Wire Mesh Mothers

16

By the time she had captured all the runaway snacks, sans a Twix that had slid across the sleety lot into the Twilight Zone that was the weeds behind the gas price signs, Kate’s knees were soaking wet and her head was hurting. The Pepsis had rolled under the Volvo along with the deviled ham. The bread, which had flopped out in another direction, had become an unintentional kneeling pad under Kate’s weight. She’d clawed up everything and tossed them through the passenger’s front door. As she dropped into the driver’s seat, a gasoline delivery truck had pulled into the parking lot. It drove around the side of the station.

Just get out of here now, things are okay, nobody will remember I was in the store, at least not until I’m out of the country. I’m forgettable. That’s a good thing right now. She smiled. Forgettable is good this time, Donald. Wouldn’t you just be surprised?

“Mistie, I’m back,” she said. She swiped her wet forehead with her sleeve, plucked the deviled ham from under the accelerator where it was hiding, and put dropped it on the passenger side floor with the other stuff. “Bag ripped, the silly!”

The expected silence. Kate looked over the back of her seat. Mistie had moved, but was still under the blanket. The girl had made a pooch along the hem and her nose was poking out just a hair. “Got lots of things you might like. I just bet you like Pepsi!”

The girl said nothing. Kate kicked off her shoes, aiming them at the passenger’s side floor. Her toes would dry out, she didn’t mind driving with stocking feet. In fact, she thought, this may be the last time I wear panty hose at all. What would I need them for? Once I take Mistie to Alice and Bill’s house, I just may drive west across Canada and get a job at a rock shop or craft shop. That would be fun, and I could wear comfortable clothes all the time.

Her breath eased out, making a funny squeaking noise.

She turned on the engine. On the radio, the announcer said, “…with chances of wintry mix ninety-percent through tonight and tomorrow. Clearing tomorrow afternoon with highs near thirty-five. And please, parents, do not call about school closings, as we haven’t yet received any word from the county and will let you know as soon as we do.” Kate turned the radio off. Too much sound right now.

A whine from the back.

Kate hands clenched the steering wheel; adrenaline stung her arms. Enough whining! God! Okay, get this taken care of now, get her settled, then nothing else will stop us, nothing else save a bathroom somewhere off the main road in Northern Virginia or even Maryland, with luck.

“I’ll give you a Nestle Crunch and a Pepsi,” she said. Clearly that was satisfactory, for a small, snot-sticky hand came out from under the blanket. “Eat the candy bar but don’t drink yet, until I tell you it’s time to sit up. You might spill.”

The fingers wrapped around the candy and drew in beneath the blanket. Sigh of seeming contentment. Kate looked through the windshield. Nobody else was on the road. They were smart; the weather was pathetic.

Thank you God for sleet!

There was a loud, popping sound of thunder somewhere nearby, somewhere outside the car. Kate flinched. Thunder? Impossible. Just a car backfiring somewhere behind the gas station, back past the weeds where there was a trailer park.

Kate eased the Volvo around the pumps to the edge of the driveway and looked both ways beyond the splays of trees clustered at the roadside.

A tractor was approaching the station from the east, an old-fashioned rusty blue with the close set-front wheels and exposed engine. It was heading in the same direction Kate wanted to drive. In tow was a long flatbed with elephantine rolls of winter hay. She could pull out and pass him but he was going so slowly he might, at some future date when pressed by authorities, remember that yes, he saw that teacher’s white Volvo leaving the Exxon and exactly when he saw that teacher’s car leaving the Exxon, he knows it was because he was traveling all of twenty miles an hour and could read the license plate as she sped past.

“Damn!” hissed Kate. She rolled the car back several yards and steered over to the row of Dumpsters to wait. To Mistie, “That was ‘Sam.’ Did you hear me? What the Sam Hill is a farmer doing out in this sleet? I hope he doesn’t catch cold!” Kate checked her watch as the tractor ambled past on the road. Give the man a full minute head start and then she could drive out of the gas station. She could get on the road and past him without any unnecessary attention.

In the back was a soft sound of wrapping paper shredding. “Hang in there Mistie, you having fun?” said Kate softly. “I’m having fun, are you? This really is great, an adventure for both of us….”

And then she heard shouts. She looked back to see three of the gypsy-dressed kids stumbling across the gravel toward the Dumpsters, arms flailing. Kate’s heart stopped. She gripped the wheel. They know what I’ve done! They know!

God God God God!

Kate grabbed for the gearshift, hand shaking madly. She jammed the stick into reverse to pull back from the Dumpsters. God God God!

The kids ran around the Dumpsters and fell into a rusty car on the other side. Kate’s dry mouth opened with a click. She held her foot on the brake, watching. What? The rusted car revved, bucked, and lurched forward from its hiding place and sped to the road. Black smoke trailed. The car nearly struck the tractor’s flatbed, swerved around it and scraped the back door on the corner, then vanished beyond the trees.

Kate looked back at the gas station the back to the road. What was that about?

Mistie sneezed, another one clearly not covered with a hand or handkerchief. Kate would buy some upholstery cleaner in Ontario; give that back seat the good, solid once-over. “Well, that farmer won’t think twice about a white car passing him now,” she said. “I think those kids were giving Mrs. Martin a hard time in there, I’m afraid. I’d go back, but we have to get.”

Kate took a Pepsi from the seat beside her and cranked off the top, hand still shaking. “I need a drink,” she chuckled. She drew on the bottle several times, then sighed, recapped the bottle and said, “That’s it, nothing else is delaying us. Promise. You’ve been under that blasted blanket too long and it won’t be long before….”

The passenger door was wrenched open. Kate flailed about to see a red-striped face with steel gray eyes shadowed beneath a flattened fedora. The mouth of a gun was inches from her face.

“Bitch!” said the striped face as the rest of the body slid in to the car. “Don’t say a fucking word! Drive!”