Trucks waited outside the children’s home. He had on a dark workman’s coat and carried two used hearing aids in his pocket. He’d been sitting on the ground for a half hour with his back to the bricks, opening and closing his hands, looking at his knuckles worn down from all the boxing.
The front door swung open. The late-night dishwasher looked around.
Trucks put his gloves back on, stood, and walked over through the dark.
The dishwasher told him how to find the room.
Trucks nodded and walked on. He zipped his coat down. Then he zipped it back up. He was nervous. He’d lived in places like this as a kid. They all smelled the same, like faint lemon and must. There were nightlights in half-moons lining the long hall. They blinked as he moved forward. Door after door.
He stopped outside the room. What he was doing here would change everything. He knew that. All the money he had now was in his pocket. Thirty dollars from the fight he’d taken that night. He got clipped behind the ear with a phantom hook. Never saw it coming. It wobbled him, and he’d reached for the ropes and fell. The sharp headache, the blur, the hot lights. He didn’t get up for the count. Someone from the crowd threw a beer on him. Trucks sat drenched and sticky while the ref came over, tugged on his eyelids with his thumbs.
Trucks opened the door and walked over to the corner bed. He got down on a knee. Moonlight cut through the window. With all that snow, it was nearly blue outside. He hoped she wouldn’t see his busted face.
“There are no stars, Pepper Flake.” He didn’t finish the quote. He couldn’t remember how it ended. It was something an old boxing trainer used to say to him. Trucks didn’t know why it came to him now.
Claudia was asleep. Trucks watched the ebb of her chest. Her fluttering eyelids. He ran his thumb over her eyebrow the way so many cut men had done for him, closing his gashes, sweeping away the dark blood.
His little girl’s birthday was today.
Trucks gently squeezed Claudia’s bicep. She squirmed and blinked out of confusion. She recognized him soon after, though she looked uncertain if he was an apparition or the truth.
“It’s me,” Trucks whispered. He didn’t want to wake the other girls.
Claudia turned from him. Trucks sat on the edge of the bed and patted her back. Claudia pulled away and scooted to the wall.
“I told you I’d come for you. Didn’t you believe me?”
Claudia didn’t answer. Trucks remembered the used hearing aids and pulled them out of his pocket. He looked down—two russet pea pods on his palm. He’d bought them at a thrift store after he found out from the dishwasher that Claudia was losing her hearing. Trucks knew the overrun children’s home wouldn’t cover it.
Claudia looked over her shoulder.
Trucks moved closer. He held up the hearing aids. Claudia rolled away again.
“I cleaned them,” he said. Trucks always carried a sachet of antibacterial wipes. An obsessive habit. He tapped her on the shoulder until she turned toward him. She crossed her arms over her chest and kept her eyes shut. Trucks clicked the hearing aids on and hooked one to each ear and inserted the earmolds.
“Check,” he said.
Claudia shook her head. Trucks raised the volume dial of each hearing aid.
“Cross, hook, hook,” he said.
Claudia shook her head again. Trucks turned the dials up.
“How about now, Pepper Flake?”
Claudia opened her eyes.
“You could have maybe died,” she said. “You were gone forever.”
Trucks looked at the floor. “You know I’m not really the dying kind. I told you that.”
“Can you promise again?”
“I can promise.”
“Then promise. And don’t die.”
Trucks looked in her eyes. Then he looked at his hands. He made a fist with his left and rubbed his right across his wounded knuckles. Then he looked out the window. The clouds had shifted. His face was so visible against the harsh moonlight.
“You’re all hurt again,” Claudia said. “They won’t let me go home if you don’t stop. You promised.”
Claudia turned back to the wall. The boxing wasn’t the whole story, but she didn’t know that. Trucks thought he could hear sniffles. She was crying into her wrists.
“And you missed my birthday,” she said.
“It’s barely past midnight. We can still call it your birthday. I’ve got a gift for you outside. A really special one. They said I could give it to you if I came at night so it wouldn’t make the other kids jealous.”
“You’re lying,” she said into the wall.
“Honest,” he said.
Claudia rolled back. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
Trucks held out his hand. Claudia was reluctant. Still, she threw off the covers and sat up. Trucks noticed how much longer her hair was now, how the curls had grown thicker in his absence. Six months had been too long.
“Come outside,” he said.
“I don’t know.”
“Trust me.”
“Maybe.”
Trucks got up from the bed and looked out the window into the cobalt night. A thick birch covered in snow.
Trucks turned to Claudia. He offered his hand again. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. Then he picked her coat from the bedpost and she put it on. Her winter boots were by the bed, and she slipped into them and loosely tied the laces. Trucks bent down and tightened them.
“Let’s keep quiet and not say anything else until we’re outside, okay?”
Claudia nodded.
They’d have to forget about rifling through drawers for spare clothes. It was time to go.
Trucks walked to the bedroom door. Claudia followed a few steps, then stopped. She glanced at the three girls, asleep in their beds. Then she walked over to their bedsides, touched each girl differently—on the ankle, the forehead, the hand. Then she came out of the room with a sad face. Trucks tried to hold Claudia’s hand, but she pulled away. Together they walked down the long hall, past the blinking half-moons and ever closer to the cold world that would reveal itself just beyond the front door.
They were lying in the bed of a fast-moving pickup under a woolen tarp for dead cattle. The tarp went up to their necks. It smelled awful. After a while, they got used to it.
“We’ll stay together this time?” Claudia asked.
“Yeah,” Trucks said.
They watched the pale night sky, still lit from the snow.
“Till the end?” she asked.
“Till the end,” he said.
They looked up into the moving dark.
“They won’t find us where we’re going. Nobody will.”
“Yeah?”
“Nevada’s way out there. We’ll keep our distance. We’ll be all right.”
“What’s it like there?”
Trucks had Claudia against his side and pulled her closer. His hands stung. He’d given her his thick gloves. They were too big on her, and they’d had a nice laugh about it. Trucks and Claudia had walked to a highway junction where the old road met the interstate, and they’d stood in the deep snow with their thumbs out. When Claudia started shivering, Trucks picked her up and held her, his knuckles and temple aching from the fight the night before. Then it was just him holding his sleeping girl with a cold thumb out.
The pickup roared and rattled on I-90, past the Dells and Lacrosse and into Minnesota territory. Could he smell the frozen-over Mississippi? No. Surely not.
“Maybe you should sleep some more,” he said.
“If you tell me about Nevada I’ll maybe fall asleep.”
Trucks gave her a squeeze.
“Is that where Mama is? Waiting in Nevada?” she asked.
Trucks didn’t say anything. He opened and closed his fist. Ran his knuckles back and forth against the tarp to feel that burn.
“Is she there?” Claudia asked.
“She’s not in Nevada, Pepper Flake.” Trucks looked at Claudia. “You should close your eyes. Try to get some rest before he drops us off.”
“Where’s he dropping us?”
“I don’t know. He said maybe Sioux Falls. It’s in South Dakota. Do you know where that is?”
Claudia looked at her big-gloved fingers. She counted on them as if it would help her identify where South Dakota was.
“No,” she said. “Do we have to hitch there? I don’t wanna hitch anymore. It’s freezing.”
Claudia swung a leg over Trucks. She pulled in closer to collect his warmth. He knew it was about survival, but it still made him feel good. He was barely even thinking about the boxing. Wasn’t counting back combinations in his mind, picturing footwork, or trying to see his punches as lines drawn by invisible string.
“We’ll take a break somewhere and get you warm. But we have to keep moving. We always have to keep moving until it’s safe. Okay?”
Claudia sighed. He felt it on his ribs.
“Tell me okay.”
“Okay,” she said.
The pickup rumbled. The tailgate clanked. The driver was an old rancher who’d gone to Milwaukee to purchase vintage rifles and scopes from an antique gun show. Trucks felt fortunate he’d picked them up. Figured it was probably the way he saw Trucks with his girl in one arm, her pink cheek on his shoulder, his busted hand stuck out, that stomach-pit desperation in his eyes.
“How are your hearing aids holding up? You seem to be doing pretty good.”
“They pinch my ears. But they’re okay, I guess.” Claudia tapped her left hearing aid. “This one’s blurry.”
“You mean staticky. And maybe I can get it fixed once we get to Nevada. I don’t know what I can do about the pinching. It was the smallest I could find.”
“I’m scared the other kids are gonna make fun of me.”
Trucks could feel her sharp breathing against him.
“I really am,” she said.
Trucks held her tight. “The hell they will.”
Trucks and Claudia sat on a palate of stacked charcoal bags inside the store. It was early morning and the store was dead. Claudia kicked her heels against the bags. Trucks blew into his hands.
“I froze out there for you,” he said.
“But you didn’t even turn into a snowman,” she said.
“Good one,” he said.
Claudia had taken off her coat and the too-big gloves. Trucks realized then, as if for the first time, that she was wearing pajamas. A purple long-sleeve top and matching bottoms, the arms and legs cuffed pink. It stood out to him now under all the fluorescents. How cold she must have been out there on the road. What it would have done to her fragile skin.
Claudia pointed at her hearing aids and made a sad face.
“They’re too big,” she said. “The other kids are gonna call me names.”
“What would they call you?”
“I don’t know. Mean stuff. Like Dooty Ears ’cause the hearing phones are brown.” She pointed to her left ear. “And this one’s still blurry.”
“Staticy. And you mean hearing aids.”
Claudia pulled out her left hearing aid and handed it to Trucks. He didn’t know what to do with it. He put it up to his ear and shook it. Then he blew on it. He flipped it on and off. Rolled the volume dial up and down, then put it back where it seemed to work best for her.
“Give it a try now,” he said.
He hooked the hearing aid back on Claudia’s ear and inserted the earmold.
Claudia gave him a half-hearted thumbs-up.
“Still not so great?”
Claudia shrugged. Then she put his oversized gloves back on. Trucks smiled. Claudia leaned way back and stared at the ceiling. All those beams and white light.
“What are those?” she asked.
Trucks looked up. “Those what?”
“The triangles on the roof. There, there, there, there. And there.” She pointed all along the ceiling.
“Rafters.”
“What for?”
“They keep the building from falling down. You feeling warm yet?”
“Why would it fall?”
“I don’t know. Wear and tear. Avalanche. Tornados.”
“I think it’d be fun to play in a tornado.”
Trucks laughed.
“And to swing on the raffers.”
“Rafters.”
“Rafters.”
“Good.”
Claudia often stunned him with the simplest things. Her phrasings. A look. Her nuances. He was used to the language of bobs and weaves and slips and counter-punches. The movement was the language, his fire marked his words.
“So, you warm now, Pepper Flake?”
“Yeah. I like it in here. I like looking at the raf-ters.”
Trucks looked up again. “Think of them like the ribs of the building. Like what you got here.” Trucks poked at Claudia’s ribs, and she giggled. “Come on, Poopy Ears, we need to get you some things.”
Trucks got down from the charcoal bags and held Claudia’s hand as she jumped. He pulled out his sachet of antibacterial wipes and offered her the pack.
“I don’t wanna,” she said.
“You gotta keep clean. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“A thousand.”
“Just take a wipe and do it.”
“No.”
Trucks grabbed Claudia’s sleeves and rolled them up her forearms. She huffed but didn’t pull away. He wiped vigorously from her wrists to her fingertips. One arm, then the other.
“See. Not so bad.”
“It smells like Mama.”
“Shush.”
Trucks grabbed Claudia’s coat and threw it over his shoulder. Claudia bit into the fabric of her glove. He led them up and down the aisles until he found the toothbrushes. There were lots to choose from. Trucks went for the knockoff brand at forty-nine cents a brush. He grabbed an adult toothbrush, a children’s toothbrush, and an eight-ounce bar of shampoo-soap. He’d cut it into quarters later on.
“What?”
“It makes my hair gross.” Claudia held up a bunch of curls.
“When I was growing up, they gave us apple cider vinegar and lard soap. We’re getting two for one here. It’s lime. Look.” Trucks held up the bar. “Double-size bar. Twice as much for the same money.”
“Yuck. Pick one with a good flavor. I don’t wanna smell like lime.”
“Fine.” Trucks put the bar back. “And you mean scent, not flavor. So what about this one? It’s chocolate-raspberry. Do people wanna smell like that all day?”
“I do.”
“Then grab that one or go through the others and pick one you like.”
Claudia squatted and sifted through the soap, looking for different scents and calling them out. Cinnamon, mango, oatmeal, orange. Trucks stepped back. He watched her sift. This little girl he’d made. How could it strike him so suddenly, as if it had just happened in that moment, as if he hadn’t been there years ago to palm her ribs with his entire hand? His left. The one that had levied such force in the ring. The one that was waning now with age. Forty-one years of pick up, pull, push, parry, pivot, punch.
