly cried as I continued.

“What can we do, Butterfly?” Raven said. “We can't even help ourselves.”

The hard truth fell like cold rain around us. Silence was suddenly louder than thunder.

“Ain't that the truth?” Crystal muttered.

“Ain't it though?” I said.

We drove on.

A
fter we had left Theresa James, I felt as if we were just drifting along, floating through space, aimlessly carried by the power of the station wagon's engine. Our destination had become so vague, our purpose lost and confused. I felt it wouldn't be much longer before Crystal's prediction came to be. We would give up, turn ourselves in, throw ourselves back on the mercy of that impersonal government agency that had served so long as our surrogate parents.

Reality had a way of making me numb. Theresa talked about old people, widows and widowers becoming invisible. In a strange way I believed that was exactly what had been happening and continued to happen to us. Without family to support us, we were truly invisible. We might as well have been assigned numbers. You never realize how big a role family plays in ordinary conversation until you had
none. Around us our fellow students talked about their parents, their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins. There was always someone who did something, looked like someone, said something brilliant or stupid.

The thing that interested my school friends the most was how much I knew or remembered about my real parents. I knew absolutely nothing about my father, which most seemed to accept or understand. There were a number of students whose parents had been divorced, and many who had little contact with their fathers. What intrigued them more were my vague references to the woman I called my mother.

Having lived with her for only a little more than a year, I had nothing I could specifically mention. I had my dreams and I had some details I picked up from administrators at the orphanage. I had learned that she was not quite twenty when she had me. She didn't come from a wealthy family and from what I could gather, was actually on her own at the time I was born. Maybe she had been disowned because of me. I don't know why I came to a conclusion about her whereabouts, but I believed there were hints or things said that led me to believe she had left for California herself.

In my secret putaway heart, I really hoped and prayed I could find her there. Of course, I knew how big the state was and how many people lived in it, and I knew how small my chances were, but nevertheless that was my dream. I couldn't tell Crystal or Raven or even Butterfly, despite their being my sisters. It was like being naked, exposed, taking off your armor. How could the bravest girl they knew be such a weak, sentimental fool?

“What's the matter?” Raven suddenly asked me.
We had been driving for nearly two hours, the radio droning on and the rain going from showers to downpours to showers and drizzle. The clouds on the horizon looked charred, like burnt marshmallows. Occasionally, the wind whipped the rain into sheets that flashed and wiped across the highway. We had to travel slowly.

“Why?” I asked, turning to her.

She twisted a bit in her seat, throwing a look at Crystal.

“You're crying,” she said. “There are tears on your cheeks.”

I touched my face and felt the warm liquid drops. It surprised me more than it surprised Raven. I wiped my eyes quickly.

“I don't know. Something must have gotten into my eyes,” I said.

“Both of them?”

“Yes, both of them,” I snapped back at her. She spun around as if I had slapped her and stared out the window.

“We should splurge tonight and sleep in warm beds,” I said, trying to make up for snapping at Raven. “With a television set and a hot shower. Then we'll all feel a lot better.”

“If we do that, we'll have little left for food, not enough even for another day,” Crystal commented.

“I don't care. I'll worry about food then. I'll go out and beg,” Raven chimed in.

“Beg?” Crystal said. “Would you really stoop that low?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” She smiled jokingly. “Just leave everything to me.”

“That's the last thing we should do,” Crystal said. She was tired of joking.

Raven nearly jumped around and over the seat.

“What's that supposed to mean? Why do you always have to be Miss Doom and Gloom?” Raven asked angrily.

“I'm not being gloomy. All I'm saying is begging for our meals isn't enough to keep us going,” Crystal said calmly, which infuriated Raven more.

“And just what will be enough, Crystal? If you have all the answers why don't you share them with us?” Raven demanded.

“Will you two stop it!” I cried. “We're not acting like the Orphanteers.”

“Orphanteers. What a stupid name,” Raven mumbled.

