1991
Sunday
Tessa flounced back on the bed, her feet flopping into the air. “I can’t believe you’re going to Florida without me.”
Sara responded with an absent “Hm” as she folded a T-shirt.
“When’s the last time you went on a vacation?”
“Don’t remember,” she said, but she did. The summer Sara graduated from high school, Eddie Linton had dragged his wife and two reluctant daughters on their last family vacation to Sea World. Sara had spent every summer since then either in classes or working in the hospital lab for credits so she could graduate early. Except for an occasional long weekend spent at her parents’ house, she had not gone on an actual vacation in what seemed like forever.
“But this is a real vacation,” Tessa said. “With a man.”
“Hm,” Sara repeated, folding a pair of shorts.
“I hear he’s pretty hot.”
“Who said that?”
“Jill-June at the Shop-o-rama.”
“She’s still working there?”
“She’s the manager now.” Tessa snickered. “She’s dyed her hair this awful yellow.”
“On purpose?”
“Well, you wouldn’t think so, but it’s not like she doesn’t have access to two damn aisles of hair-care products.”
Sara threw a pair of pants at her sister. “Help me fold some of these.”
“I will if you tell me about Jeffrey.”
“What’d Jill-June say?”
“That he’s sex on a stick.”
Sara smiled at the understatement.
“And that he’s dated every woman in town worth dating.” Tessa paused, mid-fold. “There’s an obvious joke in there, but I’m gonna let it go because you’re my sister.”
“Such a price to pay.” Sara threw a sock back into the laundry basket, recalling from the last time she’d washed clothes that it didn’t have a mate. She tried to change the subject, asking, “Why is it that you never lose the socks you want to lose?”
“Is he good in bed?”
“Tess!”
“Do you want your underwear folded or not?”
Sara smoothed out a shirt, not answering.
“Y’all’ve been seeing each other for two months.”
“Three.”
Tessa tried again. “You have to be sleeping with him or he wouldn’t have invited you to the beach.”
Sara shrugged off a response. The truth was that she had slept with Jeffrey on their first date. They hadn’t even made it out of her kitchen. Sara had been so ashamed the next morning that she sneaked out of her own house before the sun came up. If not for a robbery-homicide that forced them to work together three days later, she probably would never have spoken to Jeffrey Tolliver again.
Tessa turned serious. “Was he your first time since…?”
Sara gave her sister a sharp look, making it clear that topic was off-limits. “Tell me what else Jill-June said.”
“Uh…” Tessa dragged it out, giving a sly smile. “That’s he’s got a great body.”
“He’s a runner.”
“Mmm,” Tessa approved. “That he’s tall.”
“He’s three inches taller than me.”
“Look at that grin,” Tessa laughed. “All right, all right, you don’t have to give me the speech about how horrible it was being six feet tall in the third grade.”
“Five eleven.” Sara threw a dishrag at her sister’s head. “And it was ninth grade.”
Tessa folded the rag, sighing. “He has dreamy blue eyes.”
“Yes.”
“He’s incredibly charming and has very nice manners.”
“Both true.”
“Extremely good sense of humor.”
“Also true.”
“He always pays with correct change.”
Sara laughed as she pushed more clothes toward her sister. “Talk and fold.”
Tessa picked the lint off a pair of black slacks. “She says he used to be a football player.”
“Really?” Sara asked, because Jeffrey had never told her this. As a matter of fact, he had told her very little about himself. His general dislike of talking about the past was one of the things she enjoyed about him.
“I hope he’s worth it,” Tessa said. “Is Daddy talking to you yet?”
“Nope,” she answered, trying to sound as if she did not care. Though her parents had never met Jeffrey, like everyone else in town they had already formed their own opinions.
Tessa pressed on. “Tell me some more. What do you know about him that Jill-June doesn’t?”
“Not much,” Sara admitted.
“Come on.” Tessa obviously thought she was teasing. “Just tell me what he’s like.”
From the hallway, Cathy Linton said, “Too old for her, for a start.”
Tessa rolled her eyes as their mother walked into the room.
Sara said, “You’d never guess this was my house.”
“You don’t want people walking in, don’t leave your front door unlocked.” Cathy kissed Sara’s cheek as she handed her a green Tupperware bowl and a grease-stained paper bag. “I brought this over for your drive down.”
“Biscuits!” Tessa reached for the bag but Sara slapped her away.