And her. Boom. As if from the sky.
“I want this one.” Claudia held a mint bar under his nose. Pulled him back like all those ripe-smelling salts.
“We’ll smell like Christmas mints.” He grabbed the bar from her and held it in one hand with the toothbrushes. “Baking soda next. Then we need to get some food somewhere. How are you? Hungry?”
“Can’t we do real toothpaste?”
“There’s nothing wrong with baking soda and water. It’ll make your teeth strong.”
“But we had real toothpaste at the home. I want the real stuff. Baking soda’s gross, and it goes gooey in the water.” She crossed her arms.
“I gave in on the soap.”
“Real stuff.”
“No.”
“Come on!”
“I said no.”
“Yes.”
“You turned into a real pain, you know that?”
“They never said I was a pain at the home.”
“Well, you’re back with me now.”
“The home didn’t leave me.”
Trucks grabbed Claudia’s arm real tight above the elbow. “They took you from me. They took you. I didn’t leave. I’d never leave you. You got it?”
“Ouch. It hurts. Let go, let go, let go.”
Trucks let go, and Claudia ran down the aisle and turned the corner. He breathed deep. What had the therapist at the free clinic said all those years ago? Count it back? Find a mental sanctuary? Imagine a flock of birds flying over a pond? Whatever. Now wasn’t the time to get his head right.
Trucks took off down the aisle. He found her sitting cross-legged in front of a display of antifreeze jugs.
Trucks inched down next to Claudia and sat beside her. He put the toothbrushes and soap on the ground. Leaned his head back against the cool jugs. They sat for a while like that. Listening to each other’s breathing, eyes closed. Occasionally they’d hear the footfalls of customers trickling in, the squeaky wheels of shopping carts. Time passed like that. It was nice in its way.
“Life gets complicated, Pepper Flake,” Trucks finally said. “Nobody was ever telling me to take good paths. I didn’t even know they existed. And nobody ever promised to stick around or ice my wounds or sew my cuts. Could I have made myself into something more than a boxer? Made cash in any other way but with hooks and headshots? I guess. But I was raised in those homes too. I know that long walk. I know that hard bed. I know those shared dressers and made-and-lost bonds and people picking on you. And listen, you need to know the way it crushed me when they took you.”
Trucks looked up at the ceiling. Something had caught his eye. A bird had flown at an angle between the slanted rafters. It looked like a plover.
Then he said, “Sometimes people just go. My parents abandoned me to a shelter outside Milwaukee. I never knew why. I wondered. And I’m sure you wonder things, too, like about your mama. And I’ll tell you about her someday. I’ll give you all the hard answers. But what I want you to know right now is that some people are born with a wild wind inside them that carries them to distant places. I guess it’s because they’re sad about who they are. They’re sad about what they don’t have. They’re sad about all those empty, broken places. And maybe they go off somewhere that the voice doesn’t carry, and we’ll never hear anything from them again. No return. No receipt. Like they’re trapped in the bottle of themselves with a glued-down cork. And they just don’t…they don’t know how to make a life out of two hands and a heart. But that’s all I’ve ever had. Look at these, you know? I’ve got cuts and bruises and scar tissue for miles. But now I’ve got you again, and our horizon’s lit up. Just think of it that way, Pepper Flake. We’ll just go and go and go and rip through that big powdery sky together. And there won’t be no you or me. There will always be you and me. Us. No matter what. And don’t forget that. Even if I yell or you yell or we knock each other back into sense. This is what we have. This is what we do. We go and we go together.”
Trucks’s throat was dry. His palms sweaty. He opened and closed his left hand, the one he’d broken three times. Twice on hooks, once on an uppercut. He looked for the plover in the rafters.
Claudia slid off one of the big gloves and took his hand. The touch jolted him. She pulled back, looked at his roughed-up face, and reached out again. She clasped his hand and leaned her head on his shoulder. Trucks cried then. He did it silently. And the crying was slight, nearly imperceptible, so she wouldn’t hear. He didn’t know what his little girl might make of it.
Trucks pulled Claudia into an empty aisle before they got to the checkout. He looked around—no staff in sight. He put a finger to his lips, unzipped her coat, and stuffed all their items inside except for one toothbrush. Then he zipped up her coat, gave Claudia the toothbrush, and led her to the register, where the tired clerk smiled and checked them out, saying nothing.
Once outside, Trucks dropped to a knee and emptied the items from Claudia’s coat into a plastic bag the clerk had given them for the toothbrush. Then he zipped Claudia’s coat to her chin and buttoned her throat flaps. Pulled her hood on. Said, “That’s not normally something I’d do back there, but we’re in need right now. Stealing isn’t exactly stealing when you’re in need like us. Understand?”
“I don’t know,” Claudia said.
“I can explain it better later,” Trucks said. “Let’s just call it ‘need borrowing’ for now. Deal?”
“But—”
“Deal?”
“Okay.”
Trucks stood.
“Hey, look,” he said.
They looked at the horizon. The sun rose in waves of blues and pinks and reds. Like it was coming out of a birth of paint. They were quiet for minutes. The chilling South Dakota wind whipped on. Then Trucks took her hand, and they got to walking.
Trucks had seen the Kool Fuel gas station when the old rancher dropped them off in the Hallowell parking lot. What he’d noticed, really, was a beige mechanical pony sitting outside on a dark pole. It faced the barren field beside the gas station. Looked like it had been itching for so many years to blaze across the plains. He knew it might be tough to catch another ride for a while, so he could entertain Claudia with the pony while he tried to hitch.
They walked inside the gas station. Trucks grabbed two small paper cups next to the soda machine. They took off their coats and sat at one of the glued-to-the-wall tables near the open case of rolling hot dogs and sausages. Donuts under glass. Coffee pots and sugar packets and dried spills from hours before. Trucks set the paper cups on the table. Claudia picked up the cups and put them over her eyes like binoculars.
“I can’t see anything out there, cappy captain,” she said.
“Maybe they’re not in focus. Did you turn the focus knob?”
“Yeah.”
“Hm. Strange. It must be all that thick fog rolling over the plains.”
Claudia put the cups top-down on the table.
“Other side,” Trucks said.
She turned the cups over. “What’s it matter?”
“Germs,” he said.
Trucks took the sachet out of his pocket.
“Hands,” he said.
“Again?”
Trucks nodded. “Take those off.”
Claudia took off her gloves. Trucks handed her an antibacterial wipe.
“That smell,” she said.
“Get cleaned up.”
Claudia slowly rubbed the damp wipe over her hands. Trucks raised an eyebrow. Claudia made a face and scrubbed fast like she was trying to start a fire. Trucks wanted to stay stern, but he couldn’t help laughing. Claudia giggled and tossed the used wipe on the table. Trucks picked it up and cleaned his hands. Then he opened their plastic sack and pulled out a can of beans, a package of shredded cheese, and a skinny metal can opener. He opened the can of beans and dumped half into one of the cups, half in the other.
“Open that bag of cheese, and dump some in each of the cups,” he said.
Claudia picked up the bag, bit into the corner, and jerked her head to rip it open. She poured too much cheese in one of the cups.
“Try to keep it even, knucklehead.”
“I am trying, bruiseity brains.”
Trucks knocked on his head. “Still working, at least.” Although his head hadn’t stopped aching from the fight.
Claudia added more cheese, and Trucks went over to the counter and grabbed two plastic spoons. He came back and put them on the table and sat down.
Claudia grabbed a spoon and tried to dig in right away. Trucks held his spoon out to her.
“To the road,” he said.
Claudia clicked her spoon against his.
“To the road,” she said.
Halfway through her cup, Trucks stood and put on his coat.
“I’ll be right out that window, okay? See over there at the end of the building?”
Claudia looked sad.
“I’m not going anywhere far. I’m not leaving, promise. I’m just going to the end of the building, right outside. Sit here. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to anyone. If anyone tries to talk to you, tell them to go away. Say something like, ‘My dad’s right there. He’s got a gun, and he’ll blow your ugly face off.’” Trucks smiled.
“Sounds kinda mean.”
“Just a joke.”
“Yeah.”
“Should we make it nicer?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll figure out something nicer when I get back. And then we’re gonna try out our new toothbrushes in the bathroom.”
Claudia made a face.
Trucks walked away, reached the door, paused with his hand on the glass, then came back.
“Hey you,” he said.
“Hey you,” she said.
Claudia looked up at him, her face at an angle. She looked like her mother just then. Trucks leaned down and hugged her tight. Some of the beans spilled over the side of the cup in her hands. Trucks grabbed a napkin and wiped the table. He picked up all the trash. Then he went through the front door and pitched the garbage in a barrel between the gas pumps before walking to the end of the building.
Claudia set her cup down when she was finished eating. She rattled her spoon around inside the cup. Then she rested her chin on her fists and stared at the blank wall ahead. Outside, Trucks pulled his coat tighter to fend off the cold. He was down on his knees in the snow, furiously scrubbing the beige mechanical horse with antibacterial wipes.
It was late morning. Trucks stood at the edge of the gas station parking lot where the exit met the highway. Claudia was in the distance behind him sitting on the beige mechanical pony. Its stand was painted navy blue and said “Ride the Champ” in faded newsprint lettering. The paint was chipping. The horse was chipping. Somehow the beige hadn’t gotten too bleached out over all those years in the sun.
Trucks thought about Claudia, what a good girl she was. She had to be sick of that pony by now. Each time the ride ended, Claudia called out for him, and Trucks walked back from the road and popped in another quarter. After a while, he didn’t have any quarters left, but he asked her to stay there on the lifeless pony anyway. It was better like that. She was protected from the cold wind as long as she kept against the building.
For Trucks, the time went like this:
Thumb out. Car passed. Driver ignored him.
Thumb out. Car passed. Driver ignored him.
Thumb out. Car passed. Driver pointed ahead, mouthed sorry, drove on.
He often looked over his shoulder at Claudia. It had been six months since he had to be responsible for her. Now she was sitting backward on the pony. Earlier she’d gotten down and looked at its belly. He saw her rubbing the underside of the pony and speaking to it. He couldn’t make out the words because of the harsh wind, but he could see her mouth moving. Occasionally he heard a fraction of her soft voice.
Trucks had put their supply sack on the ground near the pony to keep his hands free. Whenever someone pulled up to a gas pump, Trucks would walk over and ask for a ride. People seemed afraid of his bruised face. Uptight about the black-and-purple markings and one of the dried cuts at the edge of his eye. Some held the fuel pump spout between themselves and Trucks as he approached. Pointing it at him like a gun. They all took defensive postures. He’d be kind. They’d say no for various reasons. Had to get to work. Going the other direction. Just heading down the road a few exits. Didn’t believe in picking up hitchers. Things like that. When he told them about his daughter and pointed her out on the pony, they’d dart their eyes between him and her. He could tell they thought it was one of those sympathy scams. Like they’d get a ways down the road and he’d take them by the throat while she stuck a knife to their ribs.
Trucks felt desperate. The highway was empty and gray and cold. Cars weren’t passing much on this barren stretch.
Had it been an hour? Trucks turned from the road and walked over to Claudia. She was off the pony now and had her face against the gas station window.
“Anything interesting?” Trucks asked.
“Not really.” She kept looking through the window.
“You warm enough?”
“I’m fine.”
“You having fun watching the store?” Trucks glanced at the road.
“I saw a guy buy your tickets.”
“My tickets?”
“The tickets you let me scratch with pennies.”
“Oh.”
For a time Trucks wasn’t making any money, and he’d tried to change his luck with scratch-off tickets. But it brought him nothing, and over the years he went broke again and again. Too many hours at the gym and too many overdue notices. His life had consisted of late payments and nonpayments. Some “concerned” citizen had seen the low way he was living with Claudia in that dump of a rowhouse down by the tracks. Probably somebody he’d wronged. Somebody who had it in for him. So that somebody called the state. Then the state showed up. Claudia was taken from him again and again. Put in a home. Returned. Put in a different home. Returned. Soon the state had had enough, citing his past indiscretions of street fighting, his long arrest record, his inability to pay the bills, to keep a job, to quit taking beatings for cash and find “healthy, gainful employment.” That’s what they’d called it in their letters. Six months ago they took Claudia and said it’d be for good. It tore up Trucks. But he used the anger and sorrow to fuel a plan. He took every available fight in the city, regardless of weight class, and accepted even the smallest fight purses. Trucks barely ate. He dropped twenty pounds. But over the months he paid off his overdue bills and claims and interest. And still the state denied his custody requests. Said the appeals process would go on and on, and Trucks was afraid if he didn’t do something soon he’d lose his girl. He’d been on the outs with the state from the get-go and only saw one option—to fight the only way he knew how. All knuckle and bone and grit and heart. So he got connected with the late-night dishwasher at the Horatio Horsfall Children’s Home through a local bookie in Klakanouse. The dishwasher would do his best to find out how Claudia was doing and relay the info. And when the time came, the dishwasher snuck him in, and Trucks got his girl back. He was left with thirty dollars, and that speck of money had to carry him and Claudia halfway across the country to Nevada, where he was told the casino boxing market was solid. And sometimes he thought maybe he could start a different kind of life that was better for his girl. Be a trainer. A cutman. A coach. Anything but what he was. That he could walk away from the ring and the beatings. The late-night stitches and pulsing knuckles. He told himself this.
