Savage Drift

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE} DEAN

“There’s a KID in the TRUNK!” Astrid said, scrambling to release her seat belt and open her door.

I practically fell out of the car.

Niko was frantically reaching around the dash, trying to find the trunk release button or knob or whatever.

He pulled it and thonk, the trunk came up and I skidded around the bumper and there was a little girl. A toddler with black hair matted down by sweat. She had skin the color of caramel and big brown eyes. She wore a sweater dress and little white shoes.

The toddler saw Astrid and me standing there and burst into sobs.

Astrid stepped forward and took the girl in her arms.

Astrid looked up at me. “Juice box. Now.”

I grabbed a juice box as Niko came around the car.

“Whoa,” he said.

“Yeah,” I answered, putting the straw in and handing the box to Astrid.

The crazed (now-dead) mother of this child had made a nest for her little girl in the trunk of the sedan.

There were blankets and two or three sippy cups.

There was also a large pack of diapers pushed to the side.

“We tailgating?” Jake asked, stumbling to us. Then he saw. “Hey, who brought the baby?”

He patted the back of the toddler. She pulled away from him and cried all the harder.

“Mommy,” I said, nodding to the trunk so he could see the nest of bedding.

“Wow. That’s… that’s…”

“Sad? Horrifying? Tragic?” Astrid offered as she bounced the little girl.

“Lucky we found her in time,” he said.

“Okay, okay,” Niko said. “We need to think. We need to get off the road and think.”

“I need to change her first,” Astrid said.

I got a whiff of the kid. Yes. She had to be changed.

Astrid held the girl on her lap and we drove to the next truck stop, fifteen miles down the road.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” Astrid had asked her, but the girl wasn’t talking. Maybe she couldn’t talk yet. It was hard to tell how old she was. Maybe two? Maybe less?

In the backseat, I picked up one of the photo albums that we’d thrown behind the headrests.

The album started with the mom we’d seen hugely pregnant, being hugged by her husband. Some of those kind of sappy naked-belly photos with the man placing his hands reverently on her giant, round globe of a stomach.

Then there were photos of the hospital waiting room. Parents milling around. Two families, one black, one white, waiting it out with expressions of nervous excitement. Some older kids playing around with bubble gum cigars.

There was the dad, grinning broadly, coming to tell them the news.

There was the mother, holding the little, squished-up, squalling baby.

Lots of photos of an older boy holding the newborn. A cousin? A brother?

Some embarrassing photos of breastfeeding.

And amid many, many photos of this baby girl dressed in many cute outfits, some of which featured headbands, tutus, and/or animal ears, was the girl’s birth announcement:

“There’s a birth announcement in here,” I said. “Her name is… Rin-ee?”

“Rin-ee? How’s it spelled?” Astrid asked.

I spelled it, complete with the accent.

“I bet that’s pronounced ‘Renée.’ Is your name pronounced Renée, sweetie?” Astrid asked the girl.

The toddler nodded and in a very soft, quiet voice she said, “Winée.” It was the first word we’d had out of her.

Niko pulled into the parking lot at the service station. It was one of those big ones, with a bunch of chain fast-food restaurants inside. There were plenty of cars clustered in the spaces near the station. Who knew how much food there was to be found inside.

Niko parked at the far end of the lot—away from the rest of the cars, near the place where the asphalt ended and a small wooded area began.

We all got out of the car.

It felt good to be out in the air. The afternoon was turning gold—it would soon be time for dinner, if we could afford any.

Astrid rested against the car, the toddler squirming to get down.

“Okay, okay,” Astrid said.

The girl went right for a puddle about ten feet away.

“I’ll watch her,” I told Astrid. She looked like she needed a break.

Rinée looked up at me with some suspicion. When I offered her my hand to hold, she marched right away from me and headed to the puddle.

“What are we going to do?” Astrid asked Niko.

Rinée jumped in the puddle, splashing her legs with the muddy water.

“Ew!” I said with a smile. “Yucky.”

“Yuck!” she repeated.