“Your father made cornbread, but he wouldn’t let me bring it.” Cathy gave her a pointed look. “Said he didn’t slave over a hot stove just to feed your fancy man.”
Her words hung in the air like a black cloud, and even Tessa knew better than to laugh. Sara picked up a pair of jeans to fold.
“Give me those.” Cathy snatched the jeans away from her. “Like this,” she said, tucking the cuffs under her chin and magically working the jeans into a perfect square, all in under two seconds. She surveyed the mountain of laundry on Sara’s bed. “Did you just wash this today?”
“I haven’t had—”
“There’s no excuse for not doing laundry when you live alone.”
“I have two jobs.”
“Well, I had two children and a plumber and I managed to get things done.”
Sara looked to Tessa for help, but her sister was matching up a pair of socks with the kind of focus that could split an atom.
Cathy continued, “You just put your dirty clothes right in the washer, then every other day or so you run a load, and you don’t ever have to deal with this again.” She snapped open one of the shirts Sara had already folded. Her mouth turned down in disapproval. “Why didn’t you use a fabric softener? I left you that coupon on the counter last week.”
Sara gave up, kneeling down on the floor in front of a stack of books, trying to figure out which ones to take to the beach.
“From what I’ve heard,” Tessa volunteered helpfully, “you won’t have much time for reading.”
Sara was hoping the same thing, but she didn’t want it announced in front of her mother.
“A man like that…” Cathy said. She took her time before adding, “Sara, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you are in way over your head.”
Sara turned around. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mother.”
Cathy’s frown deepened. “Are you planning on wearing a bra with that shirt? I can see both your—”
“All right.” Sara untucked her shirt as she stood.
Her mother added, “And those shorts don’t fit. Have you lost weight?”
Sara looked at herself in the mirror. She had spent nearly an hour choosing an outfit that looked both flattering and like she had not spent an hour picking it out. “They’re supposed to be baggy,” she said, tugging at the seat. “It’s the style.”
“Oh, Lord’s sake, Sara. Have you seen your ass lately? I sure haven’t.” Tessa cackled, and Cathy moderated her tone if not her words. “Honey, there’s just your shoulder blades and the backs of your calves. ‘Baggy’ wasn’t meant for women like you.”
Sara took a deep breath, bracing herself against the dresser. “Excuse me,” she said as politely as possible, and went into the bathroom, taking great pains not to slam the door behind her. She closed the toilet lid and sat down, dropping her head into her hands. She could hear her mother outside complaining about static cling, and asking again why she bothered to leave coupons if Sara wasn’t going to use them.
Sara slid back her hands to cover her ears, and her mother’s complaining subsided to a tolerable hum, slightly less annoying than a hot needle in her ear. From the moment Sara had started dating Jeffrey, Cathy had been riding her about one thing or another. There was nothing Sara could do right, from her posture at the dinner table to the way she parked her car in the driveway. Part of Sara wanted to confront Cathy on her hypercriticism, but another part—the more compassionate part—understood that this was the way her mother coped with her fears.
Sara looked at her watch, praying that Jeffrey would show up on time and take her away from all of this. He was seldom late, which was one of the many things she liked about him. For all of Cathy’s talk about what a cad Jeffrey Tolliver was, he carried a handkerchief in his back pocket and always opened the door for her. When Sara got up from the table at a restaurant, he stood, too. He helped her with her coat and carried her briefcase when they walked down the street. As if all of this was not enough, he was so good in bed that their first time together she had nearly cracked her back molars clamping her teeth together so that she would not scream his name.
“Sara?” Cathy knocked on the door, her voice filled with concern. “Are you okay, honey?”
Sara flushed the toilet and ran water in the sink. She opened the door to find her sister and mother both staring at her with the same worried expression.
Cathy held up a red blouse. “I don’t think this is a good color for you.”
“Thanks.” Sara took the shirt and tossed it into the laundry basket. She knelt back down by the books, wondering if she should take the literary authors to impress Jeffrey or the more commercial ones that she knew she would enjoy.
“I don’t even know why you’re going to the beach,” Cathy said. “All you’ve ever done is burn. Do you have enough sunscreen?”
Without turning around, Sara held up the neon green bottle of Tropical Sunblock.
“You know how easily you freckle. And your legs are so white. I don’t know that I’d wear shorts with legs like that.”
Tessa chuckled. “What was that girl’s name in Gidget who wore the big hat on the beach?”