“I thought I could snag a ride alone, but I’m gonna need your help on this one,” Trucks said to Claudia.
She pried herself from the window and looked at him. “Told ya.”
“You did.”
“So what do I do?”
“It’s gonna be pretty chilly out there. You’ll need to have your big-girl pants on.”
Claudia pulled out the waistband of her pajama bottoms, then let it go so it snapped against her stomach. She laughed.
“Good. Now pop that hood on.”
Claudia put her hood on.
Trucks got down on a knee and secured the hood. Then he picked up the Hallowell sack in his left hand, the one he’d broken so many times, and opened his right arm for Claudia to swoop in. “I’ll lift you up and carry you out to the shoulder of the road. Keep your face turned into me. Remember, if we get a ride, don’t say anything about who we are or where we’re from. Let me do the talking. If they ask any questions, look to me first before you answer. Never say your real name. Never talk about Klakanouse. We’re not from Wisconsin. We’ve never been there. Okay?”
Claudia looked at Trucks, then all around. She fidgeted with the strings of her coat. “Okay,” she said. “But where are we from?”
“Good question.” Trucks thought a moment. “Let’s say Georgia. It sounds nice. I bet it’s warm there now.”
“Georgia.” Claudia tried it on.
Then she walked into his open arm. Trucks picked her up and stood, feeling the weight of her. Trucks could half see into the store and half see himself reflected in the glass with Claudia in his arms, the brute plains behind him.
He breathed in deep, turned, and walked past the fuel pumps. The wind picked up even more after that. He paused at the edge of the highway. There was plenty of room for somebody to stop. A nearly deserted road. Shouldn’t be a problem.
“Hanging tight?” Trucks asked. He liked feeling the weight of his girl. She had her cheek against his shoulder. She nodded into his body.
“Think warm thoughts. This is what they call bitter cold, Pepper Flake.”
Claudia mumbled into his coat. He could feel the buzz of her breath against him.
“It’s really against my nature, but I saw your little girl,” the woman said. She had on a silk blouse, tight black pants, white pumps, and pearl earrings. She wore a gold necklace that sparkled against the occasional rays of the peeking sun. The woman was driving twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. They were back on I-90, still heading west. Trucks and Claudia were sitting in the backseat of the woman’s nice sedan, their sack of supplies between them.
“We’re grateful you did.” Trucks patted Claudia’s leg.
The woman tapped the steering wheel.
“We’re from Georgia,” Claudia offered.
Trucks gave her a look.
“Oh?” the woman said. “I toured the university in Athens once. Pretty little college town. Have you been?”
Trucks didn’t know Georgia at all. Maybe he should have suggested a state he’d been to.
“Yeah, a few times. A pretty little college town, like you said. But we’re small-town folks. We live on the other side of the state.”
“I’m a small-town girl myself,” the woman said. “From Kadoka, where I’m headed. But I’ve been living in Sioux Falls for about fifteen years now. Kadoka’s tiny in comparison, nothing much to do.”
“Why are you going there?” Claudia asked.
Trucks squeezed her arm. She was breaking his rules.
“I’ve been running back and forth to see my sister,” the woman said, looking at Claudia in the rearview. Then she looked at Trucks and said, “She’s been sick for a while. I’m practically paying rent at a hotel up there. She has a small efficiency that barely suits one, so I get my own room to give her privacy and, honestly, just to have a breather and my own space.”
“I’m sorry about your sister,” Trucks said.
“Thanks. I’m just hoping she’ll pull through.”
“So it’s serious?”
“Follick’s Disease. It has to do with low blood cell counts and the inability to regenerate cells. It’s depressing to talk about, you know?”
“I’m sorry,” Trucks said.
“Thanks.” The woman looked in the rearview at Trucks. “So, speaking of traumas, I was curious about your face. May I ask what happened?”
Trucks felt his forehead and temple. The wounds still tender to the touch.
“I’m a boxer,” he said. Like there was nothing else he had ever been or could ever be.
“Ah,” the woman said. “You must have had a fight recently?”
“Just the other day.”
“How did it go?”
“I did all right. Took a bit of a beating, I guess. I had a lot on my mind. If you wanna fight well, you can’t be thinking of anything but the man across from you. My movement was off. My breathing was off. My mind was somewhere else.”
Trucks reached over and swept some of Claudia’s hair behind her ear.
“I bet that makes for a long night,” the woman said. She smiled. Trucks could see it in the rearview.
“That’s for sure,” Trucks said.
“You ever been hit before?” Claudia asked the woman.
“Jesus,” Trucks said. “I’m really sorry. She’s never like this.”
“Why can’t I ask questions?” Claudia said.
“It’s okay,” the woman said. “It’s a perfectly fine question, but it’s not one I want to answer. Is that fair?”
“Yeah,” Claudia said.
Trucks couldn’t tell if he was overreacting. He’d told Claudia what to say and not to say to draw as little attention to them as possible. Yeah, his face was messed up and they were an odd hitching pair, but what could he do about it?
“Can I sit with you?” Claudia asked.
The woman didn’t answer right away. “If it’s all right with your father, sure,” she finally said. “I could use some frontseat company.”
Trucks didn’t like the idea, but he could see the way Claudia was drawn to the woman.
“Sure, okay,” Trucks said.
The woman grabbed her purse from the passenger seat and put it on her lap. “She can just come between the seats. I’ve got the wheel steady. No traffic.”
Trucks took Claudia’s hand. She bent down and stepped between the seats. Trucks guided her forward. Claudia plopped down in the passenger seat.
“Buckle,” Trucks said.
Claudia clicked the belt in place. The woman moved her purse from her lap to the floor in front of Claudia’s feet. Claudia stared at the woman. Watched her delicate hands on the wheel. Her bright nail polish.
“I like your smell,” Claudia said.
“Thanks,” the woman said. “It’s called Purely Passion, made from fruits and flower petals from South America. It’s supposed to make men desire you, but I don’t know.”
She laughed. Claudia giggled.
“Here,” the woman said, pointing to her purse. “Dig around. It’s in there somewhere.”
Claudia leaned forward and picked up the purse. She sifted through it. Then she pulled out the woman’s pocketbook and opened it.
“June,” Claudia said, looking at the woman’s driver’s license. “Like the month.”
“Ugh, just ignore the hideous photo,” June said.
Trucks leaned forward and looked at the driver’s license. He thought she looked surprisingly pretty in the photo. Her blond hair was bright and straight, her blue eyes striking. He’d tried not to stare at her much because he didn’t want her to feel even more self-conscious or defensive than she probably already did.
“Well, I’m June. I feel rude now. I should have introduced myself from the start. You’re my first hitchhikers, so I don’t know the etiquette. Plus, I was nervous.”
“You’re doing fine,” Trucks said.
June smiled. Trucks returned to the backseat.
“Us?” Trucks asked.
“Yeah, what should I call you? Hitcher One and Hitcher Two?”
“Oh.” Trucks paused. “Now I’m being rude. I’m Ezzard. That’s Pearl there, rifling through your purse.”
“Yeah, Pearl,” Claudia said.
“It’s nice to meet you both. Ezzard! What a fascinating name.”
It was the first name that popped in his head. Ezzard Charles was his favorite classic boxer. A real ring technician. Trucks had learned a lot from reading about Charles’s movement and punching techniques. Like how to throw a jumping hook with his lead left hidden behind the jab. It was something he’d tried to mimic in the ring.
“It’s one of those family names,” Trucks said. “My grandfather’s middle name. It gets passed down to one or another of the kids. Lucky me, huh?”
“Very unique,” June said.
“So I guess you picked up one of those Ezzard boys,” Trucks said.
“Sure looks like it,” June said. “And, like I said, this isn’t normal for me. I’ve never picked up hitchhikers before, but I saw you carrying your daughter on your shoulder, and something made me pull over. I felt an incredible rush when I stepped on the brake.”
“I know what you mean,” Trucks said.
“Plus, you’re so adorable,” June said to Claudia. “Those curls! I just want to touch them.”
“You can,” Claudia said. She grabbed a handful of curls and held them out toward June.
June reached over and ran her delicate fingers through Claudia’s hair. Her face glowed with June’s touch.
“How far do you think we are from your hometown?” Trucks asked.
“Kadoka’s probably three hours away still,” June said.
“That’s a good distance.”
“Yeah. I’ve made this drive so many times over the past months. It’s nice to finally have some company.”
Trucks wondered how such a kind and good-looking woman like that didn’t have company on her trips.
Claudia put the pocketbook away and finally got to the perfume. She turned the onion-shaped bottle in her hand. Sniffed it. Flicked the little pump.
“Can I try some?” Claudia asked.
June looked in the rearview.
“Sure,” Trucks said. He hadn’t seen Claudia so taken with someone before.
“Just spray a tiny bit on the insides of your wrists and pat them together,” June said.
Claudia squeezed the pump a few times. “Oops. A lot came out.”
June laughed. “Rookie mistake.”
Claudia smacked her wrists together. She was really enjoying this.
“Now spin off the top,” June said.
“Like this?” Claudia asked. She turned the top of the bottle until it came off. She held the open bottle in one hand and the top with the dangling pump in the other.
“Just like that,” June said. Then she reached over. “I’ll just borrow the bottle a second and show you something.” June took her other hand off the wheel and steered with her knees. Claudia watched with great interest. “I shouldn’t be doing this, but what the heck. This is a driving trick you’ll get used to when you’re doing your makeup in the crappy sun visor mirror or flossing on your way to work.” June put her forefinger on the top of the bottle, turned it over, and set it right again. She reached over with her perfume-dampened finger and rubbed a couple quick circles behind Claudia’s ears. “And there you go, curly girly. That’s the secret spot.”
June handed the bottle back to Claudia. Claudia spun on the top and ran her fingers around the embossed edges of the logo on the glass. She didn’t say anything. She just kept tracing the logo. Trucks was intently listening and watching. Was he this engaging with Claudia? He really appreciated how June connected with her. How their energies ran together.
“Will the other kids like me if I wear this?” Claudia asked, without looking away from the bottle.
June looked at Claudia. She reached over and ran her hand through Claudia’s hair. “You sweet thing,” she said.
“I’m afraid,” Claudia said.
“Of what?” June asked.
“The kids in Nevada. That they’ll make fun of my hearing phones.”
Hearing aids. Trucks thought it but said nothing.
“Oh, darling,” June said. “You cherub thing.”
Claudia grabbed June’s hand and held it to her cheek. Closed her eyes. Sighed like it’s all she ever wanted.
Trucks watched the closeness they were sharing. He felt a pain inside. Something so deep he didn’t even know. He ached with a fear that had bled through him since he lost his girl the last time. And he’d decided it would be the truly last time. No matter what. And he’d do all he could to protect her waning innocence from hardship or struggle or pain or loss. Despite this beautiful moment, everything in his being said this: Go. Go. They must always go.
They stood outside the Archibald Suites. It was cold and dark. Winter’s dusk always comes early. Claudia pouted away from Trucks with her arms folded over her chest. She wouldn’t look at him.
Trucks had turned down June’s offer to take showers in her hotel room and rest. Now he had his thumb out, trying to pick up rides from the parking lot exit back onto the interstate. He’d tied the Hallowell sack to one of the belt loops on the side of his pants so he wouldn’t have to hold it. There were cans of beans in there and the toothpaste, the brushes, the skinny metal can opener, some bottles of water, a jar of peanut butter, and rice cakes.
Trucks turned away from the road and looked at Claudia. “Are you done pouting?”
“No,” she said. She breathed hard. Her shoulders came up and down.
“Come help me hitch.”
“She said we could have showers. It’s cold. I feel icky. I wanna be warm and clean and sleep in a real bed.”
“Don’t you think I feel disgusting and wanna rest too? I’ve got dried blood on my face, swollen to high hell knuckles, and haven’t slept in—forget it.”
