Eden
Eden waited until the morning after Porter spent the night to carry out her plan. She made pancakes and bacon for the kids. This might be the last solid meal her children would eat for a while. The thought was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Teagan asked. As usual, he was the only one who noticed.
“Nothing, honey. I was thinking about a story I once read. It had a sad ending.”
He got up and went to his mom to give her a hug. That simple act of love made Eden nearly change her mind. She could survive, couldn’t she? Even with Porter around, she had Teagan. Of all three, Teagan, her beautiful boy, would suffer at the thought she’d abandoned him. Left him to the wolves. She wasn’t as worried about Sariah. She was her daddy’s favorite and would be okay. Maybe Ada, Porter’s first wife, would help. She might even adopt Elijah, at least temporarily.
She sniffed back her tears, cleaned up, and walked the kids to school as usual. The snow was finally melting, creating craggy, dirt-speckled piles of gray. This was the ugly part of winter, she thought. The last gasp before spring took hold. It couldn’t come too soon. She gave each of the children a fierce hug when they reached school.
Only Sariah complained. “Mama, I can’t breathe!”
Porter was still snoring when she returned. She’d packed a go-bag; she’d heard about them on The View, when she stole a few minutes to watch. It was a small suitcase or backpack women kept in a corner of their closet, filled with essentials for two or three days on the run. She’d taken one of the kids’ old backpacks and filled it two nights ago with toiletries, a change of clothes, a sleep shirt, and an extra pair of tennis shoes.
She looked at Porter’s black Ford Ranger in front of their house longingly. It might let her get away faster, but as soon as the cops put out an APB for a stolen pickup, she would be fair game. She edged past it.
They lived in the woods outside Nauvoo. Eden had decided to go to Chicago, where she and Tony had spent a wonderful weekend years ago. She could transfer almost anywhere after that. The cheapest, fastest way to get to Chicago was by train from Fort Madison, Iowa, which was eleven miles north of Nauvoo. If she was able to maintain a pace of three miles an hour, she could reach Fort Madison by afternoon.
The problem was that there was only one train a day, and it left mid-morning. She would need to hitch a ride to Fort Madison in order to make it. But hitchhiking presented another problem. You never knew who was driving north on Route 96. What if it was someone from the church? Word that she was running away would get back to Porter within an hour. She would have to be careful.
She stopped at one of the two ATMs in Nauvoo and took out two hundred dollars. That’s all she could dare to withdraw without sounding an alarm. It was the amount she used for groceries and the kids every week. She gathered her long blond hair and pushed it up under a baseball cap. She didn’t wear her used red Northface winter coat. Too recognizable. Instead, she’d thrown on the navy pea jacket she’d picked up at the Salvation Army store for five dollars and hoped the weather would be decent. It was nearly April.
She’d only been on the road about an hour making sure to turn away from passing cars—unless they had out-of-state license plates—when the skies, which had been thick and gray, opened up, and a hard, cold rain suddenly pummeled the ground. She tightened her lips in despair. She couldn’t walk in this rain. She was already chilled, and her coat had that wet, woolly smell.
Gazing around, she spotted a dog loping toward her. Mostly German shepherd, he looked as wet and bedraggled as she felt. She had no idea if he was lost or was just a stray, but as he approached, he slowed to a trot and started to wag his tail. He was skinny, all bones and coat, she realized. He must be a stray. He stopped at her feet and gazed up at her with big brown liquid eyes, tail still wagging.
As wet and cold as she was, Eden couldn’t resist. She loved dogs. She slid the backpack off her back and dug into it for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d made for her lunch. She pulled out the plastic bag, tore off half the sandwich, and crouched on the ground, sandwich in hand. The dog came up and took it almost daintily, before chewing and swallowing it in one bite.
Eden smiled and reached out to pet him. He submitted and lowered his head. Her smile faded and her eyes filled. Neither of them had a place to call home anymore. She wished she could take him with her. Together they would find the perfect home.
But not today.
“Shoo. Go find a dry spot for yourself, okay?” She stood, trying not to cry. The dog seemed to understand. He walked away from her, stopped to turn around for one last look, then ran across a field.
Eden turned around as well. She was in the middle of empty farmland with no sign of shelter, not even a broken-down shed. In spite of her determination not to, she wiped away a tear, although with all the rain, what difference did it make?
Ten minutes later, a plate from Minnesota—she recognized the blue and white colors—approached. She stuck out her thumb. The car, a four-door sedan, slowed.