Doubting herself, Cara kept walking, searching for Mast Road, hoping something would look familiar. It’d be dark again soon, and they were no better off now than when they left New York more than forty hours ago. Time seemed lost inside a fog of stress and lack of food and sleep, but the days were clearly marked in her mind. She’d left the city Wednesday around midnight, got off the second bus late on Thursday, and currently the Friday afternoon sun was beginning to dip behind the treetops.
Last night’s rain had soaked her clothing, and now the insides of her thighs were raw. Her legs were so weak she kept tripping. She longed for a hot bath and a bed. But it didn’t look like that would happen anytime soon.
Her thin, snug-around-the-waist sweater-shirt was still damp against her skin, but she’d managed to buy a couple of items that her daughter could change in to. After getting off the bus, she’d carried Lori for nearly a mile before spotting a run-down gas station that sold liquor and groceries and even had a rack with overpriced T-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies.
The place didn’t have the feel of country life, as she’d imagined. It had a roughness about it that felt very familiar, one that matched New York City. A group of six men, all drunk, based on the number of beer cans and whiskey bottles strewn around them, sat on a porch across the road from the store, playing beat-up guitars and watching her every move.
As she stepped into the store, the bell on the door jingled loudly and woke Lori. She wriggled to get down. When Cara released her, Lori scowled, stomping her feet. “I’m all wet! How’d I get all wet?” Her shrieks pierced the air as she threw herself onto the floor—hunger and exhaustion controlling her.
The man behind the register looked from Lori to Cara, disgust written on his face. He appeared ready to throw them out. When Cara left the store with a small-adult hoodie and socks for Lori, along with bagels, milk, and toiletries, the men across the street had whistled, howled, and made rude comments. Thankfully not one of them budged from their spot on the porch. They were probably too smashed to stand up, which was good, because their mannerisms didn’t suggest good-natured catcalls. They were capable of malice. She saw the truth carved in their features, and she wasted no time getting herself and Lori out of sight. About a mile down the road, she found an old shed, and they stayed there last night.
After a day of walking through Dry Lake, Lori’s feet had blisters. Cara didn’t know anything to do but take off her shoes and let her walk in her socks.
Feeling lost and overwhelmed, Cara studied her surroundings. This was just like her—doing something with absolute hope, only to find that reality trumped it every single time. Like the blood flowing through her veins, anger circled round and round her insides. If having to uproot and travel like this wasn’t enough to make her lash out, the nicotine withdrawal made her a hundred times more irritable. But so far she’d kept her grumpiness tucked deep inside.
The craving for a cigarette tormented her. Her addiction to smokes had started at fifteen, and unlike the rest of life, it came easy. The fact that she rarely paid to indulge in the habit had made getting hooked even easier. At work some of her regulars offered her a cigarette as she waited their tables. She’d slide it into her waitress pouch for later use. Almost nightly other customers left a half-empty pack by accident or as a tip. If she had four to five bucks to spend on a pack right now, she would. Of course the money for the cigarettes was only one of the issues. The other? Lori was with her, and she didn’t know her mother smoked. When Lori was young and asked about the smoky smell clinging to her mom, Cara had shrugged it off as the fault of waitressing in a place that allowed smoking. Her daughter hadn’t asked about the smell in years.
“My feet still hurt,” Lori whined. “And look, I got blood on my socks.”
“It’s from the blisters. Do you need me to carry you?”
She shook her head. “But the pebbles on the road are hurting me, Mom.”
“I know, sweetie. I’ll figure something out soon.”
Lori held her hand and fell into silence again as they kept walking. At the bottom of the hill, another road intersected with this one. Should she go down it in search of Mast Road or keep going straight?
She didn’t know. Whenever she spotted someone or passed a home, she didn’t dare stop to ask. People would think nothing of a mother and child going for a walk on a beautiful spring day in mid-May But their curiosity would turn against her once she asked where a certain road was. It’d begin a peppering of questions. Are you lost? Who are you looking for? Did your car break down? Where do you live? What are you doing on foot?
No, she couldn’t ask.
Lori tugged at her hand. “That road starts with an M, Mom.”