Sara gave her sister a “you’re not helping” look. Tessa pointed to the bag of biscuits, then to her mouth, indicating her silence could be bought.
“Larue,” Sara told her, moving the bag farther away.
“Tessie,” Cathy said. “Run fetch me the ironing board.” She asked Sara, “You do have an iron?”
Sara felt the heat from her mother’s stare. “In the pantry.”
Cathy clicked her tongue as Tessa left. She asked Sara, “When did you wash these?”
“Yesterday.”
“If you’d ironed them then—”
“Yes, and if I didn’t wear clothes at all, I’d never have to worry about it.”
“That’s the same thing you told me when you were six.”
Sara waited.
“If I’d left it up to you, you’d’ve gone to school naked.”
Sara absently thumbed through a book, not seeing the pages. Behind her, she could hear her mother snapping out shirts and refolding them.
Cathy said, “If this was Tessa, I wouldn’t be worried at all. As a matter of fact,” she gave a low laugh, smoothing out another shirt, “I’d be worried about Jeffrey.”
Sara put a paperback with a bloody knife slash down the cover in the “take” pile.
“Jeffrey Tolliver is the sort of man who has had a lot of experience. A lot more than you, and I see that smile on your lips, young lady. You’d best realize I’m not just talking about the stuff going on between the sheets.”
Sara picked up another paperback. “I really don’t want to have this conversation with my mother.”
“Your mother is probably the only woman on earth who will tell you this,” Cathy said. She sat on the bed and waited for Sara to turn around. “Men like Jeffrey only want one thing.” Sara opened her mouth, but her mother wasn’t finished. “It’s okay if you give them that thing as long as you get something back out of it.”
“Mother.”
“Some women can have sex without being in love.”
“I know that.”
“I’m serious, baby. Listen to me. You’re not that kind of woman.” She tucked back Sara’s hair. “You’re not the kind of girl who has flings. You’ve never been that kind of girl.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’ve only had two boyfriends your whole life. How many girlfriends has Jeffrey had? How many women has he slept with?”
“I would guess quite a few.”
“And you’re just another one on his list. That’s why your father is mad about—”
“Don’t y’all think it would be nice to actually bother to meet him before you jump to all these conclusions?” Sara asked, too late remembering that Jeffrey was on his way here now. She chanced a look at her alarm clock. In about ten minutes, her mother would be able to see for herself that she was exactly right. If Jill-June Mallard could pick up on it, Cathy Linton would know it the moment Jeffrey entered the room.
Cathy persisted. “You’re just not a ‘fling’ kind of girl, honey.”
“Maybe I am now. Maybe I became that sort of person in Atlanta.”
“Well.” Cathy picked up a pair of underwear to fold, her brows furrowed. “These are too delicate for the machine,” she chastised. “If you wash them by hand and dry them on the line, they won’t get torn like this.”
Sara gave her a tight smile. “They’re not torn.”
Cathy raised an eyebrow, showing a spark of appreciation. Still, she asked, “How many men have you been with?”
Sara looked at her watch, whispering, “Please.”
Cathy ignored her. “I know about Steve Mann. Good Lord, the whole town knew after Mac Anders caught you two behind the Chilidog.”
Sara stared at the floor, willing herself not to spontaneously combust from embarrassment.
Cathy continued. “Mason James.”
“Mama.”
“That’s two men.”
“You’re forgetting the last one,” Sara reminded her, feeling a tinge of regret as she saw her mother’s expression darken.
Cathy folded Sara’s pajama bottoms. She asked very softly, “Does Jeffrey know you were raped?”
Sara moderated her tone, trying to be gentle. “It hasn’t exactly come up in our conversations.”
“What did you tell him when he asked why you left Atlanta?”
“Nothing,” she said, leaving out the fact that Jeffrey had not pressed for details.
Cathy smoothed the pajamas. She turned around for something else to put to order, but she had already folded or refolded everything on the bed. “You should never be ashamed about what happened to you, Sara.”
Sara shrugged noncommittally as she stood to get her suitcase. She wasn’t ashamed, exactly, just sick to death of people treating her differently because of it—especially her mother. Sara could take the concerned looks and the awkward pauses from the handful of people who knew why she had really moved back to Grant County, but her strained relationship with her mother was almost too much to bear.
Sara opened the case and started to pack. “I’ll tell him when it’s time. If it’s ever time.” She shrugged again. “Maybe it’ll never be time.”
“You can’t expect to have a solid relationship if it’s founded on secrets.”
