Other cars were parked out front. Cop cars. Cops.

A pudgy officer held up his hand for Mom to stop. She pulled up right next to him, cranking down the driver’s side window.

“Evening, ma’am. You seen anything funny recently?”

Mom shook her head.

“We are looking for a woman, age forty. Medium brown hair and wearing a gray sweatshirt.”

Mom briefly closed her eyes, sinking in to herself. Milo could see her insides shutting down, getting ready to disappear. The light that had once sparkled in her blue eyes had long since faded to a pale, watery shade of clear.

“No I haven’t officer. I will keep my eyes peeled. Hope you catch the bastards.”

Mom rolled the window back up but the officer stared into the cab of the truck, boring holes into Mom’s eyes, as though he could unravel her like a ball of yarn.

Milo could tell that he almost knew.

“Maybe we should leave, Mom. I think they know.”

“They don’t know nothing. That cop’s as dumb as he is fat.”

Mom pulled the truck across the gravel parking lot, around the police barricade and put it in park right across from the neon “vacancy” sign.

Another bed that belonged to no one. Another night spent on a lumpy mattress that smelled like it had spent a week on the forest floor.

This room was no different. Only one of the lights worked, casting a dim shadow on the already darkened pallor of the room. A crusty stain bloomed on the lurid floral bedspread. Milo stripped the bedspread and sheets and pulled a faded Mickey Mouse blanket from his backpack. It was late. Milo swaddled himself up and jumped onto the bed. He tucked his feet into the bottom folds of the old blanket, only his nose peeked out for air. Mom sat in a chair by the lone, misted over window, staring out into the shifting blackness of the night.

Milo closed his eyes and drifted into a half sleep, half wishful reality. Billy was home and they were splashing around in the Miller’s swimming hole! Milo dove under the cool murky water, aquatic refuse and old beer cans brushed gently against his face. He whirled through the water like a slippery eel, Billy’s face distorted above the gently rippling surface. Billy’s whole body writhing with laughter as he plunged his hands down into the water, searching for Milo. Over and over again, Billy stretched his arms into the water, his thick muscles straining to gain a purchase on Milo’s slim body. His wide hands almost encompassed Milo’s waist, squeezing. Milo gasped for air, flipping like a fish strung on a line, as Billy pressed him further away from the dim brown light.

Milo squirmed awake, trapped within the folds of his Mickey Mouse cocoon. Sweat poured down his body in rivulets, soaking his tee shirt and Superman boxers. Gasping for breath, Milo broke free. Mom sat five feet away, stubbing out her half finished cigarette.

“Bad dream?”

“Billy…”

“I know,” Mom finished.

Milo glanced out the window, the cops were gone.

Mom began to gather their meager effects. The digital clock on the bedside table read 4:36 AM. Dazed, Milo struggled to pull on his jeans. All their worldly possessions fit into two large, worn book bags, one brown, one green. Mom slid them onto her back, one strap over each shoulder.

The frigid night air bit into Billy’s nose, the stinging wind almost blinded him. Mom yanked the keys out of her front pocket.

“No. Noise.” She whispered to Milo.

Gravel crunched under the tires of the Ranger as Mom pulled slowly pulled back onto the desolate highway. As the minutes passed, the trees slowly merged together into a conveyer belt of blurry leafiness.

Sirens thrummed somewhere in the black distance.

The orange of Mom’s lighter briefly illuminated her face making the crows feet around her eyes look like jagged scars. She took a drag of her cigarette and slowly breathed out, the silky night unraveled before them in a wide expanse of nothing. Milo stared across the console, a few inches spanning a chasm of guilt, poverty, and the tangible taste of loss. Mom glanced over; she stubbed out her cigarette and reached across the years of heartache to grab Milo’s hand. Her rough, callused palm felt new to Milo, enveloping his own and they drove on, two souls beating against the inevitable dawn.

 

Rachel Moore is a recent graduate of Allegheny College with a degree in History. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, she currently lives on a small farm outside the city.