Follow Me (17 page)

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a gray November day, they borrowed the Pontiac from Mole’s brother.When Mole asked her
where they were going, she said, “Nowhere.” He said something about how there was always
somewhere
up ahead and left it at that.

The road was still damp from the previous night’s rain. Sally was at the wheel and drove south along Route 36 in the direction
of Amity. She knew from the map to make a sharp turn just north of Amity, where they’d turn onto Route 253, and on the outskirts
of Fishkill Notch she would take the right-hand fork onto County Road 27.

The few straggling leaves on the maples along the road were a charred dark red. Brown bristle filled the cornfields. Most
of the pastures were empty, and the barns were shut up tight against the damp cold. There weren’t many cars out, and the only
other signs of activity Sally noticed were the muddy tractor lines crisscrossing the road in front of the farms, along with
white smoke rising from some of the chimneys.

Although she’d passed along this same route once before, in a bus and mostly in the dark, she had the vague feeling that she
knew this scenery from earlier in her life, as though she’d seen it as a child or maybe dreamed about it repeatedly and in
her dreams had gotten hopelessly lost here.

But she wasn’t lost. She’d studied the map back at Gladdy’s and memorized the directions. It was less than fifty miles from
Helena to Tauntonville, a distance that should have been impossibly long given all she’d been through since she’d run away.
But how easy it was to return, miraculously easy, really — a left turn, a right fork, a few stoplights, and on toward nowhere.

“That’s the Patterson estate, Benny Patterson’s place,” Mole announced. They were passing fields lusher than the others, carpeted
in velvet green, mounded with hillocks and divided into rough squares by pine brakes. The fields close to the road were empty,
but cows could be seen grazing farther away, on the slope above the barn. Down a long drive lined by sycamores was the homestead,
a fancy, pink-bricked Georgian mansion. The scene suggested prosperity and ease, and yet there was something desolate about
it all, with the land like wind-whipped water surrounding the island of the house, a building that looked out on the world
with a squint of contempt. Sally was glad to drive past and leave it behind. Once the estate was out of sight, she thought
to herself about how she didn’t need much in the way of material goods. She didn’t need a big house or a fancy car, she didn’t
need jewels or minks, she didn’t even need the money that was in the paper bag she’d stuffed into the old purse she’d found
in Gladdy’s rummage box. That she could so readily give the money away to her son, as she was intending to do, seemed the
simplest of the choices available to her. But someone — her sister Tru, probably — would have to counsel the boy on how to
spend the money responsibly, to offer the guidance that Sally wouldn’t have the time to give him. It would be hello and good-bye
when she saw him; she planned to stay just long enough to be reassured that he was getting proper care, but then she would
disappear before her parents could catch her and make her answer for the scandal she’d caused.

Wretched Sally Werner.

Run, Sally.

Where’s Sally? Has anyone seen Sally?

There were patches of brown loosestrife along the roadside. The smell of burning leaves hung in the air, though they didn’t
see any smoke. The shadow of a hawk crossed a field and disappeared into the shade of a cloud.

Passing by, mmm-hmmm.

“Hey,” Mole said.

“What?”

He ran his hand along her right thigh, gliding over the ribs of her corduroy skirt, smoothing it against her skin. “You look
lost in thought.”

“I’m thinking about how I wish we could just drive and drive,” she said. “I wish we could keep on driving till we reached
the gates of heaven.”

“And what if those gates were closed?”

“Why, I’d do this!” She blared the horn as she sped along the road, filling the gray expanse of sky with the noise. “Open
the gates!” she called. “Come on! Open the gates or I’ll crash down the doors!” She pressed the pedal to the floor, sending
the car into such a fast surge forward that the tires squealed, and an acrid smell filled the interior. But there was no real
danger. Sally easily slowed the car and drove calmly along the next stretch of road, the horn quiet again, the radio crackling,
in search of a signal, and Mole measuring her with a wondering stare, as though he had just realized that the girl at the
wheel was a stranger.

Which of them was it who asked, “Do you love me?”

Which of them replied, “You’re crazy”?