“You used to think it was good,” Butterfly reminded her.

“That was before I grew up.”

“And when did this miraculous maturity occur?” Crystal asked sarcastically.

“Oh boy. Did you hear that, Brooke?”

“I asked you two to stop it,” I said, slowing down even more. “If you don't, I'm pulling over and . . . what's that?” I asked instead.

Raven turned back around and peered out the windshield.

“It's a woman, waving. She looks hysterical,” Raven said.

Off to the right, just before an exit, a woman who looked about forty was swinging her arms wildly. She wore no coat or jacket to protect her from the rain. Her light brown hair was already soaked, the strands stuck to her forehead and ears. She was so desperate she looked like she might leap into the path of cars if one didn't stop soon. Two passed us by, but didn't slow down to see what she wanted.

“Stop for her,” Crystal said and I turned off and headed toward her. She came running.

Raven rolled down her window.

“Oh, thank God someone stopped,” the woman cried. She wiped the rain from her face. “It's my husband,” she said. “He was feeling dizzy and pulled off this exit. Almost as soon as we stopped, he slumped over the steering wheel. My two little girls are with him, but there's absolutely no traffic on that road. I thought if I came back to the main highway, I could flag someone down and get help, but you're the first to stop and I've been trying for a few minutes.”

“Get in quickly and show us where he is,” Crystal said in her take charge tone of voice. She opened the door.

The woman got in and I drove to the exit. We didn't have to go far after the turn. The recreational vehicle was parked awkwardly on the right side of the road, the right blinker light still going. A little girl was sitting in the grass on the shoulder of the road, crying.

“Denise, get up,” the woman cried. She did so slowly. “I told you to stay with Daddy.”

“He won't talk,” she moaned.

Crystal was right behind the woman and stepped up into the recreational vehicle. We gathered at the door. A man in his mid-forties was slumped over the steering wheel. His forehead was against the top of the wheel and his face was turned toward us, his eyes closed, his mouth twisted. I thought he looked kind of blue, especially about the lips.

Their other little girl, only about five or six, was curled up on the sofa.

“George!” the woman cried. “Oh God, oh my God.”

Crystal felt his wrist for a pulse and then turned to me.

“Brooke, get up here and help me get him prone,” she ordered. I stepped up and the woman stepped back. She hugged her daughter Denise to her. It simply amazed me how efficient and competent Crystal could appear, even to complete strangers.

George was a rather big man, probably at least six feet one and easily more than two hundred pounds. We struggled and I looked to Raven, who came in quickly and helped. Among the three of us we were able to slide him off the seat and lay him gently on his back.

Crystal went to work immediately. Even Raven, Butterfly and I were surprised and impressed. I never knew she was capable of performing CPR. She knelt by his side and placed her right hand on his forehead and her left under his chin. I gazed at his face. He was a good-looking man with some gray at his temples. Crystal glanced up at me with concern and then she listened for his breathing. Without hesitation, she pinched his nose and brought her mouth to his. She gave two full breaths and I saw his chest rise.

Butterfly moved closer to Raven, who put her arm around her.

“Is he dead?” the woman whimpered.

Crystal put her fingertips on his Adam's apple and slid them into the groove next to his windpipe. She felt for a pulse.

“Is he? Oh my God, George!”

Crystal gazed up at me again, looking more sad than nervous now. I could see it in her eyes, which had become reflections of mine and of Raven's and of Butterfly's. We had all lost our fathers. None of us wanted to witness this.

“I think he's in cardiac arrest,” Crystal said.

She opened his shirt and put her hands at the center of his chest, one hand on top of the other.

“We have to get him to a hospital emergency room, quickly.”

“I can't drive this thing,” the woman moaned.

“I don't want to move him,” Crystal said to me. “Brooke?”

I looked at the dashboard and nodded. Then I went to the seat and started the engine.

Meanwhile, Crystal began pumping the man's chest, counting up to fifteen and then blowing in two more breaths before pumping again.