“It’s not a secret,” she countered. “It’s just private. It’s something that happened to me, and I’m tired of…” She did not finish the sentence, because talking about the rape with her mother was not a conversation she was ready to have. “Can you hand me that cotton top?”
Cathy gave the shirt a look of disapproval before handing it over. “I’ve seen too many women fight to get to where you are and give it all up in a minute for some man that ends up leaving them in a couple of years anyway.”
“I’m not going to give up my career for Jeffrey.” She gave a rueful laugh. “And it’s not like I can get pregnant and stay home raising babies.”
Cathy absorbed the remark with little more than a frown. “It’s not that, Sara.”
“Then what is it, Mama? What is it you’re so worried about? What could any man possibly do to me that’s worse than what’s already happened?”
Cathy looked down at her hands. She never cried, but she could go silent in a way that broke Sara’s heart.
Sara sat on the bed beside her mother. “I’m sorry,” she said, thinking that she had never been so sick of having to apologize to people in her life. She felt such guilt for bringing this on her otherwise perfect family that sometimes Sara felt like it would be better for her to just go away and leave them to heal on their own.
Cathy said, “I don’t want you to give up your self.”
Sara held her breath. Her mother had never come this close to voicing her true fears. Sara knew better than anyone how easy it would be to just give in. After the rape, all Sara had been able to do was lie in bed and cry. She had not wanted to be a doctor, a sister, or even a daughter. Two months passed, and Cathy had pleaded and cajoled, then physically pushed Sara out of bed. As she had done a hundred times when Sara was a child, Cathy had driven her to the children’s clinic, where this time Dr. Barney had made things better by giving Sara a job. A year later, Sara had taken a second job as county coroner in order to buy out Dr. Barney’s practice. For the last two and a half years, she had struggled to rebuild her life in Grant, and Cathy was terrified Sara would lose all of that for Jeffrey.
Sara stood up and walked to her dresser. “Mama…”
“I worry about you.”
“I’m better now,” Sara said, though she did not think she would ever be fully whole again. There would always be the before and after, no matter how many years distanced her from what had happened. “I don’t need you to look after me, or try to toughen me up. I’m stronger now. I’m ready for this.”
Cathy threw her hands up. “He’s just having fun. That’s all this is to him—fun.”
Sara opened several drawers, looking for her swimsuit. She said, “Maybe that’s all it is for me, too. Maybe I’m just having a good time.”
“I wish I could believe you.”
“I wish you could, too,” Sara told her. “Because it’s true.”
“I don’t know, baby. You have such a gentle heart.”
“It’s not that gentle anymore.”
“What happened to you in Atlanta doesn’t change who you are.”
Sara shrugged, tucking her swimsuit into the case. It was how other people had changed that made what happened even more horrible. Sara was angry as hell that she had been raped, and livid that the animal who had attacked her could, and probably would, get out of jail in a few years with good behavior. She was pissed off that her whole life had been turned upside down, that she’d had to resign her internship at Grady Hospital, the job she had worked toward her entire life, because everyone in the ER treated her like broken china. The attending who had worked on Sara could no longer look her in the eye, and her fellow students wouldn’t joke with her for fear of saying the wrong thing. Even the nurses treated her with kid gloves, as if being raped made Sara some sort of martyr.
Cathy said, “Is that all I get? That look from you that says you don’t want to talk about it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sara told her, exasperated. “I don’t want to talk about anything serious. I’m tired of being serious.” She tugged at the zipper on the suitcase. “I’m tired of being the smartest girl in the class. I’m tired of being too tall for the cute boys. I’m tired of dating men who are worried about my feelings and wanna take it slow and be gentle and process what we’re doing and plan our future together and treat me like I’m some delicate flower and—”
“Mason James is a very sweet boy.”
“That’s the point, Mama. He’s a boy. I’m sick of boys. I’m sick of people walking on eggshells around me, trying to protect my feelings. I want somebody to shake things up. I want to have fun.” Without thinking, she said, “I want to fuck around.”
Cathy gasped—not because she had never heard the word before, but because she had never heard it from Sara. Sara could think of only a few occasions when she had used the expletive, but never in front of her mother.
All Cathy said was, “Language, please.”
“You don’t mind when Tessa says it.”
Cathy wrinkled her nose at the logic. “Tessa says it like she means it, not like she’s trying to shock her mother.”
“I say it all the time,” Sara lied.