“So let’s go back. She’s looking at us through the window. Pinky promise. I can see her up there.”
Trucks turned, but he didn’t see June in any of the windows. Most of the room lights were on. Half-drawn drapes and silhouettes of standing lamps. Nothing more.
“You don’t wanna owe people,” Trucks said.
“Huh?”
“First it’s showers and rest. Then what? What comes after?”
“A puppy?”
Trucks laughed. “No, you knucklehead. At least look at me when we’re talking. Come on.”
Claudia turned toward him. “But now I can’t see her in the window.” Claudia looked back at the rising windows of the Archibald. Her desperation made him nervous. She put one of her big-gloved hands to her brow. She scoured the building, standing on her tiptoes. “And it’s getting colder. We’ll freeze.”
“You don’t know that.”
Claudia looked at him again. “So? We still could. Come on, please?”
“I don’t know,” Trucks said. He looked at the passing cars, their headlights stabbing the dark. How many more would zip by?
“So what comes after? I don’t get it,” Claudia said.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me. I wanna know.”
“No.”
“Tell me what comes after the showers and rest.”
Deeper attachment. Connection. Disappointment. Loss. Heartbreak.
“It’s complicated.”
“Well, everything is complicated.”
“Can we make it not that way?”
“You can’t undo the way the world works.”
“What stuff can we undo?”
Trucks thought for a moment. “Just try to do everything as perfectly as possible the first go round so you don’t have to have conversations about how to undo the mistakes you’ve made.”
“Like what sorta mistakes? Are they really bad?”
“Sometimes the mistake isn’t some huge thing. Sometimes you do something simple, something stupid, like fall in love.”
“But that looks happy.”
“Yeah, well it won’t be stupid when you grow up and you do it, okay? It’s only stupid for some of us. And sometimes you make a choice or take a path or tie your life to a person and it all gets fucked up beyond your wildest imagination. And then you wonder if it’s because the world’s just set on some path of chaos or because you built up some dark karma over time. And lots of nights you lay awake wondering if you deserve these things or not. And that can really mess with you, so don’t go thinking like that.”
Claudia looked confused.
“No swears,” she said.
“Sorry. I’ll work on it. Look, I don’t know what I’m talking about, anyway. It’s late, and we’re both tired.”
“But what’s dark camera?”
“Karma.”
“It sounds like candy.”
“Well, it’s not. Some people think you build up karma over your life. The more good you do, the more good or light karma comes your way. The more bad you do—you get the idea.”
“Are we good-karma people?”
“You’re a great-karma person. I know that much.”
“But you?”
“I don’t know. Probably grayish karma.”
“What’s that?”
“We all build up a good amount of both kinds of karma. You just want the light to outweigh the dark in the end. But to outweigh it all your life would be best. There’s still hope for you to do that.”
Claudia stood there. Thinking. Then she looked up at him. “So you tried to do good a lot, but sometimes it didn’t work, and you turned gray? And then there was mistakes and Mama disappeared.”
Claudia bit the fingers of her glove.
Trucks tried to think. There was a buzz in his mind. His brain still rattled from the fist-to-noggin damage a few nights before. His girl was cold, and he needed to do right by her. So he took her by the shoulders, spun her toward the Archibald Suites, and said, “Jesus Christ, Pepper Flake, is she up in the window or not?”
June hadn’t been standing at any of the windows. Trucks and Claudia found her in the hotel lounge. She was sitting on a stool with her legs crossed, a cocktail in front of her. One of her white pumps dangled off her heel.
“A milk for the lady?” June said.
Claudia sat in the middle.
“We’re really on a budget,” Trucks said. “I’ve got some waters in here.” He pointed to their Hallowell sack.
“I’ll pay,” June said. “Problem solved.”
“Plus, it’ll help my bones,” Claudia said.
Trucks put the sack on the stool next to him.
“Can’t beat that,” June said. “Would you like a drink, Ezzard?”
Trucks paused. Then he remembered his false name.
“I don’t drink anymore.”
“We have coffee,” the bartender said. He’d seemingly come out of nowhere. “Or we can do fresh-squeezed juices, smoothies, infused teas.”
“What sorta tea?” Trucks asked.
“I can bring you a tea list.”
“No, it’s all right,” Trucks said.
“We have an organic rooibos. How about that? It’s imported from South Africa. It’s quite high in antioxidants.”
“That’s a long way to go for some tea.”
The bartender looked at June, then back to Trucks.
“I’ll try it,” Trucks said.
“Sure thing,” the bartender said. “Anything else?”
Trucks noticed some cut lemons on a saucer behind the bar.
“How about some of those lemons?” Trucks pointed. “Are they extra?”
The bartender laughed. “Not at all,” he said. He gave June an awkward smile and walked away.
“So you decided to wise up and come inside where it’s warm,” June joked.
“Apparently,” Trucks said.
“It’s freezing outside,” Claudia said. “Feel.”
Claudia put out her hands, and June held them.
“Aren’t you a little icicle!” June said.
“It’s not so bad. We didn’t have heat sometimes,” Claudia said.
“Oh,” June said. She looked at Trucks.
“We lived in a rough part of town. Sometimes when the winters got real bad with heavy snow and ice, we’d lose power. The city worked on our lines last. The poor folks, you know, don’t matter much to them.” But it wasn’t always that. Sometimes he didn’t have the money to pay the utility bill or forgot to do it. Sometimes both.
June thought for a moment. She said, “A lot of snow and ice storms in Georgia?”
Claudia looked at Trucks.
“We were in Maryland for a while,” he said.
June nodded. She rubbed Claudia’s hands real fast to warm them up. She made whooshing sounds when she did it. They smiled at each other. Like two glowing orbs.
Trucks looked at the bartender. He opened an orange tin and used a metal tea-leaf infuser to scoop out the tea. He dipped the infuser in purified water, hooked it on the edge of a fancy teacup with purple flowers painted on it, and poured in boiling water. He capped the teacup and let it sit. Claudia’s milk sat on the back bar with a straw in it.
“What’s yours?” Claudia asked June.
“It’s a Jack Rose.”
“I like it all pink. It looks pretty.”
“People don’t drink these old-time cocktails anymore,” June said. She picked up her glass and took a sip.
“How come?” Claudia asked.
“Some things just go out of style. Though, believe it or not, I live on Jack Rose Court. Imagine that. Of all the names.” She looked at Trucks.
The bartender set Claudia’s milk in front of her.
“I can make yours pink too,” the bartender said.
“Yes!” Claudia said.
The bartender held up a finger, gave her a wink, and walked away. Trucks didn’t like that the bartender could hear everything so well. The guy seemed nosey.
The bartender came back with a bottle of strawberry syrup and a small plate. He squeezed a few drops of syrup into the pale milk. Soon it was pink, and Claudia was happy. She swirled the milk with her straw. The bartender set down the small plate; it had two cherries on it. He slid the plate between Claudia and June, and they gave each other a big-eyed, open-mouthed look.
“Well, thanks a million,” June said.
“A bajillion,” Claudia said.
“My pleasure,” the bartender said. He checked on the tea, then said to Trucks, “I’ll let it steep a few more minutes.” He gave Trucks the saucer of cut lemons and walked to the end of the bar.
Claudia sipped her now-pink milk. She watched it go through the straw. Then she blew bubbles. June took a drink. Trucks looked down at his hands.
Out of nowhere, Trucks said, “I fought a guy named Jack Rose once. But he went by Holly. Everyone called him Holly Houdini because you couldn’t hit the guy. Like he was there one second, you’d step in to throw a short punch, and he’d weave under it or bob out and come off the center line and smack you in the head. In. Out. It was magic, really. It was.” Trucks looked at his tea, still sitting behind the bar. Steam rose in curls off its rim.
“What happened to him?” June asked.
“He went to train in Detroit. Won titles in three weight classes. He’s probably considered a legend by now. I only fought him that once.”
“Did you win?” Claudia asked.
Trucks laughed. “Not a chance, Pepper Flake. Not a fucking chance.”
June laughed.
“The swears,” Claudia said.
Trucks nodded. Then he said, “I surprised him with a huge left. It was the eighth round, and I could tell he was loading up on his right and hoping to take me out with it. He had all his weight on his back foot and his shoulder slightly dipped. It’s the kinda stuff you learn to watch for. Anyway, I feinted to my left, and sure enough he threw a hard overhand right. I weaved under and popped him with a power left hook to the temple. I couldn’t have thrown it any harder. It was the most devastating punch I ever threw. Holly stumbled back, but the ropes caught him. Held him up like that with his arms stretched out. It was like catching a ghost. The crowd was stunned. Hell, even I was stunned, and it took me a second to snap out of it. I saw that blood waving down his cheek. That bright red kinda brought me back to life, you know, like a bull. It put a real charge in me. He staggered off the ropes, and I went after him throwing crazy combinations that missed, one after the other. Damn, he was elusive. And I was exhausted as hell by then and didn’t catch him again after that. Not even once. Not even barely. I’m not sure too many boxers ever did touch him.”
“That’s a wild story,” June said. She pinched the stem of her glass.
“That damn ghost,” Trucks said. He shook his aching head.
Claudia had been fixed on him the whole time. Trying to take in his story. Make sense of it. She looked forward and sipped on her straw.
“Sorry about that,” the bartender said. He’d come back over from the end of the bar. “Here’s your tea, just the right temperature. Would you like anything else?”
“That’ll do,” Trucks said.
“For the ladies?”
“That’ll do,” Claudia said.
Trucks worked the kinks out of his left hand. Then he grabbed lemon after lemon, squeezing the juice into his tea. Some of the seeds came with it. No big deal. The bartender probably hated how he was ruining this first-class South African tea. Trucks didn’t care. A trainer had told him lemons were good for cleaning the liver. He trusted that. Trucks took a long sip of tea, now sour. The bartender walked off.
“How about we eat these cherries?” June said. She handed one to Claudia and took one for herself. “None for you, big guy,” June said to Trucks. “Must be ladies’ night.”
“Sure looks like it,” Trucks said.
June pinched the stem and held up her cherry to Claudia. “To new friends,” she said.
“To new friends,” Claudia said.
They bumped the little red buds against one another and ate the cherries. Then they set the dark stems on the plate.
“Well, no shit,” Trucks said, really to himself.
“What’s that?” June said.
“Just thinking out loud.”
“The swears,” Claudia said.
“Sorry,” Trucks said.
“At least your bruiseity brains are working,” Claudia said.
Trucks tapped his head.
June asked for the bill and paid with cash. Trucks gulped the rest of his tea. Then he grabbed the Hallowell sack and stood.
“Now, how about those hot showers?” June said, closing her pocketbook.
“I get to go first!” Claudia said.
“And you?” June asked Trucks.
“That’s such a nice offer with the showers, but we really don’t wanna trouble you. And you gave us a ride and bought our drinks. It’s plenty, really.”
“It’s no trouble. I’d welcome it.”
Claudia tugged on Trucks’s coat.
“All right. Let’s have her take one first, then we’ll see,” he said.
Claudia ran over and hugged June. June’s cheeks turned red from either the surprise of the hug or some kind of deep affection.
“Come on, then, curly girly,” June said, and took Claudia’s hand.
The three of them walked out of the lounge. Trucks felt the swift ache in his temple. After a few strides into the lobby he looked back at the bartender wiping down the bar top where they’d been. Trucks saw the dark cherry stems on the small plate. He thought about the last time he’d had a drink. He thought about protecting his girl. He thought about the ghost of Holly Jack Rose and wondered what the hell cherries had to do with anything.
Claudia sang in the bath. She didn’t want a shower once she saw the jacuzzi tub with the pressure jets.
“Don’t forget to wash your personals, Pepper Flake,” Trucks said through the door. Then he realized she couldn’t hear him without her hearing aids. He listened to her singing for a moment before walking away.
“She’s wonderful, you know,” June said, when he came into the room.
“Sometimes I really don’t know how she turned out like this, but I thank my lucky punches. I really do.”
June sat on a love seat in the middle of the room. It faced the king-size bed. Trucks walked over to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Saw harsh parking lot lights. The darkened interstate in the distance. No noise. That expensive, super-thick glass that keeps it all out. So dense. Like it could stop bullets.
“I know you said you don’t drink anymore, but can I get you something from the fridge? I helped myself to a beer. I craved that cocktail after the long drive, but I’m really more of a beer girl.”
Trucks looked from the window to June. She held a green bottle of imported beer. She took a drink. He fixated on how her lips wrapped around the spout. How long had it been? Jesus, how long?
“Thanks, but we have some waters still.” Trucks pointed to their sack of supplies. He’d hung it on a desk chair. Their coats were draped over the backrest. Their boots near the door. Always ready.
