Kiss Of Evil

80

The dark-haired girl in seat 18A of the Greyhound bus heading west on Route 70 is making slow work of her Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie. Her mother, in 18B, holds an issue of Vogue in her hands, but isn’t reading. Instead, she stares out the window at the flat Indiana landscape.

At the Indianapolis stop, the woman and the little girl exit the bus. They both freshen up in the ladies’ room, buy a few more snacks, some tissues.

When they reboard and settle into their seats, the little girl’s mother thinks about their future. They have just over two thousand dollars. They have nowhere to live. There are no job prospects. And yet, she thinks as she looks out the window to see the sun suddenly peer from behind a cloud, ever since that registered letter arrived, so crazily out of the blue, they suddenly have everything.

They have each other.

As the bus begins to pull out of the Indianapolis station, she glances up from her magazine to see a man of about thirty-five making his way to the back of the bus, a small duffel bag over his shoulder, a cute boy of six in tow. The only seats open are 18C and 18D.

The man smiles, stashes his bag in the overhead. Before sitting down, he ruffles the young boy’s hair, then looks at the woman. “Hi,” the man says. He has kind, blue-gray eyes, sandy hair. His son looks just like him.

“Hi,” the woman answers.

“This is Andrew,” the man says. “And my name is Paul. What’s yours?”

The woman in 18B looks at the man, then at the boy, waiting for what she figures to be the proper amount of time. For a single mom. She reaches over and takes her daughter’s gloriously sticky little hand in her own.

“Mary,” she says. “My name is Mary.”