“Do your cheeks always get that red when you do?”
Sara felt her cheeks go redder.
“From here,” Cathy coached, pressing her hand below her diaphragm. She gestured broadly with her other hand, singing an operatic “Fuck.”
“Mother!”
“If you’re going to say it, say it with gusto.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how to say it,” Sara snapped, and when Cathy laughed in her face, she added a mumbled “Or how to do it.”
Cathy laughed harder. “I suppose you know all about it now?”
Sara jerked the suitcase off her bed. “Let’s just say some of that expertise rubbed off.”
“Oh-ho-ho,” Cathy chuckled appreciatively.
Sara tucked her hands into her hips. “We do it all the time.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Night and day.”
“And day?” Cathy laughed again, sitting back on the bed. “Scandalous!”
“It’s not like I’m seeing him for the scintillating conversation,” Sara bragged. “I don’t even know if he went to college.”
From the doorway, Tessa said, “Sara?”
“As a matter of fact,” Sara continued, wanting more than anything to take the smug look off her mother’s face, “I’m fairly certain he’s not even that smart.”
Cathy smiled like she knew better. “That so?”
Tessa tried again. “Sara?”
“Yes, that’s so, and you know what? I don’t even care. He’s probably stupid as a box of hair and I don’t give a rat’s ass. It’s not like I’m dating him for his mind.”
Tessa said, “For chrissake, Sara. Just shut up and turn around.”
She did as she was told, regret taking hold like a fever.
Jeffrey was leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. There was a half-smile on his lips that did not quite reach his eyes as he nodded toward her suitcase. “Ready to go?”
A gentle mist of rain met them as they drove out of Grant County, and Sara watched the wipers sluice water off the windshield at steady intervals, trying to think of something to say. With each pass, she told herself she was going to break the silence, but the next thing she knew, the wipers were swiping across the glass again and nothing had been said. She stared out the side window, counting cows, then goats, then billboards. The closer they got to Macon, the higher the number got, so that by the time they took the bypass, Sara had reached triple digits.
Jeffrey shifted gears, passing an eighteen-wheeler. He had not spoken since they left Grant, and he chose to break the ice with “Car handles well.”
“Yes,” Sara agreed, so glad he was talking to her that she could have cried. Thank God they had taken her car instead of his truck or there was no telling how long the silence would have lasted. To keep the conversation going, she said, “German engineering.”
“I guess it’s true what they say about doctors driving BMWs.”
“My dad bought it for me when I got into medical school.”
“Nice dad,” he said, pausing before he added, “Your mom seems nice, too.”
Sara cleared her throat, unable to recall any of the apologies she had been rehearsing in her mind for the last hour. “I would have preferred for you to meet her under different circumstances.”
“I never expected to meet her at all.”
“Oh, right,” she said, flustered. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m glad we got to meet.”
Sara nodded, thinking that the fewer times she opened her mouth, the less likely she was to put her foot in it.
“Your sister’s cute.”
“Yes,” she agreed, knowing a lesser person would hate her sister by now. Sara had been hearing the same thing all her life. Tessa was the cute one, the funny one, the cheerleader, the one everyone wanted to be friends with. Sara was the tall one. On a good day, she was the tall redheaded one.
Before Sara could phrase something more elegant, she blurted out, “I’m so sorry about what I said.”
“That’s okay,” he told her, but she could tell from his tone that it was not. Why he had still wanted her to go to Florida with him was anyone’s guess. If Sara had any self-respect, she would have let him leave without her. The forced smile he had kept on his face as he loaded her bags into the trunk could have cut glass.
“I was just trying to…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I was trying to do. Make an idiot of myself?”
“You did a good job.”
“It’s part of my personality to want to excel in everything I do.”
He did not smile.
She tried again. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“As a box of hair.”
“What?”
“You said ‘stupid as a box of hair.’ ”
“Oh. Well.” She laughed once, like a seal’s bark. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“But it’s good to know you don’t really think that.” He glanced behind him and passed a church van. Sara stared at his hand on the shift, watching the tendons work as he passed the cars. His fingers gripped the shaft, his thumb tapping lightly on the knob.
“By the way,” he told her. “I did go to college.”
“Really?” she asked, unable to check her surprised tone. She made it worse by saying, “Well, good. Good for you.”
Jeffrey gave her a sharp glance.
“I mean, that’s good as in…well…because it’s…” She laughed at her own ineptitude, putting her hand over her mouth as she mumbled, “Oh, God, Sara, shut up. Shut up.”