“You can help yourself, if you want,” June said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Trucks watched the blinking taillights of cars on the distant interstate. Like red stars moving at hyper speeds across an asphalt universe.
“You can come over here and hang out,” June said. “I’d like to hear more about your trip.”
Trucks rubbed the curtain between his fingers. Then he let go, walked over, and sat on the end of the bed. He faced June sitting on the love seat.
“Tell me about you,” Trucks said. “About your life in Sioux Falls. You’ve heard enough about us. I don’t really wanna think about our life right now.”
June looked up at the ceiling as if there was so much weight to his question. Then she leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. She held the beer with both hands and spun the bottle. Then she looked up at Trucks.
“You really want to know,” she said.
“Sure,” he said.
“I didn’t mean it as a question. I can see it in your face.”
Trucks reached up and touched around his bad eye. Felt the rough, dried blood. The seams.
June took a hand off the bottle. She reached out to Trucks. He reached back, reflexive, and took hold of her hand. They held hands for a moment. Hers so soft and warm. His cold and rough. He traced the veins on the top of her hand with his thumb. Then he let go.
“Whoa,” June said, sounding breathless. Her eyes were big and bright.
Trucks nodded. Then he stood and walked over to the bathroom door. He listened in on his girl. His body pulsed. He opened and closed his left hand, made a fist, ran his knuckles along the soft grain of the door. Trucks could hear Claudia spinning in the jacuzzi, slapping the surface of the water. Trucks wished she had friends to play with. He listened to her song and the splashing and felt the pulse in his throat. The jacuzzi engines churning. Making that low, hard hum press against everything.
He walked back to the main room. June was sitting cross-legged on the love seat. She’d put the beer on the end table and had her hands in her lap. She scratched at an invisible blemish on her dark pants. Then she looked at him.
“Do you want to sit here?” she asked.
“Okay,” he said.
He walked over and sat next to her. There was a warm static between them. Claudia’s song echoed through the hotel room.
“My husband left me this year,” June said. She really looked Trucks in the eye when she spoke. He wasn’t used to that. “He worked for Hammer-On. He started out selling guitars in one of their shops, then worked for their custom division. He sold strings, modified scratch plates, unique pickups, fancy volume knobs and saddles and selector switches, and I listened to him go on about that job for too many hours. Anyway, he made his way up to corporate. He climbed like all those other suited robots. We started drifting when he took the desk job. He stayed out later and later with his bosses and ‘the boys.’ He’d come home with scratches on his neck, smelling of Tanqueray and so many random perfumes you’d think he’d stopped every half-mile home to take a shot and mess around with some other woman. He wouldn’t even look at me, like I wasn’t something to desire or want or remotely care about. And he even said one day after an intense argument that he didn’t respect what I did, working as an art teacher, and that it wasn’t really a profession and didn’t bring in equal money. That we weren’t equal. He didn’t see any value in what I did and what I cared about. Well, no kidding my salary wasn’t going to equal his or even come close. But I get so much joy out of helping those kids finger paint and learn how to dip and dry brushes and help them tie and untie their smocks. Every day we’d spread out their little canvases and fill the vast white spaces with splashes of color and life, all those tiny hands moving so fast and learning so much so quickly. The lights of their small spirits have always made my day and urged me forward, through even the hardest moments.”
June paused. Claudia was singing. Only calm came from the window. Like there was no other sound.
“I’m totally barren,” June said.
She put a hand to her mouth.
Trucks didn’t move.
June cried hard.
Trucks didn’t know what to do. He grabbed her wrist and held on.
June shook as she cried.
“And…and even though I told him there were other options, other avenues…he…he still left me pretty soon after that,” she said.
Trucks kept holding.
June turned into him. She thrust herself into his arms and cried into his shoulder.
“There,” Trucks said. “Hey. Hey.”
He tried to imagine the last time a woman had confided in him.
June breathed heavy into his shoulder.
“I know I shouldn’t even be telling you this, a near stranger, but there it is,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It means something that you told me.”
June pulled back and looked in his eyes.
“You’re a genuine man,” she said. “You don’t know the kind of sweet you are.”
June sat back in the love seat and wiped her eyes. She grabbed the beer from the end table and took a drink. Then she said, “So just to be clear, the nice car, the huge house on Jack Rose Court, the expensive things—they’re not my lifestyle. They’re not me. They’re a part of who I tried to be to fit with who he’d become. Shit,” June said, and laughed, “his parents even had this gaudy pewter statue of a polo horse shipped to the house. It’s huge! And it’s been sitting in the backyard all year. The neighbors started complaining to each other and talking behind my back about how I needed to get rid of it because it’s such an eyesore to the neighborhood and might bring down their property values. But it’s his silly eyesore of a horse, not mine, and if they want to get rid of it so badly then they can call him up and have him do something about it, or they can pay to have the damn thing hauled out of there. Like I care.”
June gripped the bottle like she was trying to shatter it.
Trucks let her breathe. He let the frustration flow out of her.
Then he calmly said, “Or you could take a torch and melt it down. Turn it into a stream of lava. A hot-orange moat around the house. That’d really piss them off.”
June spit out a little beer and wiped it from her chin. “And keep them out. I like the thought of that.”
They looked at each other. They were at ease. It made him turn inside.
Claudia stopped singing. Trucks stood and walked toward the bathroom. June tipped the green bottle back for the last sip of beer. Midway through her swig, Trucks was back. He got on a knee, kissed his thumb, and ran it over her eyebrow. Then he traced his fingertip along her temple, down her cheek, and brushed his fingernails along her neck.
“I’m really sorry about everything,” he whispered. “About being barren and that dickhead husband. I’ve seen the way you light up my little girl’s world. I’m thankful for it. And you’re right, there are other avenues. And you’ll seek them and have them. This shit never should have happened to you, any of it. And all I can offer is the bond of knowing what it’s like to be left, and you never deserved that. I know you know what you are. You know your worth. I can see it. You’re not broken by this. You won’t ever be. I’ve got so many breaks inside me, I wouldn’t ever want you to see them.” Trucks looked at the floor. “I wouldn’t want anyone to see.” Trucks looked up at June. “Some things are unmendable. But you. You’ve got all this buried potential left. It’s deep down in there, and you’ll keep reaching. You’ll find it. And you’ll see all that good inside you. The real good.”
Claudia called out again from the bathroom. He could hear her splashing.
“That’s what I’ve got left,” he said. “That’s all my good right there, waiting for me in the other room.”
Nighttime over Kadoka. Population: 690. All quiet.
The strips of interstate were clear.
The Archibald Suites parking lot was lit in a casted white from hovering streetlamps.
Up three floors.
June turned off the light. She clicked on a small lamp that gave a negligible glow. She stared out the window into the winter night. Unbuttoned her blouse. Took off her itchy bra. She slid her tight pants down. Kept her panties on. Put on wool socks. June looked at her reflection in the window. Pushed her breasts together. Let them drop. She grabbed her hips and squeezed. Dug her nails in before putting on a big nightshirt. She laid down on the too-big bed. Took the far edge of it. Away from the window.
Across the room.
The door slightly ajar. The bathroom steamed up. Claudia had already pulled her pajamas from the radiator and put them on. Trucks took strands of her hair and gently dried them on a towel. Then tugged on the pink cuffs of her pajamas, still snug around her ankles. Wiggled her toes between his fingers. Stuck out his tongue. Trucks put the toilet cover down and sat Claudia on the seat. Brushed her hair with his fingers. Cleaned her ears with complimentary swabs from a small dish. Used his wipes to sanitize her hearing aids, then gently hooked one to each ear. Tested the volume. Lightly pressed her cheeks. Held her by the shoulders. Face to face. And told her what had to be done.
They’d all lain down together. June on the side of the bed near the door, Trucks on the side near the window, Claudia in the middle. And it was nice like that for a while. A kind of peace to the beats of their near bodies at rest.
Hours had passed. June was out from the drinks. Trucks put on his workman’s coat. He got down on his knees and helped Claudia into her coat and the oversized gloves as quietly as possible. The zipping and snapping could wait. Their sack of supplies was out in the hallway. The hotel room door cracked open.
“It’s time,” Trucks whispered.
Claudia was crying.
Trucks moved to get up. Claudia grabbed his arm.
“Why?” she said.
Trucks put a finger to his lips. He gave her a stern look. They were at the end of the bed.
“But why?” she whispered.
June rolled in her sleep. She spoke gibberish. Trucks put his hand over Claudia’s mouth. They stayed like that for a while. A streak of moonlight coming through the window.
June let out a long breath, clearly lost in a dream.
Trucks took his hand from Claudia’s mouth. They looked in each other’s eyes. He wiped Claudia’s tears with his thumbs. She pushed his hands away. Trucks felt sick. But he’d be sick no matter what they did, and this is what he’d chosen. He knew no other way.
Trucks put a finger to his lips again. He stood and nodded toward the door. Claudia looked away. Trucks put a hand on her shoulder. Then Claudia reached out and squeezed June’s foot. He allowed her this.
Seconds went by. Seconds like minutes to a man always going.
Soon Claudia relented. She had to. She let go and walked with Trucks out into the harsh yellow light of the hallway. Trucks gently closed the door. He pulled a note from his pocket, like a lead weight in his hand, and slipped it under the door. With his back turned, Claudia ran down the long hall, tearing across the burgundy carpet. Its navy diamond pattern flashing between footfalls. She slammed through the exit door. Ran down the stairwell.
Something about her ferocious running made Trucks feel a spark of pride. He followed fast, the Hallowell sack swinging from his wrist.
He caught her in the parking lot and turned her around. Dropped the sack. Pulled her into his body. They embraced under the lights of the parking lot. Their gray breaths rolling out in the cold.
Trucks stepped back. They were slightly huffing from the run. The wind whipped their faces. Cried out. Called to them. They had to keep moving.
Trucks got down on a knee and zipped Claudia’s coat. Then he pulled on her hood and buttoned her throat flaps. He picked up the sack, stood, and tied it through his beltloop. Then he scooped Claudia off the ground. She made no attempt to resist. So Trucks secured her in his arms and trudged toward the interstate through the snow-packed night. Each step a shockwave. Each movement putting him further from one fear and closer to another.
He couldn’t hear Claudia’s cries over the warm thrum in his head. But he could feel the vibrations of her sadness. His heart beating into his throat, that metallic taste he knew too well. Claudia dug into his arm. His girl releasing that deep anger of loss she’d come to know too well. He felt her looking back over his shoulder with each footfall, imagined her eyes darting, desperately watching the iced-over hotel windows for any sign of movement, for any bit of life.
He carried his girl down the shoulder of I-90. The slaps of wind meant little. Hadn’t he felt worse, taking so much fist-to-bone punishment all his life? He had. Of course. He had.
Whenever he heard the soft thunder of an engine, he’d stick out his thumb but resist looking back. They’d stop for him and his girl. Or they wouldn’t. His beaten, ugly face would change nothing. This late in the night, his girl on his shoulder might mean nothing too. People felt anonymity in the dark. No obligation to man or pain or misfortune.
He trudged on.
West of town he could see the beginning of the Badlands. At first sight of them, he said, “Those Black Hills.” But that wasn’t right. They weren’t there. And then he said, “You up, Pepper Flake?” His teeth were chattering. “You awake, little thing? You doing okay?”
She moved slightly. She said nothing.
A rumble. A car coming. He put out his thumb toward the road. The shine of lights grew wider on the pavement. The car zoomed on.
“You motherfucker!” he yelled. His teeth chattered hard. His head throbbed.
Trucks was thankful for his thick winter boots. For her small white ones. And the wool socks he was sweating through. His bare hands were cold. He’d pulled his sweatshirt sleeve ends over his hands. He should have lifted some gloves from somewhere. He really hadn’t thought it all out like he should have. At least Claudia was warm in his big gloves.
When he was too tired to carry her, he’d set her down, get on a knee, pull her in close. She’d mumble about being cold and tired. He’d say he knew. He wouldn’t tell her he hadn’t slept for days. Not even in the bed when they were all three laying in the hotel room. That he’d just stared at the ceiling at the moonlight cutting in as he listened to their sleeping breaths. Instead of talk, he’d open the throat flaps of her coat, his hands shaking, and blow out all the hot air he had in him. Right onto her cold, delicate skin. Then he’d button the coat up quick. Take off her big gloves. Rub his hands over hers as fast as possible. Blow hot air into the gloves and put them back on her. Rub her shoulders and back and legs with all the energy he had left. Anything to get his girl warm. To keep them moving.
