Laura sat on the porch, staring in disbelief into the wasteland of the Mojave. Her mind was blank as she was unable to piece together the thousand fragments that swam around inside her head. Molly sat close by but did not talk to her. She seemed to know the times it was best to be quiet, a rare trait for a teenager, and thus she held her tongue. Boots came walking across the front yard, kicking up dust with every step.
“I don’t see him. He just didn’t go for a stroll, it seems.”
“You have to go after him, Boots. He doesn’t know what he’s doing out there,” Laura whispered as she imagined Jack dying a myriad of different ways and hating herself for enjoying some of them.
Boots stood in his familiar pose, his cheek filled with his hobby. “Seems to me, Laura, that he doesn’t want me coming after him. Seems he likes things his own way.” He turned and spit behind him in deference to the ladies seated on the porch.
Molly’s widened eyes bounced back and forth between the two of them.
“He’ll die out there,” Laura said.
“If that’s the way he wants it.”
“That’s not what he wants. He probably thinks he is trying to help.”
“You give him too much credit. Naw . . . he’s gone to save himself. Left you here on your own. What kind of man does that? Not a good one, I say.”
“Please, Boots?”
The old man removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked up at the sky and then back to the porch, pondering the situation. “It’s getting hot out today. Probably fry him up real quick.”
Molly and Laura stared back at the old man, surprised that such easy talk could come in such a dire situation.
“All right, I’ll go get him. But not right now. Naw . . . I think a man like that deserves to stew a bit. Make him think about what he’s done.”
“But—” Laura began, but was cut off by a wave of Boots’s hand.
“That’ll be the end of that. Now . . . you don’t worry about him. I’ll get him back.”
He ambled off behind the cabin as if out for a morning walk, leaving the two women sitting on the porch.
Molly moved her rickety chair a little closer to Laura in a small attempt to offer comfort. “I’m sure he’ll be all right.”
Laura didn’t answer, but looked down as a tear dropped from her cheek.
“Jack seems like a strong guy. I’m sure he can take care of himself.”
“That’s one thing he’s good at . . . taking care of himself.” Laura tossed a sideways glance at Molly. “He’s perfected that art for many years.”
Molly sat back, watching her, a patient look on her young face.
Laura rubbed her legs and sat up a little straighter, preparing to recite the script that she had worked on for a long time. The great venting. “Jack is very good at that. Always has been. When he gets something in his head, he can be a very determined man. It’s why he is successful. Very determined. I used to think that he did things for me. You know? Worked hard for me, to show me that I was important. Now I know he just did things for himself. To make himself feel important. I just caught the spillover.
“There was this time . . . I can’t believe I’m telling you this . . .”
“Go ahead.”
Laura looked at the young girl and saw innocent concern in her eyes.
“. . . there was this time when Jack came home with some news. He said that he got a promotion. A lot of money, a nice title. I was excited for him. He told me that the job was in Atlanta.”
She started picking at the fabric in her shorts as a nervous release.
“I told him that was too bad. I still can’t believe I said that to him . . . but it felt good. I told Jack that I wasn’t going to move to Atlanta. He spent about ten minutes trying to tell me why this was a good opportunity for us. I told him that he would have to take the job without me, because I was staying.
“He got pretty mad and left. A couple hours later, he came back and said that he had decided to pass on the job.”
“Well, that seems like a good thing,” Molly said.
“It does, doesn’t it? He thought so. He still feels like he sacrificed for me. But you know something. It took him three hours to decide. Three hours to weigh the choice and the consequence. He didn’t take the job because he felt guilty, not because he wanted me to be happy too. He just didn’t want to show how selfish he could be.
“It’s why we came out here. Out to Las Vegas. Not just that, but this whole charade we’ve been living. I thought this would be good for us. To get away. Rekindle something. Start fresh. Huh, no. Even out here he’s found a way to . . . found a way to be . . . himself.”
Laura drifted off into her own world again as she stared toward the horizon. In her mind’s eye she could see the silhouette of Jack walking through desert brush, tripping from exhaustion, lost and too proud for help.
Molly ventured to take Laura’s hand and she consented.
“You are a strong woman, Laura,” the girl said. “You have a good heart. You deserve to be happy.”
Laura smiled at Molly’s attempt to sound older than her youth allowed. She didn’t want to break the bubble of adolescent optimism by letting her know that “deserving” had nothing to do with it.