Molly got up in the middle of the night to grab some water. She filled a glass from the hand pump, took a sip, and turned around. Boots sat across the dark room staring at her. He seemed to look right through her. She felt exposed, examined. Like she had when the old man had found her in the cave. His stare made her feel uneasy.
“Dark night,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you sit a bit, keep me company.”
She thought he could sense her apprehension, but he motioned to her to sit on the couch across from him, and she crossed the room with short, deliberate steps. She settled down, doing her best to occupy as little space as possible. Boots just stared at her from his chair, his eyes penetrating her skin. She felt as if she was being weighed and measured, her heart judged right before her.
“You know, I thought you’d be the one to go running off in the night.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“Well . . .” She paused. “I think we both know where that got me.”
Boots smiled. “Yeah. But still, you got that fire burning in you. That wanderlust. Every day you stay here, safe, I can’t but think you’ll forget the mess you were in a little bit more and more, begin thinking that now you’re smarter. Won’t get duped again. Head right back out there toward the west.”
Molly swallowed hard. He was right. When she was rescued from the cave, she wanted nothing more than to run back to her mother’s arms. Now slightly removed from immediate danger, her thoughts started drifting again to the excitement of LA and all the dreams she thought it held. She was as those on a ship who pray to the heavens when a hurricane hits, but then pull out the jet skis when the waters calm.
“Maybe I’ll just stay here.”
“Naw, this ain’t no squatter’s camp. Just a place to stop, sort things out, then move on.”
“Works for you though.”
Boots sighed. “Yeah, works for me.”
She took another sip from the glass. “So you think I should go back home?”
“Doesn’t really matter what I think, now, does it?”
Molly thought about the question.
“I can’t make you go back. I can take you only so far. Columbus is much too far to walk.” He chuckled. “You have to decide to go back.”
“Is this the point where you tell me that when I’m older, I’ll understand?”
“Naw, I ain’t going to lay that on you.”
“Good. I get tired of that.”
“I can imagine.”
She relaxed some more on the couch. Her nervousness releasing as she realized that Boots wasn’t going to pull the “Grandpa” talk on her. She drank some more water and cleared her throat. “I’m afraid to go back.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“No, it’s just . . .”
“What?”
“Admitting to myself that I was wrong. That I’m not strong, that I’m not who I thought I was.”
“There are worse things to realize in this life.”
“I don’t know if I can cope with it. It’s embarrassing, the thought of going back.”
“Ain’t nothing to feel bad about, Molly. Worse will be waking up one day, years from now, wishing you had gone back. Bad thing about mistakes: you keep making more by not fixing the first ones.”
“I didn’t think it was a mistake . . . until I hit Vegas.”
“I’m sure you thought it was wrong the whole way, deep down. You just kept pushing it down till it all got out of control.”
She exhaled slowly, exorcising the thought from deep within her. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
They stared at each other across the dark spaces.
“I have never been as scared as I was in that cave, Boots.”
“I can imagine.”
She stared at her hands, which had begun healing back to their teenage smoothness. They shook every time she thought of Colten. Boots walked over and sat next to her, taking her hands into his. His old, calloused palms encapsulating hers.
“There is evil in this world, Molly. You’ve seen it now. You stared into its eyes. Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of. It changes the way you see the world.” Boots seemed to drift in thought as he said the words. “Going home ain’t mean you’re broken, ain’t mean you’re not who you thought you were. It just means the world ain’t like you thought it was.”
Molly looked at the old man with tears in her eyes.
“But you’re just as strong as when you left home. Stronger now. Wiser. Place to use that ain’t found out west. Naw, way to be strong is to go back home. That will prove how strong you are.”
He gave her hands a gentle squeeze, and then wiped the tear that rolled down her cheek. He stood and walked slowly out the front door into the night.
Molly remained on the couch as Boots’s words floated through her soul.