He didn’t know how far they’d gone. Several cars had passed. Claudia hung off his shoulder, tired of clinging on. Her weight immense after so much walking in the elements. The dead of night. All the cold it brings.
Trucks was exhausted. He’d trained for years. Hard physical and mental endurance the likes of which most men would never experience. All that breaking and blood loss and the sting of splitting skin. But he was older now, and he ached through all the parts of himself. Even his spirit was hurting with the cost of disappointing his girl and leaving yet another person behind.
Trucks fell to a knee and nearly dropped Claudia. He didn’t hear her make a sound. But he got back up and kept walking.
His thoughts came and went like sharp echoes. Berating him for taking his girl away from the warmth. The hotel. The children’s home. Had she been better off without him? No. No. He could barely think of it. It was together or it was nothing. He’d promised her this. The bitter cold could not outlast him.
“We’re near the Badlands,” he said to break the thoughts. “That’s what they call them. I can see them out there in the distance.”
He looked at Claudia on his shoulder. Pulled back her hood a little. She was out. Eyes shut tight. Mouth hanging open.
Trucks pulled her hood forward and turned to look back down the interstate. He didn’t see any lights. He expected there weren’t any for miles. He turned back. Walked on. Watched his breath go out. And out. And out. He felt the ache in his knees. His shoulders. His lower back.
“I’ll tell you about them sometime. The big ridges.”
Trucks stumbled but kept his footing.
“Way back out there. Way back. They’re—”
He stumbled again. Feeling dizzy.
“They have. Out there. The hills.”
He stopped. Such a rush to his head. His girl cold and limp in his arms. Starlight against the deep black, bursting galaxies in his eyes.
Trucks woke in the backseat of a large pickup. Claudia was tucked under his arm, sleeping against him, her back to his chest. They were wrapped in heavy wool blankets and sweating. It was bright out.
Trucks leaned on his elbow and raised up. He looked at the driver in the rearview. The driver fixed his eyes on him.
“It good to be back among the living?” the driver asked.
Trucks was groggy. He didn’t know what to say.
“You crazy son-of-a-bitch,” the driver whispered. He darted his eyes between Trucks and the road. “I was praying you two wouldn’t be goners.”
“What happened?”
“You don’t remember talking to me?”
“Where are we?”
“You two were passed out beside the road. Christ, you’re lucky you didn’t freeze to death. Or somebody didn’t roll over you, just laying there like cold carcasses.”
“I remember carrying her through the snow. Looking at the big hills.” Trucks breathed deep. His head was killing him. He was hot and exhausted. Claudia was still breathing heavy beside him.
“Gerald,” the man said. “But you probably don’t remember my name.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry. My head’s pounding.”
“You’re lucky I keep a water jug and blankets in my pickup all winter, otherwise I’d have taken you to the hospital like I wanted. You kept hollering when I told you I was gonna take you there to get the two of you checked out.”
“I did?” Trucks looked down at Claudia. She breathed deep. Her eyes shut. The lids fluttering.
“You kept saying they’d take your daughter away. You scooped her outta the seat and stumbled down the middle of the interstate, you crazy bastard.”
Trucks shook his head. He reached behind Claudia’s uncovered ear and clicked off the hearing aid.
“So what’s your real name?” Gerald asked.
“What’d I say it was?”
“Lenny. Then Alexander. Then some weird one. Buzzard or something. Heck if I can remember. What a wild night.”
“Our things. What about our things?”
Gerald pointed to the passenger seat. “I scraped together as much as I could find. Most of it spilled outta the bag, I assume when you passed out. The rice cakes are smashed or left out on the tundra. The crows are having a nice breakfast. I found a couple waters. Jar of peanut butter. Soap. Stuff like that. I don’t remember. And there wasn’t a wallet or any money in there. So don’t try to claim I robbed you. There was nothing in that torn-up bag but food and sundries. And you’ll need to get new toothbrushes. Those are done for.”
“Thank you. Really,” Trucks said.
“I wonder if I should have just taken you to the hospital, but you didn’t seem to have hypothermia, and you got so damn edgy and desperate when I suggested it. Kept yelling about how they’d take her. What’d you do? You a criminal?”
“Well? What then?”
“I’m not a criminal. It’s just a custody issue. Nothing more than that. I’m behind on a few payments, but I’m gonna make good. I just need some time.”
“Well, okay,” Gerald said. “It’s not my business. Thank goodness I found you when I did. Wonder how long you were laying out there.”
“I don’t wanna know,” Trucks said. He looked down at his girl.
“So what do I call you? And here.” Gerald handed Trucks a wax cup of water from his cupholder.
“Ezzard,” Trucks said.
“Buzzard, Blizzard, Ezzard. I was close.”
“You were.”
Trucks drank the water. He thought he’d just sip it, but he couldn’t control himself. He chugged it all. He gave Gerald the wax cup and asked for more. After his second cup, Trucks asked, “Where are we headed?”
“Crow Agency. Nearly there, actually. I was hoping you’d wake before we got there. Boy, this would have been a hell of a story to tell my wife if she was still around.” Gerald swallowed hard.
“Oh.”
“She never did like me picking up hitchers, but I guess you two wouldn’t really count.”
“I guess not.”
Something had shifted in Gerald’s voice. Trucks tried to look out the windows. The morning light was bright and harsh. He saw everything in hazy pinks. Like he’d just come in from the snow.
“So we’re nearing the state line?” Trucks asked.
“Which one?”
“South Dakota.”
Gerald laughed.
“What?”
“Already crossed two state lines.”
“Shit.”
“Sure did.”
“Which ones?”
“Went into Wyoming and up through Montana now. Like I said, nearing Crow Agency.”
Trucks looked around like it would accomplish anything.
Claudia didn’t move.
Trucks rubbed Claudia’s back. She was still out. He leaned down and whispered to her anyway. “Keep sleeping, Pepper Flake. Get all the rest you can.”
“You said you were heading west,” Gerald said.
Trucks looked up. “Yeah, Nevada.”
Gerald smiled and slapped the wheel. “Oh boy. You didn’t say anything about Nevada. Must have been that ice brain you had going on.”
“This really isn’t good.”
“Hey, nothing wrong with Montana. You’re looking to get a new start with your daughter, right?”
“That’s the idea.”
Gerald turned his head around to look Trucks in the eye.
“Then if you’re doing what’s right for her, what’s in her best interest, I’m telling you, Montana’s a great place to be.” He turned back to watch the road. “Fresh air. Trails. Farms. Fishing. Rivers. Family outings. Barbecues. Ranches. Shooting ranges. Cattle. That big old sky you always read about in the outdoor magazines.”
Trucks let it all sink in.
“You said you were changing your life. You told me last night. You said you were heading toward better. And if I can be frank here, you sure as heck didn’t seem to know where the hell better was or how to get there.”
“I guess I deserve that.”
“Look, you’re in Montana already. Maybe twenty minutes to go until we reach my acreage. I’d be all right with you and your daughter staying a few nights. I’m sixty-eight, Mr. Ezzard. I’m not young. I’m not all that old, either. But that sure as shit wasn’t something smart, whatever you were doing out there. And you’re the adult. You’re the man. You’re the father. It’s your fault as high as fault rises. Maybe this is all you can offer her. Maybe this is the best you can do. But being dead doesn’t do none of you any good. I can offer warmth, some meals, open land for your daughter to play in, and maybe some coffee and a view and some log-splitting repayment for saving your hide. I mean no offense. Know that. I’d like to see you both be well and good, and I’m not sure I can just drop you off somewhere and call myself a good man for taking you west a few hours. So that’s the deal. Take it or don’t. That’s what I can offer.”
Gerald turned and stuck his open hand between the seats.
Trucks paused. Still delirious. Still trying to comprehend. The night, the day, his pounding head, his girl quiet beside him.
“Jesus, son, shake it or shit on it, I’ve got a road to watch.”
They were in the sun room. Gerald brought Trucks a glass of water and sat beside him at the little oak table. He had a coffee on the table. Trucks took a drink of the cold water. It hurt his throat. The two of them looked out the big windows at the frozen-over acreage. The hills banked. The crisscrossed wooden fences carried a thin layer of snow. The horse barn was empty and hollow and dark. Its doors, for whatever reason, open to the elements.
“I should check on her again,” Trucks said.
“She’s doing fine. Relax,” Gerald said. He blew on his coffee. “Keep that blanket wrapped around you and take your time warming up. Your daughter’s got a fever. It’s not hypothermia, at least. What’d you expect dragging her out in the snow in these conditions? Wearing pajamas, of all things. But she’ll be all right. She’s young. Kids are resilient.”
Trucks thought of Claudia tucked in the bed. The quilt to her chin. Her curly hair dark and wet against the bedsheets.
“I know I fucked up, all right? You don’t have to keep reminding me.”
Gerald took a sip. “Well,” he said. Then he didn’t say anything else.
“Well, what?”
“You’re right. I’ve made enough of it. It’s not something I’ll bring up again. She looks a bit like one of my granddaughters, that’s all. They might be resilient, but they’re still delicate. People are only thick as skin. It don’t last. That innocence dies quick. I imagine if you’ve been living like this a while, she hasn’t got any left. Or much.”
“She’s got some.”
“I suppose she probably does.”
“She does.”
“You’re probably right.”
Gerald took another sip. Trucks finished his water and stared out the window at the frozen hills.
Gerald said, “I’m just sharper about things now. Coarser. It’s what happens when you get older. You see all the mistakes you made and fences you didn’t mend. All you wanna do is protect things. No more harm or hurt or wrongdoing. It’s what you strive for. The younger you are, the busier you are. It’s the busy that keeps you from thinking. Keeps you from worrying so much about what the world wants. When you’re young it’s all about what you want. What you desire. What you don’t have time for.”
Trucks opened and closed his left hand under the table.
“My wife, Maddie, used to say I needed to learn to stop ranting at people.”
“I deserve it,” Trucks said.
“It’s not about deserve. This isn’t about judgment and punishment. There’s just a sick girl in there, and we’re working out the problems of the world in here. It’s what you do in the sun room. It’s what I built it for. Look around. Couple chairs, the table, some plants and flower pots. When it’s too damn cold to go out there in the fields, you wait in here behind the glass. Not so different. Except you can’t hear the wind the way I like. It feels artificial, you know, behind that glass. But it’s got its uses.”
“Protects,” Trucks said.
“The main use.”
“Sure.”
“You know a lot about it.”
“I think so.”
“Good.”
Gerald held his coffee against his big belly. He felt his beard with his free hand. Twisted a grip of scruff.
“So what’s your trade?” Gerald asked.
“Boxing.”
“Ah. What’s your weight class?”
“Welter to light-heavy. I move around a lot.”
“You can pick up more action that way.”
“You sound like you know.”
“I boxed through my teens,” Gerald said. He leaned forward, set his coffee down, and showed Trucks his knuckles. Shaved down, crooked. His right hand swollen on the outside where a punch had landed wrong and the break never set right. Trucks could read his knuckles like a rough map.
“How’d you do?” Trucks asked.
“I did all right. No record to brag about. Got my bell rung a lot, but that’s no unique story. I grew up out in Moscow, Idaho. You ever been?”
Trucks shook his head.
“For a while we had some youth violence problems. Some real troublemakers. I was part of the problem. Around that time some progressive contemplative nuns moved into our college town and turned the old roller rink into a commune for the Sisters of St. Agnes of Latah County. They set out to solve the youth problem by starting a boxing club, of all things.”
“No shit,” Trucks said.
“I boxed in that club for years. It helped a lot of us rural kids with too much time and pent-up aggression. If we were gonna be violent or destructive, might as well learn to harness it and release that energy in a controlled space with a new skill. Not out there on the streets making life worse for everyone.”
Gerald grabbed his coffee and took a sip. Trucks slid his glass over the oak table, back and forth between his hands.
“You think the boxing helped you?” Gerald asked. “Like some kind of saving grace?”
Trucks leaned back in the chair. He folded his arms and thought about it. Had the boxing saved him? Or was it just about the movement in the ring? Could it have been anything that combined skill, grace, concentration, precision, and raw power? Had it chosen him? Had he chosen it? Or was it about something else? Punishment, maybe.
“I wouldn’t call it that,” Trucks said. “What did it save me from? Where did it lead me? I don’t know. This is the only life I’ve had. It’s all I know and all I understand. If I could go back and look at the other paths, see where they went, then I’d know if it saved me somehow from a worse life. But maybe it stopped me from finding something better too. You can’t really know with these kinds of things.” Trucks paused. “But look, I’m not going down that road. It’s too long and dark and full of regrets and could haves and things that don’t make your mind right. I’ve spent so many years hustling just to get to this place, and it’s okay enough. And maybe I can come clean for my girl and quit the boxing. Think of it like an oath. I don’t know. It’s been rattling around in there for a while. Like maybe I could take up other things. Like I could figure it out. But the only thing I know for sure is as long as I’m doing okay and I’ve got my girl, then everything’s right with the world and whatever I’m capable of being or doing.”