“We can’t go on with her,” Niko said. “She has to go back.”

“We can’t go back to Vinita,” Jake argued. “What about the drift?”

“Maybe it’s moved out by now,” Astrid said bleakly.

“Yuck!” Rinée yelled, splashing again.

She bent down to pat the water with her hands. That was just too gross for me.

I bent and scooped her up.

She screwed her face up, like she might cry. I twirled around, spinning her in the air.

She laughed.

“Moy,” she said.

“Moy?”

“Moy woun’!”

More around. Okay. Rinée could make her desires known verbally. That would be helpful.

I twirled her again and her laugh broke out—like a bell ringing. Oh, it was a sweet sound.

I laughed with her.

“We have to take her back, Jake. She has a dad. He’s probably worried sick.”

“He’s probably dead!” Jake shouted. “Let’s be honest!”

His face went all red and then he burst into sobs.

“Like her mother. She’d be alive—,” he cried. “She’d be alive if I had just been—smarter, faster, I don’t know, BETTER, I could have shot that guy and she’d be alive.”

Astrid had crossed to him by now and was hugging him.

He sobbed into her neck.

I can handle this, I thought. She’s his friend. She’s comforting him.

Then he cupped her head, her beautiful blond hair, cropped short, and he kissed her.

“Down!” Rinée demanded. I let her slide out of my hands onto the ground, where she started dancing in the puddle again.

Astrid pushed Jake away, slowly and then harder. He stumbled back.

“Jake! What’s wrong with you?” she said.

But hadn’t she stayed a moment?

She’d let him kiss her.

I walked into the woods, my hands in fists.

“Dean?” Astrid called. “Dean!”

Screw her. Screw them both.

There wasn’t even a good tree to sit against and think. They were all weedy, with trash blown into the roots in places.

I stumbled into the woods until I couldn’t see any of my “friends,” or the parking lot.

I finally found a tree sufficiently thick to lean against.

I thought about Alex. I’d left my brother, who I loved dearly, so I could get Astrid to safety. I’d taken this risk—a huge risk—for what? What if she and Jake got back together? She had the right to do that, after all. We weren’t married.

I’d left my brother for nothing.

I cursed my stupidity long and loud.

Niko came and found me a while later. He had the gun Jake had taken off the trucker with him.

“Hey,” he said.

I nodded toward the gun. “Going hunting?”

“No… Look, I think I’m going to go ahead alone,” he told me. “I’m going inside to see if I can hitch a ride.”

“Okay,” I said.

“If I can’t hitch, maybe I’ll steal a car,” he said, talking more to himself than to me. “If it comes to it, I guess I could walk.”

“Well, maybe I should come with you,” I muttered.

Niko looked up at me, totally surprised. He brushed his long, straight brown hair out of his eyes.

“I mean, if Astrid wants to be with Jake then I should let them have each other. I’m just getting in the way. And you might need my help.”

“Dean,” Niko said. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say. Really.”

I heard distant squeals of laughter from Rinée. Jake was probably swinging her around now.

“You love Astrid, I know you do. Why would you leave her with Jake?”

“Because… because she loves me. Some. She loves me some. Not all the way, like I love her. And I know, she needs time and she’s been through so much, but maybe she’ll never love me like I love her!”

I brushed the back of my hand over my eyes.

“I’m pathetic. I left Alex because I thought I should protect her. But what if she doesn’t end up wanting to be with me? She never shows it. She doesn’t even act like she’s my girlfriend most of the time.”

“Dean, do you know what love is?” Niko asked me.

I looked up.

That was a jerky thing to ask. The kind of question that gets a guy punched, but I knew Niko. He could be awkward at times.

“Love isn’t how the person makes you feel or what they do for you. It’s how you feel about them,” he said. He stood there, all backlit with the dappled sunset.

I was kind of thunderstruck.

“Love is how you feel about the other person. Everything else is just details,” he said.

I let my head rest back against the scrawny tree trunk.

“So do you love her?”

I nodded.

“Then stop worrying about Jake and stop worrying about making her love you the same way and just do your job.”