Or countered, “You’re crazy, too,” providing all the proof they’d ever need that they were made for each other.

He slid closer toward her and stretched his arm across her shoulders. She stayed focused on the road, both hands gripping
the wheel, while he ran a crooked finger against the back of her neck, collecting loose strands of hair and pressing them
up against the underside of her ponytail. His touch blended warmth with a shivery lightness, and Sally felt soothed and grateful.
When a car passed in the northbound lane, she was certain that the driver had seen enough of them at a glance to feel envious.
Who wouldn’t feel envious of two young lovers who looked so sure that they’d never need more than each other?

They reached the turnoff onto Bluff Road shortly after four o’clock. Mole had been dozing on and off for the last twenty minutes
and didn’t open his eyes to see where they were. When they drove beneath the bare-branched canopy of red oaks and onto the
dirt drive leading to the Werner farm, he fell into a deeper sleep, lulled by the boatlike motion of the car. And when Sally
stopped and turned off the engine at the point where the mud was furrowed with the deep ruts from her father’s tractor, Mole
murmured from the depths of his dream, shifting his torso, tucking his hand behind his own waist, hugging himself in sleep.

Wasn’t it right and inevitable that her lover boy would sleep through the impending encounter? If only she were sleeping,
too, and this visit was happening in some remote place in her mind, where memory could play its dirty tricks and turn the
past into the present. It was the same house, unchanged by time, as decrepit as it had been, though no more, since she’d seen
it last. It had the same shingle roof patched with tar, the same stained, peeling clapboard, the same sagging porch. And from
the chimney came the same gray wisps, as if the old furnace had been burning and never stopped burning for the four years
that she’d been gone.

With stringy briars blocking the view from the lower yard, it was possible that the car couldn’t be seen from the downstairs
windows of the house or from the barn. But someone upstairs in the house might be able to spot it and alert the rest of the
family to the arrival of uninvited visitors. Soon the activity would pick up inside the house, one voice would call to another,
and someone, Loden or Clem probably, would come marching down the drive to see what the intruder wanted.

Sally waited, taking breaths that were too shallow to sustain her, until she had to inhale sharply, drawing the whole rotting
spirit of the place into her lungs. She watched the windows for signs of life. The brambles brushing the car were overgrown
raspberry bushes, and they reminded her of gathering berries when she was a young child. She loved pressing open the thicket
to uncover the best berries, lifting each berry with a slight twist of its stem, picking with such painstaking slowness that
her mother used to send her older brother, Loden, out to scold her. But her mother knew that at the end, Sally’s harvest would
be perfect, the bucket filled to the brim with berries that weren’t too green and weren’t too ripe, their tender skin unbroken.
That’s why she was always the one chosen to do the picking.

A big, bottlenose fly living beyond its season and worn out by the cold bumped against the windshield looking for a way into
the car. At the same time, a crow landed nearby and bounced along the mud ridge of the drive. It hopped sideways, cast a glance
at Sally as if to make sure that she was following, and then hopped toward the house, wings folded tightly against its sides.

The quiet here was the quiet of emptiness, of abandonment. It was the quiet of the dream that Mole was dreaming in the passenger
seat. It was the quiet of her own indecision as she sat there waiting to decide what to do, watching the house, wondering
if she’d been wise to return, regretting that she hadn’t sent a letter ahead to prepare her family. Despite the easy drive,
they seemed so far away from where she sat, separated by the thick, oppressive silence. And yet how abruptly the silence was
shattered when she opened the car door and swung it shut behind her.

She followed the crow for a few yards. As she gained on it, the bird hopped faster and finally began trotting across the grass
to get out of her way. She felt angry at the crow, as though she knew it had something to do with the ordeal awaiting her
inside the house. She tried not to look beyond the house at the barn. She wanted only to go back to the car and drive away.
But the rhythm of her approach was too strong to resist, her legs were carrying her up the steps and onto the porch, her hand
was knocking on the door, her face was suddenly crimson hot, and with her sight momentarily blurred by a watery haze she wouldn’t
have recognized her sister Trudy if she didn’t hear her voice, a sandy sort of growl that came from trying to contain her
shriek in a whisper.