Trucks stared out the window. The whole time he’d expected to see movement. An arc of flying birds. But it was still out there. Cold and still and heavy white.
“I get you,” Gerald said. “Where you’re coming from. I’ve not been to your places, but your cloth isn’t cut so far from mine. Don’t fool yourself about that. And you talk a lot about your daughter. It’s clear how much you care for her. How much you’ve sacrificed. I can see that. Any idiot could see that in your eyes.”
Trucks shook off the blanket, stood, and walked to the windows. His back to Gerald.
“Not trying to offend,” Gerald said.
“It’s all right,” Trucks said.
“I wanted to ask about the mother. You don’t say any—”
“The ride here. You’d said something about splitting wood. You got wood to split?”
“Well, sure. I’ve got wood to split, but you should really rest. You two were so zonked out on that highway. Cold as clams. I think you should get that blanket back on and sleep.”
“I’d like to do some of that work. I owe you. Let me work it off.”
“I know my body. It’ll hold. Where do you keep your axes?”
“In the shed near the horse barn, but—”
“What kind of axes do you keep?”
“Splitting mauls, felling axes, Hudson Bays.”
“You got a go-devil?”
“Last time I checked.”
“Good.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll sweat it out. It’ll be okay.”
Gerald swished his coffee. “Okay’s pretty damn relative,” he said.
Trucks took measure on the next log. Axe out. Arms steady. Feeling the grip of the handle. Then he lifted the axe overhead. Brought it down in a swift movement.
Thunk.
Split another clean piece off. Then he sliced the halves into quarters.
He’d been at it over an hour and went through nearly all the unsplit wood. Not because he had the energy—he was exhausted—but because he had so much intensity to release.
Trucks set another log on the chopping block. His muscles were sore. He felt the ache of that old left hand he’d thrown so many times. The sting of it felt good in a way. He was so used to clenching his hands inside his boxing gloves that grasping the handle felt like a piece of home he’d left behind.
He set the axe on the log. Took measure. Focused. Raised.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Trucks was sweaty from all the work. Winter or not, he took off his workman’s coat and tossed it on the woodpile. It was covered by a dark tarp to keep off the snow except where Trucks had peeled it back to stack the cut wood. He leaned the go-devil against the chopping block and picked the split pieces from the ground, then added them to the woodpile.
Trucks grabbed his collar and shook out his shirt. Then he walked away from the pile, out into the open snow. A soft orange glow came from behind the gray clouds. The arches of the hills reached up to the big sky.
The movement called to him. He ached without it.
Trucks threw a jab with his left, bobbed under a phantom right cross, and followed with a hook.
Pah-pah.
He circled. Stepped with grace on his toes. His footwork and movement feeling foreign in the heavy winter boots and unfamiliar snow.
Another incoming straight. Trucks slipped, weaved under. Slid out of range.
Trucks stepped in. Threw a combination—jab-cross-hook.
Pah-pah-pah.
He watched his breath float between punches, then slipped out again.
Found his distance.
Threw the jumping lead hook.
Pah.
And back out again. Trucks circled. Feinted in. Popped out.
Pah. Pah-pah-pah.
Trucks rolled his shoulder. Dodged a cross. Bobbed. Weaved. Bobbed. Circled out.
He thought about his girl sweating under that thick quilt.
His boots went whoosh-whoosh in the snow.
Countered with an uppercut. Followed with a double jab.
Pah. Pah-pah.
Kept that motherfucker off.
Another barrage incoming. Trucks used his footwork. Head movement. Reminded himself that he didn’t fear tired.
His girl was sleeping. She didn’t feel well. But she’d be well again soon. They’d be back.
He threw that classic one-two. Jab to right cross.
Pah-pah.
Got his distance. Breath coming out like hot smoke. Measured. Feet churning. He was making pictures in the snow.
Rolled the shoulder. Head under. Parried. Parried. Wove. Spun out.
Jab. Jab. Straight. Jab. Flurry.
Pah-pah. Pah. Pah. Pah-pah-pah-pah.
And now he was losing breath. Was it the altitude? All that chopping? It was hard to keep his hands up. His chin tucked. He knew he was fading.
Pah-pah.
He had to keep going.
Slipped. Rolled. Got out.
Pah. Pah-pah. Pah.
He was alive, hearing his breath like that. The blood in his throat. The shake of his shoulders. His fists balled and striking. The grit of his nails digging into his palms.
Circled. Circled. Pushed away. Kept out of the clinch.
Pah. Pah.
Sidestepped.
Pah.
He was cramping up. His head hot. The sweat rolling off him in the bitter morning. His body going on instinct, his mind working only in images.
He’d go inside and see her soon. But now. Now was his.
A few more punches.
Pah-pah. Pah.
Parried. Parried. Lean-in uppercut.
Pah.
A few more movements.
Pah-pah.
Trucks walked the phantom down with a darting reach.
Pah-pah-pah.
Lighting him up. Furious punches. A blur of fists and spit. To the head. The body. Head. Body. Left. Right. Bam. Bam. Bam.
The people in the bingo hall would cheer with such a wall-thumping echo. He could hear it in a haze. They’d call out. They’d say his name. His girl would be there. She’d be big-eyed smiling and clapping. He could really see her there with the heavy ring lights above. All the radiant white. And he could see this and that and that and that. But all he could hear now was the whir of the blazing wind. The whoosh of his boots. The hisses of gray breath as his punches rolled out.
Pah-pah. Pah-pah-pah-pah.
She’d see him bleeding in that ring years down the road. His hand raised. Understand what he’d given his life to. Know that he mattered out in that gritty world in some way. That he’d made something for them and done good by her. And maybe it would happen then. On that day when she saw him bleeding in the ring a winner. When she looked up at his busted face through the coiled ropes. Thinking father. Thinking proud. Maybe it didn’t have to be something he imagined. Maybe it could really happen like that.
Trucks wore some of Gerald’s clothes as he sat in a chair beside the guest bed, watching over Claudia. He didn’t feel like himself in the corduroy pants and black-and-red-checkered flannel. But Gerald had offered to throw their clothes in the wash, and Trucks couldn’t say no. They hadn’t cleaned or changed their clothes in days.
Gerald appeared in the doorway.
Trucks looked up.
“I think she’ll be out for a while,” Gerald said. “Why don’t you come have some supper?”
“How long, do you think? How long will she be like this?”
“Through the night, I’d guess.”
Trucks looked back to Claudia.
“I’ve seen worse,” Gerald said. “So much worse. Trust that your little one’s going to be glowing again soon.”
Gerald’s words didn’t soothe Trucks. He looked over his girl, pulled tight into the covers. Her head was off to one side. Her cheeks pale.
Trucks waited for Gerald to leave the room.
Then he put his forehead on the bed and cried into the sheets.
Trucks hadn’t eaten meat in a while. With trying to pay off all his debts to get Claudia back, he couldn’t afford it. He’d subsisted off sweet potatoes and black beans for so long. Now he had a tender cut of elk in front of him, and it didn’t feel satisfying.
“How many pieces you gonna cut that into before you take a bite?” Gerald asked.
“Not trying to be rude,” Trucks said. “I just can’t get this off my mind.”
“We need to get you thinking about something else. You want some more tea?”
Gerald stood and took the pitcher of tea from the counter. He brought it over and refilled Trucks’s glass.
“At least you’re keeping hydrated,” Gerald said.
Trucks spun the glass a few times. Looked at the faded flower patterns. He felt the etchings with his fingertips. Traced them. “These are nice,” he said. “The glasses.”
“They were handed down in my wife’s family. They’re a lot older than you’d think. I used to just let them sit up in the cupboards, fearing one of the grandkids would drop them when visiting. But I figured, why the hell have them if you’re not gonna use them, right? Besides, Maddie always loved using the glasses and the matching plates. It reminded her of her parents, her grandparents. All those old people she was used to. Now it brings me memories of her. The more I can touch things she touched…shit, I don’t know.”
“It’s a nice thing,” Trucks said.
Gerald cut a piece of elk and ate it. He chewed and looked out the window. He was wearing flannel too.
“Can I ask where she is?” Trucks said.
“My wife?”
“Yeah.”
“Out in the flower fields over the ridge. You can see them just beyond where you were splitting that wood today. Though no flowers are growing now, obviously. Come spring they’re impossible to miss.”
“Must be something,” Trucks said.
“Hey, thanks again for your labor. I do appreciate it. You handled that axe with class.” Gerald took another bite. He kept his elbow on the table, the fork lifted.
“Buried?” Trucks asked.
“What’s that?”
“She’s buried out there?”
“Sprinkled, more like it. She wanted to be cremated and have the ashes taken where it suited me best. So I put her out with all the beautiful flowers, where she belongs. The whole of her scattered among colorful petals and white roots. There’s something nice about that. Honorable.” Gerald looked out the window again. “God dammit, I loved her so much.”
Trucks looked over Gerald’s face. His lip quivering. A sadness in his eyes, like the memory was heavy on him. Trucks picked up his glass and took a drink. He thought about his girl in bed, how just before dinner he’d held her wrist and felt the blinking pulse, just to be sure.
“Can I ask how you lost her?” Trucks said.
Gerald laughed. “What a funny way to put it.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Gerald set his fork down. Put his hands behind his head, his fingers interlocked. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes.
“Asphyxiation,” Gerald said.
“Oh,” Trucks said.
“She had this rare disorder called Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. Not many people have it. It came and went, but when it came, it came hard. She’d throw up for hours, and her throat would get raw and red. The docs had no idea what triggered it, and when it came on, all you could do was hope it’d subside. About three years ago, I was out working the fields and came in for lunch. It was odd she hadn’t called for me, and I couldn’t find her on the porch or in the living room. I went into the bedroom and saw her on the floor. She’d been taking a nap in our bed, I guess, and had an episode. She threw up in her sleep and choked on the vomit. I think she probably tried to fight it and ended up on the floor. She was just lying there turning stiff, all blue and gone. An awful fucking sight. Just pure awful.”
Neither of them spoke for a while. Trucks looked down at his plate. Gerald opened his eyes and sat up straight. Took a sip of tea. Then he folded his hands on the table.
“I’m really sorry,” Trucks finally said.
“I appreciate it,” Gerald said. He looked ahead at nothing.
“That’s real devastation,” Trucks said.
“We all have our versions of it,” Gerald said.
“That’s right,” Trucks said.
Gerald looked at Trucks.
“I can tell you’ve known a good deal of loss,” Gerald said.
“I don’t wanna get into it.”
Trucks opened and closed his bad hand.
“Nobody’s saying you have to.”
“You asked about her mama this morning, and maybe I could tell you about that. I’ve probably needed to tell someone.”
“Sure, if it feels right. I wasn’t trying to pry earlier.”
Trucks looked up at the ceiling. Thick wooden beam supports crossed overhead. Raffers.
“She worked the corners around the bingo hall where the boxing matches were. Lots of local guys in the crowd all jacked up on adrenaline and blood and the rush of violence. There’s nothing they wanted more after watching a few slugfests than to break someone’s jaw or go and get off. It was easy for Elle to pick out any guy she wanted and screw him in the alley for a quick twenty. In the winter she’d come inside during the fights to get out of the cold and see if she could hook a guy. One night she caught one of my fights. Said she was so hung up on watching me in the ring that for several rounds she didn’t even think about the dicks she should have been pulling. She just watched me move and work my punches. I guess she liked my vibe in the ring. That’s how she put it. But I didn’t meet her that night. It was a few months later after a big fight I had with Sammy Brunson out of Waukesha. The ref called the fight after only two rounds because of a deep cut I’d opened over Sammy’s right eye. Think I caught him flush with a cross, then clipped him with the butt of my glove on a hook. I think he got cut open by the shit tape job on the glove more than anything. Poor kid. But anyway, it wasn’t much of a fight, so some of the boys tossed a robe on me, and we went down the block to this dive called the Silver Saint. We took stools at the bar, and I popped open the robe. I still had on my trunks and knuckle tape, but nobody gave a shit. You still with me?”
“Following,” Gerald said.
“So the boys ordered pitchers of Milwaukee’s Best and some shots of well gin.”
Gerald looked disgusted.
“What?” Trucks said.
“Might as well drink paint thinner.”
“It was all we could afford, and a drink was a drink back then.”