“Does it?” Cara blinked, trying to focus in spite of a pounding headache.
Mast Road.
Her weariness dampened almost all the relief she felt at finding the road. The search for this sign had begun before dawn. Most of the roads in Dry Lake were long and hilly, but they’d at least found the one they’d been searching for—although she had no idea what the place had in store for them, if anything.
They’d barely gone a hundred feet on Mast Road when she noticed a man on foot, leading a horse-drawn carriage to the front of a home. He went inside for a moment and came back out with a woman and five children. They all got into the rig. To travel like that, they probably were Amish. As they drove past her, she noticed a little girl inside the buggy who was a year or so older than Lori.
Her shoes would fit Lori—without pinching her feet.
As Cara approached the house, she saw only a screen door between her and the inside of the home. “Let’s knock on that door.”
“What for?”
“Just to see if someone’s home.”
“Mom, look.” Lori pointed at a beer bottle lying in the ditch.
“That’s nasty, babe. Let’s keep moving.”
Lori pulled her hand free and grabbed it. “It looks like brown topaz, like our teacher at school showed us.”
“Come on, kid, give me a break. It’s an empty beer bottle.” Cara took it from her.
“Don’t throw it.”
Unwilling to provoke her daughter’s taxed emotions, she nodded and held on to it.
As they went up the porch stairs, Cara set the bottle on a step. She knocked and waited. When no one answered, she banged on it really hard. “Hello?” She heard no sounds. “Let’s go in for a minute.”
“But, Mom—”
“It’s okay. No one’s home, but if they were here, they’d give us some Band-Aids and some shoes that fit you, right?”
“Yeah, I think so. But I don’t want to go in.”
Leaving Lori near the front door, she hurried through the house, scavenging for clean socks, bandages, ointment, and shoes. With two pairs of shoes, a bottle of peroxide, a box of bandages, fresh socks, and a tube of ointment for her daughter’s blisters in hand, Cara hurried out the door, tripping as she went. The items scattered across the porch.
Lori had the beer bottle in her hand, and Cara snatched it from her and set it back down on the porch. “I think one of these pairs will fit. Try this set on, and let’s get out of here. Can you wait until later for us to clean the blisters and wrap them?”
“I think so.”
“That’s my girl.”
While helping Lori slip into the shoes, Cara looked around the yard. A man stood at an opened cattle gate, watching them. Her heart raced. How long had he been standing there? But he didn’t seem interested in confronting her. Based on the description from the man at the ticket counter, this guy might be Amish. He appeared to be past middle age and had on a dress shirt and pants, straw hat, and suspenders.
Keeping an eye on him, she left one pair of shoes on the porch and gathered up the rest of the items and shoved them into the backpack. “Will those do?”
“Yeah, but my feet still hurt.”
She glanced at the man, who remained stock-still, watching her.
“I’ll put medicine and Band-Aids on later. We need to go.”
Cara tripped as she stood, knocking the beer bottle down the steps. Without meaning to, she cursed.
Wordlessly, the man continued to stare at them.
Cara took Lori’s hand and hurried down the steps and toward the road.
“Mom, wait. You forgot the beer bottle.”
“Lori, shh. Come on.” She elongated the last word, and Lori obeyed.
The man seemed unable to move other than rubbing his left shoulder. “Malinda?”
Her heart stopped as her mother’s name rode on the wind.
He blinked and opened his mouth to speak, but he said nothing.
“Daed?” A young woman called to him.
He turned to glance behind him. Cara couldn’t see who called to him, but based on her voice, she was close. The man looked back to Cara. “It makes no difference who you are, we don’t need thieves, drunks, or addicts around here.”
He wasted no time getting inside the pasture and shutting the noisy metal gate, ending Cara’s attempt to defend herself.
Part of Cara wanted another chance to explain herself and ask questions or at least follow them as they turned their backs to her and headed through the field. Why had he called her by her mother’s name? But she feared he might lash out and scare Lori if she dared to ask questions. It would do no one any good if her search for answers began badly. Awash in emotions, she took Lori by the hand and continued down the road. Did she look like her mother had? Did that man know her mom?