She thought he smiled, but wasn’t certain. She dared to ask, “Exactly how much did you hear?”
“Something about me rubbing off on you?”
She tried, “I meant it in the good way.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Just FYI, I’ve heard you say that word before.” This time, he showed his teeth when he smiled. “Well, not say it. More like scream it.”
Sara bit the tip of her tongue, watching the passing scenery.
He said, “It’s good your mama worries about you.”
“Sometimes.”
“Y’all are pretty close, right?”
“I suppose,” Sara answered, knowing there was more to it than that.
He asked, “Did you tell her I passed the test?”
“Of course not,” Sara answered, surprised he had even asked. “That’s private.”
He nodded his approval, keeping his eyes on the road.
Their second date had ended with a kiss at the door and Sara asking Jeffrey to get tested for HIV. Granted, the request was a little late in coming—their frenzied first time hadn’t exactly stopped for a frank discussion about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases—but Sara had picked up on Jeffrey’s reputation well before the news had hit the Shop-o-rama. For his part, Jeffrey had seemed only slightly insulted when she asked him for a blood sample.
She said, “I saw so many cases at Grady. So many women my age who never thought it could happen to them.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“Hare’s lover died of AIDS last year.”
His foot slipped off the gas pedal. “Your cousin’s gay?”
“Of course.”
“You’re kidding?” he asked, giving her an uneasy look.
“He wasn’t born with that falsetto.”
“I thought he was just joking around.”
“He was,” Sara said. “Is. I mean, he just does that to annoy me. Everyone. He likes to annoy people.”
“He played football in high school.”
“Only straight people can play football?”
“Well…no,” he said, but he did not seem certain.
They both stared at the road again. Sara could think of nothing to say. She knew hardly anything about the man beside her. In the three months they had dated, she had heard nothing about Jeffrey’s family or his past. She knew he had been born in Alabama, but he was vague with the details. When they weren’t in bed, Jeffrey mostly talked about cases he had worked in Birmingham or things that were happening in Grant. Now that she thought about it, when they were together it was Sara who did most of the talking. He seldom volunteered any personal information about himself, and if she pushed him too far with questions, his response was to either shut down completely or run his hand up and down her thigh until she forgot what she was saying.
She chanced a look at him. His dark hair was getting long in the back, which was a little dangerous considering the Grant County school system routinely sent boys home from class if their hair touched the back of their collars. As usual, his face was clean-shaven and smooth. He was wearing a pair of worn jeans and a black Harley Davidson T-shirt. His tennis shoes looked high-tech, with extra padding in the sole and black waffle treads for running. The muscles in his legs were well defined under the denim, and though his shirt was not tight enough to show the firm abs underneath, Sara was more than familiar with them.
Sara stared down at her legs, wishing she had worn something different. She had changed into an ocean blue wraparound skirt, but her white calves were the color of fat on uncooked bacon against the dark floor mat. Despite the air conditioning, she was sweating under the cotton shirt she wore, and if Sara could have waved a magic wand to stop time, she would have stripped off her constricting bra and thrown it out the window.
“So,” Jeffrey said.
“So,” she returned, trying to think of something to restart the conversation. All she could come up with was, “You’re a universal donor.”
“Huh?”
“A universal donor,” she repeated. “You can donate blood to anyone.” Grasping another straw, she added, “Of course, you can’t accept from anyone. You can only accept from other O negatives.”
He gave her a strange look. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Your blood has antigens that—”
“I’ll donate some as soon as we get back.”
The conversation was lagging again, and she asked, “Do you want some chicken?”
“Is that what I keep smelling?”
Sara leaned over the backseat and rummaged around for the plastic bowl her mother had packed. “I think there’s some biscuits if Tess didn’t steal them.”
“That’d be nice,” he said, tickling the back of her thigh. “Too bad we don’t have some tea.”
She tried to ignore his hand. “We could stop for some.”
“Maybe.”
He pinched her leg and she slapped at his hand, saying, “Hey.”
He laughed good-naturedly at the rebuke. “Do you mind if we take a detour?”
“Sure,” she said, finding the Tupperware under a pillow. She dropped back into the seat as he passed a Winnebago. “Where to?”
“Sylacauga.”
Sara stopped in the middle of removing the plastic lid. “Sill-a-what?”
“Sylacauga,” he repeated. “My hometown.”