“Dear Lord, is it really? Oh, Sally! Where were you all this time, where have you been, why didn’t you write, why did you
go away, just go away like that, without saying good-bye?”

“I don’t know” was all Sally could manage to reply, though that wasn’t accurate. She did know why she ran away from home.
Everybody knew why.

“Come inside, but don’t… oh, shhh. We can’t let the others know you’re here, not yet, not until we have a chance to talk.”

They had to squeeze through the narrow doorway of the foyer, across the hall, and into the small living room. Tru had gotten
so much taller and rosier that the room seemed too small to contain her, too cluttered, with a fat box of a radio, Sally was
surprised to notice, and a worn-out sofa that hadn’t been there before. But there were no toys scattered about, no hobbyhorse
or puzzle pieces indicating that there was a young child living in the house.

Tru said her name again, called her “my Sally,” and threw her arms around her big sister, careening with her across the room.
Sally wanted to ask about her child, but she couldn’t get a word in as long as Tru was going on and on, repeating that she
couldn’t believe it, she couldn’t believe it, here was her own Sally, she couldn’t believe that just yesterday she’d put on
a sweater that Sally had left behind, and now today here Sally was, under the same roof, her dear Sally, life hadn’t been
the same without her, everything was so serious, and she hadn’t had a good laugh in who knew how long. But now here was Sally,
and Tru couldn’t believe it!

It was all said in the same growling whisper, for as much as she loved her very own big sister, she couldn’t bring herself
to tell the rest of the family that Sally had come home. She didn’t have to tell them, for while they were spinning around
in that dance of greeting, their brother Loden appeared in the doorway and stood watching them.

He cleared his throat loudly. The sisters stopped their hugging, separated, and stared back at him. It took a moment for Sally
to realize that he was her older brother and not a younger, thinner version of her father, his hair a sandy red instead of
gray, with long sideburns framing his face. She was about to reach for him, to touch him on the arm just as a gentle way of
making sure that he was real. But when he pursed his lips, she cringed, for she was sure he was going to spit at her.

Instead of spitting, he said, “Hello there.”

She said hello back.

He said, “You been gone awhile.”

She nodded.

He asked Tru, “Did you ask her to come?”

Tru said, “No.”

Loden said to Sally, “Well, why are you here?”

Tru said, “Shut up, Loden.”

Loden repeated, “Why are you here?”

“Can’t you guess?” It occurred to her that they might not want to let the boy meet his real mother. But she hadn’t come all
this way just to be disappointed, and she announced in a way that made it clear she wouldn’t be defied, “I want to see my
baby.”

Loden shot Tru a fierce, silencing glance. Tru looked down at the floor. Loden asked flatly, “What baby?” — a question so
unexpected that Sally was dumbstruck.

“What baby?” Loden asked again.

“My baby. I don’t have to explain. I have something for him.”

“What are you talking about? What’s she talking about, Tru?”

Were they trying to fool her? Were they feigning ignorance, or could it be that the baby she’d left behind had disappeared
before her brother and sister ever knew of his existence?

“Then let me talk to Mother.”

“She’s gone with Father to Aunt Lena’s. There’ll be a funeral soon. Aunt Lena’s failing, though I doubt you much care.”

“Of course I care. But I’ve come all this way to see my baby, and I’m not leaving until you tell me where he is.”

“What baby?” Loden asked once more, with such implacable bafflement that Sally had to face the fact that he wasn’t going to
tell her where they’d hidden her baby. The Werner family was determined to pretend that Sally’s child had never been born
in the first place. And if he’d never existed, then neither had his mother. She who had made a career out of running away
— she’d left behind all evidence that she’d ever lived, her past like the footprints she’d made in the snow when she was racing
her little sisters. If she’d even had little sisters.

On your mark, get set —

Wait for me, Sally!

Running through the storm, had they done it once or twice or hundreds of times? Running against the slanting snow, running
ahead and away, stopping at the fence to let Tru and Laura catch up. Stamp, stamp, stamping her feet to get the blood moving,
and while she was waiting, thinking about what she wanted for Christmas.