Walk Me Home (retail) by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Author:Catherine Ryan Hyde [Hyde, Catherine Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2013-07-17T22:00:00+00:00

Wakapi Land, 16 May

‘Bet there’s nothing even left to do,’ Carly says. ‘What are we supposed to do for the rest of the week?’

She’s proudly standing by the fully-loaded pickup. One elbow leaned on the edge of the truck’s bed. There’s no junk left on Delores’s property. Carly can look around in any and every direction, and nothing offends her innate sense of order.

‘Hah!’ Delores spits the word out hard. She’s sitting in the shade, on a webbed nylon lawn chair. She seems not so much to be supervising as breathing in the day. ‘You ain’t seen the inside of that shed yet.’

Carly sighs. Looks over to Jen, who’s milking goats, nearly obscured by the oversized cowboy hat, ear-bud cords dangling.

‘What time do you think it is?’ she asks Delores.

‘That’s the third time you asked so far this mornin’. Got an important appointment? Hot date? What?’

‘Just wondered.’

She knows by now that Delores doesn’t wear a watch. Probably couldn’t see to tell the time if she did. But twice already the old woman has been able to make a good estimate by stepping out into the sun to get a sense of where it sits in the sky.

‘Might be near on eleven.’

‘Isn’t this late for Alvin to come?’

‘Oh. So that’s what you’re waitin’ on. Why so anxious to see Alvin all of a sudden?’

‘No reason. I mean … he just said he’d try to find something out for me, is all.’

‘Must’ve had some official business to see to,’ Delores says. ‘Want some cold water?’

‘Yeah. Sure. Thanks.’

While Carly’s waiting, she wanders over to the shed and opens the door. Something scurries out of the utter, fully-entwined chaos. Carly doesn’t even see what, it’s traveling so fast. Doesn’t even want to know.

She shuts the door again, ready to pretend, at least for the moment, that she never peered in at all. It’s a problem she’s all too happy to postpone.

Right around the time she and Jen finish their water, Alvin’s truck pulls into the driveway. The off-duty truck.

Carly feels a strain ease and untangle in her gut. She’s shocked by how big it was. She’s been ignoring, denying, the stress of not knowing yet. It’s quickly replaced by the terror of being about to find out. In many ways, that’s worse. Certainly more acute. More impossible to ignore.

The truck stops in the dirt near the henhouse, and a woman steps out. Carly’s heart falls again.

‘Who’s that?’ she asks Delores.

‘If it ain’t Alvin it might be Pam and Leo,’ Delores says. As if that’s all the explanation the situation requires.

It’s not the woman who brought the mutton yesterday. Because her name was … Carly can’t remember. But something else. Something longer. It wasn’t Pam. And this woman’s thick black hair only extends a few inches below her shoulders. Nowhere close to the bottom of her butt.

The woman is leaning back into the cab of the truck, like there’s something on the bench seat she needs to untangle. A moment later she lifts a little boy out and sets him on his feet in the dirt.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.