“Mom, what’d that man say to you?”
Unwilling to tell her the truth, Cara improvised. “Something about monks and leaves being in the attic… maybe?”
She giggled. “I think he’s confused.”
“I think you’re right. I’m feeling a little confused myself. How do the shoes feel?”
“Pretty good. Thanks. I might not need those Band-Aids.”
“You’re one tough little girl, you know that?” Cara bent and kissed the top of Lori’s head.
She’d thought it could mean a sense of connection for herself and Lori to meet people who knew her mother… but now it felt like a mistake. Her mother’s past was hidden to her, and the man looked horrified to think she might be Malinda.
They walked on and on, putting more than a mile between them and that man. While trying to sort through his reaction, she studied the land. Another barn in need of paint stood a few hundred feet ahead of them, but not one thing felt familiar. Her arms and shoulders ached from the miles she’d toted Lori. Surely they’d covered nearly every mile of Dry Lake—every road, paved and dirt. As they walked Mast Road, she had no hint of what to do now.
She tripped again, and it seemed that stumbling got easier as the day wore on. Whatever they were going to do for shelter, Cara had to find an answer soon. There wasn’t a house in sight, but perhaps they could sleep in that slightly lopsided barn.
As they approached the old building, Cara spotted something of interest on the other side of the road. Holding on to Lori’s hand, she crossed over. Walking up a short gravel driveway, she noticed a huge garden planted beside it. Ahead of her lay a bare foundation with only a rock chimney still standing. She stepped onto the concrete floor and walked to the fireplace. The stone hearth had a rusted crane and black kettle.
“That pot looks like a witch’s cauldron, huh, Mom? Like in Harry Potter.”
Cara ran her fingers along the metal. “It’s for cooking over an open fire. The house that used to be here must’ve been hundreds of years old.”
Something niggled at her but nothing she could make sense of.
Lori tugged at her mother’s hand. “Look at that tree. I’ve always wanted to climb a tree, Mom. Remember?”
She remembered.
“I think I can climb that one.”
“Maybe so.” With reality pressing in on her, Cara tried to hold on to the positive. They were free of Mike. She had Lori. Still, she had no idea how she’d start over and pull together a life for them with no help, no money, and no belongings.
After interlacing her fingers, she gave Lori a boost up to the lowest branch. If nothing else, she’d finally given Lori one of her lifelong hopes—a tree to climb. This one did seem perfect for climbing—large but with a thick branch within five feet of the ground.
Cara looked across the land, wondering if she’d used what little money they had on absolute foolishness. She should be somewhere looking for work, not chasing after shadows of things that once were.
She knew the reality—all children raised in foster care harbor the belief that they have a relative somewhere out there who loves them. She was no exception. Each night after her mother had died, she’d gone to bed hoping a loved one would stumble upon the truth of her existence and come for her. At first she’d been foolish enough to hope her father would come. But as the years passed, she realized that he’d never wanted her. So the fantasy changed into the dream that a relative she’d never met would show up for her one day. By the time she turned fourteen, she refused to give in to that longing. Life hurt less that way. But the desire to have one relative who cared never truly went away. She wished it would. Maybe then the ache inside would ease.
“Look, Mom. It has a spot to ride it like a horse. And that knot thing looks sorta like a horse’s head.”
Cara glanced. A dip in the branch where Lori sat made a perfect spot for straddling it and pretending she was riding a horse. “It does, doesn’t it? All you need is a set of reins.”
“How’d you know, Mom?”
Cara turned from looking at the field. “How’d I know what?”
Lori held up a set of rusted chains. They were small, probably from a swing set.
“How’d ya know there were reins here?” Lori tugged at the chains that were wrapped around the part of the branch that looked like a horse’s head. “Parts of them have grown into the tree, but they work.”
Cara returned to the tree, running her hands over the mossy bark. She recalled the pieces of memory that came to her when Mike had showed up at her workplace—an old woman, rows of tall corn, a kitchen table filled with food, sheets flapping in the wind. As she studied the tree and the land around her, she began to sense that maybe her fragmented thoughts weren’t her imagination or parts of an old movie she’d once seen.