“I sure get that,” Gerald said, a look on his face as if he’d known that life.
“So it was just me and the boys drinking and having a good time. Celebrating my big stoppage. After a while, the boys were pretty cockeyed and popping coins into the juke box, trying to get some of the girls to dance. But I was never a dancer. They tried to drag me out there in my sweaty trunks, pulled me by the arms, but I stayed on my stool and kept filling up my glass from the pitchers. So I’m sitting at the end of the bar watching the guys, and out of nowhere this girl appears beside me. Midtwenties, big green eyes, and all this long, dark, curly hair. She had on a tight red leather jacket and a black miniskirt. I asked how she was, and she played with the collar of my robe. Said she caught the fight and wanted to congratulate me. I thought it was a setup by the boys or something, but I looked around, and they were all busy trying to talk up girls around the bar. I moved some coats off the stool next to me, and she sat down and crossed her legs and took a drink outta my beer. Didn’t even ask. There was always fire like that in her. And how she looked up at me with the beer in her hand and her eyes all big, this electric wave coming from her and into me. It makes my stomach turn just thinking about it, just telling you the story.”
“Even now?” Gerald said.
“People don’t have many life-changing moments, do they?”
“I suppose not.”
“I know I haven’t,” Trucks said. He picked up his fork and ate the last few pieces of meat. The elk was cold and soft. He chewed and pictured Elle looking at him with those green eyes. How she’d tilt her head and run her fingers through her curls. He’d seen Claudia do it too. Like one of those things that just passes through blood.
“Well, go on, if you like. I didn’t mean to stop you,” Gerald said.
“It’s just something I haven’t thought about in a long time.”
Trucks set his fork down and ran his fingers over his knuckles.
“We can save the rest for another time, then, if you don’t feel up to it now,” Gerald said. “Maybe it’s not the right time to talk about it just yet.”
Gerald stood and gathered his plate and glass. He took them over to the sink and set them on the counter. He put a stopper in the drain and turned on the faucet until the sink was half full. Then he set the dishes in the still water.
It was late in the night. Trucks sat on the floor against the wall. He listened to his girl sleep. He counted punches in his mind, thought about combinations and striking distance. The things he could control.
He tried to distract himself. Rubbed the carpet. Felt the rough glide of it. Pinched little strands between his thumb and middle finger. Every time Claudia twitched or moved or her breathing pattern changed, Trucks would stand and go to her. Hover over the bed like a helpless ghost. He’d touch her chest. Feel the soft beat. Kiss his thumb and run it over her eyebrow. Tell her how sorry he was. Just how fucking sorry. Then he’d sit against the wall again. Exhale. Stare at his knees.
He was back in his old clothes, now clean. Claudia’s hung over a chair in the corner of the room. Trucks stood and went over and picked them off the chair. He folded the pajama shirt and set it on the seat. Picked up the bottoms and felt the soft fabric at the cuff. Ran his fingers over the material. Squeezed hard. He folded the bottoms and set them on top of the shirt.
Trucks walked over to his workman’s coat hanging on the door handle. He dug through the pockets and grabbed his sachet of antibacterial wipes and a small quarter-full hotel shampoo bottle. He went back to Claudia’s bedside and sat on the floor against the wall. He leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling. The moonlight striking in a light blue. He wondered what it was like to reach such distant places.
He opened the sachet and brought it to his nose. Took a big inhale—gardenia. Claudia had noticed how much it smelled like her mama. Because all Elle ever wore was gardenia perfume. He’d have thought a hooker would have picked something less floral. Less intimate. Opt instead for the kind of smell that would bring on a hard mustang. Not a scent that he’d always remember. That he couldn’t let go. And he’d planned to tell Claudia what it was so she’d know her mama smelled of gardenias all the time. That he’d bought a few gardenia plants and carefully taken apart the buds and stems until he had enough petals to cover the entire surface of Elle’s bathwater. That he’d drawn a bath for her and sifted the flower petals across the top. Lit soft candles. Waited for her to come back to the old rowhouse they’d rented near the train tracks in Klakanouse. Claudia only four years old at the time, asleep on a pile of blankets in their one shared room. And he waited. And waited. And paced. And waited. And rubbed his knuckles. And waited. Stood for hours fixed at the frigid window. His busted hand on the frame. Whispers of wind coming through the gaps. His broken heart wishing all her excuses weren’t lies. That she really was getting hung up at the diner. Working doubles. Covering shifts for sick coworkers. Staying late to wipe down the tabletops and stools and condiment bottles. That she wasn’t working the streets again. Blowing some banker in his car. Tugging a dick in a phone booth. Taking it in the ass in the alley behind the convenience store. Spending that moll cash on crushed-up pills she nabbed off forged scrips. Claudia’s food and doctor money going up Elle’s crooked nose. That nose he’d kiss each night before bed when she actually came back. Her breath smelling like cock and Jack and cigarettes when she forgot to mask it. When she didn’t pop a gob of toothpaste in her mouth and swish it before she came home.
Trucks was getting worked up. His heart raced. He set the sachet and tiny shampoo bottle on the dresser next to Claudia’s hearing aids. Then he opened the curtain and pulled up the window. He got on his knees and rested his forearms on the sill. He breathed in the harsh night, sweat rolling down his temple. Trucks watched his quick breath go out into nothing.
He wondered how he could have had such deep love for such a messed-up person. And why maybe he loved her still in that back-of-the-mind kind of way. Why he tortured himself carrying around her damn scent all the time. And beat himself up for giving her too many chances. For letting her come back into their lives again and again after every time she disappeared and showed up out of nowhere with another split lip and a thousand sorrys and that goddamn haunting smell of gardenias. And she’d never know about all those nights he’d spent staring out their solitary, frost-covered window wondering if she was even alive or if he’d go out and find her some morning, stiff and blue in a snowbank. Their girl lying curled on the floor. Fingers in her mouth. Full-body breathing the way children do.
Trucks slapped the window sill. Then he did it again. And again. And again. He’d have punched right through that stubborn window if it weren’t for the danger of broken glass. His hands were hot. Red. Stinging and going numb. He looked back at Claudia, but she was still out. Her head to the side. He took one last deep, chilly breath to compose himself. Then he shut the window. He was sick of thinking about the messed-up way he loved people. Like if they didn’t break him it wasn’t really love.
He grabbed the sachet and closed it up. He decided he’d never tell Claudia what her mama smelled like. Was there a reason to tell her any of it? Did he owe it to her? Wouldn’t it just bring some kind of hurt to her like it did him? Punish her every time that smell came around? And she might have the same sickness as Trucks. Walk around with a crushed gardenia flower in her back pocket, folded inside a napkin.
Trucks put the sachet back in the pocket of his coat. Then he returned to the dresser and grabbed the little shampoo bottle. Back at the Archibald Suites he’d dumped the generic hotel shampoo in the toilet and rinsed out the bottle. He’d gone through June’s purse while she was passed out and found the onion-shaped perfume bottle. Claudia had been so fond of it. And so fond of June and her kind ways and positive energy. So Trucks poured a bit of the perfume into the shampoo bottle. Figured he’d give it to Claudia as a present. A reminder. Something she could take with her and actually feel good about. Maybe put some on her wrists and neck. Dab it on the “sweet spot” June had shown her. A new smell. New memories.
Trucks set the little bottle on top of the folded pajamas. It’d be waiting there for Claudia when she woke.
Trucks went back to the wall and sat down. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his girl.
“There are no stars, Pepper Flake,” he said. But he still couldn’t remember the rest of the line. “There are no stars,” he said again. And then he drifted off to sleep.
A blue light filled the room, the moon casting strong in the night.
Claudia found Trucks asleep against the wall, hands at his sides, chin against chest, mouth open. He was breathing hard. She got on her knees and looked at the cuts on his face. She reached out and touched them.
Trucks woke. He blinked fast.
Claudia pulled back.
“Pepper Flake?” he said.
“I’m thirsty,” she said.
Trucks was trying to orient himself.
“Jesus, I bet,” he said. “You must be exhausted.”
She pointed to her ears.
Trucks posted on the carpet and stood. Everything was a little hazy. He walked over to the dresser and picked up her hearing aids. He went back to the wall and sat down. Then he said, “I’m gonna put these in, okay?” Then he gently hooked a hearing aid over each of her ears and clicked them on.
“Sound okay?” he asked.
“This one’s still blurry,” she said.
“I’ll figure out how to fix it soon.”
“You said that already.”
“When we find a real stopping place. Promise.”
Claudia didn’t look so sure. Trucks was overcome with so much warmth for his girl sitting there in the moonlight. He’d never been so grateful. He wanted to tell her. But he didn’t want her to feel overwhelmed by him.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Montana.”
“How’d we get here?”
“A nice man picked us up.”
“After you made us leave June?”
Trucks paused. It hurt him to hear it, but it was true. He always tried to make what he thought were the best choices for them. But he could never be sure what was best until later. Much, much later.
“Yes,” he said, averting his eyes.
“I don’t remember much.”
“You were really tired then.”
“Yeah.”
“And you were mad at me.”
“Yeah.”
“And now we’re here.”
“But after June?”
“We walked for a long time in the snow. Do you remember?”
Claudia shook her head.
“Well, we did. And we saw the hills and ridges in the Badlands. Do you remember that?”
She shook her head again.
“I tried to tell you all about them, but it was really cold. And we were both too tired to be walking. And after a while we ran out of steam and fell asleep beside the road.”
“And then the man came?”
“And then the man came.”
Claudia thought for a while. Trucks was always taken with watching her mind work.
“And now we’re in Mown Tinna?” she asked.
“Montana.”
“Montana.”
“Yeah,” he said.
Claudia pulled her knees to her chin. Hugged her legs. She looked at Trucks.
“Are we done hitching?” she asked.
“We should get you into your pajamas,” Trucks said.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Let’s don’t move.”
“Oh,” he said. He was surprised.
Then Claudia scooted closer. She stared at the floor.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.
He wanted to reach out, but he was afraid to touch her.
“Still kinda hot.”
“You were sleeping for a long time.”
“It felt like forever.”
He didn’t want to say how much it did.
Claudia rocked back and forth.
“How do you feel?” Trucks asked.
“I had nightmares. They were weird and sad.”
“You can tell me about them,” he said.
“I can’t remember much.”
“It’s okay. Tell me what you feel like.”
“Okay.” Claudia looked up at the ceiling. “They weren’t good.”
“I’m sorry. But it’s okay to have bad dreams. Life isn’t always peaches. That’s what the house mother at one of the homes used to tell me. I never really knew what she meant.”
“But you do now?” Claudia asked.
“It’s just something people say to make themselves feel better about their own lives.”
Claudia looked at him. “You were dead in one of the dreams.”
“Fuck,” Trucks said.
“The swears,” she said.
“Sorry. It’s just hard to hear.”
“I’ll stop.”
“No. Keep going. Tell me if it’ll make you feel better about the dreams.”
“I think it will,” Claudia said.
“Okay then,” Trucks said. He felt sick and helpless.
“I was inside the home, but it was bigger than normal. Like a really big room. And there was a big window I walked up to and could see all the other kids outside. They were smiling and laughing, and people were raking leaves over the kids. I saw Suzie and Mary and Connie playing in the yard, and I wanted to be out there instead of alone inside. But there weren’t any doors to get out. There was just the big window and a lot of room inside. So I closed my eyes and hoped for a door to get out. I kept my eyes closed for a long time. It felt like forever, and I kept hoping the whole time. Then when I opened my eyes the big window was gone and there was a door. I ran to the door and opened it, but I couldn’t get outside. It was a black closet. You were in there and you were dead. You had white shoelaces around your hands. And when I walked up and pulled on the shoelaces your brains fell out. I felt really sad. You looked like the scarecrow man. And I thought I shouldn’t have called you bruiseity brains so much ’cause it was probably my fault your brains got broken and fell out.”
Trucks could hardly breathe. What was he doing to her? His eyes stung. He didn’t know what to say or what to do. He tried to speak. But all he did was stammer.
Then he started crying. He closed his eyes and put his face in his hands. He felt the hot tears on his cheeks. What had he become? All these breakdowns and emotional rampages. Beyond that. What was he turning her into? All he’d wanted to do was protect her, but now? Wasn’t he just messing up her life? Setting her up to be the kind of failure he’d become?
Suddenly a hand pried at his fingers. Trucks looked up. Claudia had his left hand in both of hers. She squeezed it tight and kissed the old, broken thing. He could hardly see her through the haze of tears. All that soft blue light around her. The waves of her curls dark against the glow. She was some kind of angel he didn’t deserve. He knew that much. He was determined to do right by her. He’d find a way. He’d really try.