All I Have in This World by Michael Parker

Author:Michael Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2014-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Three

Pinto Canyon, Texas, 2004

Maria had never said his name aloud and she did not see why she needed to start now. She did not roll down the window and call to him when she stopped the car right in the middle of Pecos Street, morning traffic jamming up behind her. She did not ask him to drive. She just scooted across to the passenger’s side and waited for him to get in.

He seemed to understand without one word from her that she wanted him to drive her out of town. First he had to drive her through it. The town was small and it quickly dwindled to lone campers surrounded by junk cars and cast-off appliances. Then it was the two of them, their car, wind-ruffled prairie.

Between them on the seat, tucked into the space between cushions, the bag remained where he had left it, except it was no longer folded over. She wanted him to know that she’d read it, but she would not mention it. But they could take a ride together before he left town. She understood that he was running from something and she understood that he had found her tiny town adequate cover from whatever or whoever it was he was fleeing. He understood things about her, too. Otherwise how would he have known to drive them out of town into the open emptiness she craved?

When, a half mile from town, the speed limit rose to seventy-five and Marcus only gradually accelerated, she decided he was driving slowly in deference to her mood. Certainly it was obvious, her mood. Transparent as a teenager in full-blown mope. Maria felt seventeen. She felt like she had on those evenings when Randy had made them late, yammering with her father on the subject of automobiles, and when she had finally gotten the two of them separated she had punished Randy with silence. Now, ten years later, she was riding in a car with another boy, not talking. No, it was not the same. She had only to look over at the driver to feel the difference, or consider the car itself. A Buick instead of a Nova. Light blue instead of the burnt orange that led Randy to nickname it Flamethrower. Not nearly so loud as the Nova, which was so loud you could not hear the radio, a loud that sounded sick to her, like the car was going to blow up, though Randy claimed it was only the sound of badassedness. The Buick was clean but it was not so clean that if you touched the dash you’d leave a thumbprint on the Armor All’d vinyl. The Buick rode low and absorbed the bumps of the backroads, while the Nova was high and bouncy. The Buick smelled kind of bad instead of fake citrus scented.

And the boy was not a boy. He was boyish in appearance, despite the fact that his torso showed the accumulated weight of middle age and within a year or so scalp would show beneath the thin, graying hair that he would comb over his forehead.

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.