“My job is to love her, you’re saying?”

“And keep her safe.”

“I’ve been acting like an idiot,” I said.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

I got to my feet. Niko handed me the gun.

“You should have this. That O guy could still be around. You should have it to keep Astrid safe.”

“You don’t want it?”

He shook his head.

“I’m less of a threat if I’m not carrying a gun, I think,” he said.

His profile was facing me now and he was thinking of something.

Niko Mills. Here he was, saving my butt again.

“Good luck,” I told him, extending my hand.

“You, too,” he said. “I’ll see you on Red Hill Road, in New Holland, Pennsylvania.”

“Red Hill Road. New Holland, P-A.”

Niko and I walked back up to the car together.

Astrid was sorting through some of the things in the car. She had set out on the parking lot the fan, the box of dishes, the houseplant, and other stuff she obviously thought we didn’t need. Rinée was busy digging with a spoon in the dirt of the houseplant, slowly scooping it all out onto the asphalt and patting it with the back of the spoon.

“Dean,” Jake said, getting up to his feet. “I’m a jerk. I’m an a-hole. You have to forgive me.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can see how it happened. Let’s just forget it.”

I went over to Astrid.

“You’re okay? You sure?” Astrid asked me quietly. “I’m so mad at him.”

“You know what? I’ve been acting like a jealous idiot. I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’m better now.”

Astrid looked relieved. Maybe even a little bit impressed.

I clapped my hands.

“Let’s get this baby back to her daddy.”

Rinée looked up and clapped her little hands, echoing me.

Astrid hugged Niko for a good, long time when we said good-bye.

Jake shook hands with him.

I swept him into a big hug.

We all promised we’d see each other soon. God, how I hoped that would be true.

Then I drove and Jake rode shotgun.

Astrid and the little girl slept together in the backseat, which was much more spacious now that Astrid had thrown everything out.

For dinner we had protein shakes.

There had been exactly $217 between all of us. We’d split it down the middle—half for Niko and half for us. It felt like Niko should get more, since we were taking the car, but he insisted on the split.

We wanted to make our $108 last as far as we could.

We had had to get gas at the station. That had been weird.

The attendant had to call into an 800 number. He made me give my social security number to a crabby lady, who then informed the attendant that my credits for the week had already been used.

The attendant looked at me like I was dirty.

Someone had hacked my account and had used all my credits and I got treated like scum.

Jake’s account, with his luck, was completely untouched.

The guy gave us the full measure of Jake’s available gas credits, which was about a half a tank.

That would get us back to Vinita and then some.

“Hey,” Jake said to me in the car. “Remember that time we got high? Back at the store?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That was pretty fun.”

“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a couple of Obezine now, right?”

“I guess.”

“If we were settled. You know, safe,” Jake said.

“I know.”

I knew he was aching for another swig of that whisky bottle. Astrid had tucked it into the trunk. I’d seen her do it and I watched Jake see her do it, too.

But instead of thinking about what an addict he was, and getting myself all worked up, I just let Jake be Jake.

The sun went down and the road got dark.

After a while Jake fell asleep.

I’d driven for about an hour when I realized something.

I woke up Astrid.

“Guys, if we go back there now, we won’t know who’s there. We won’t be able to see. The O guy could still be out.”

“What do you want to do?” Astrid asked me.

“I think we should find somewhere to pull over and sleep in the car.”

“Okay,” she said, yawning.

I pulled off at the next exit and we were on a country highway. Fields of corn razed to a knee-high stubble on either side. The land was flat—really flat.

I wanted a sort of hidden place to put the car. Some tall windbreak trees surrounded a small farm up the road. But I didn’t want to go too close to someone’s house. They’d think we were up to something.

I wasn’t quite sure where to go.

Everyone in the car was asleep.

I just drove for a bit. Eventually I saw a farm and then, a little ways down from the farm, a dirt road that seemed to be some kind of access road. There were some trees there.

I turned down the road and parked the car on grass, between two pine trees.

Through this, no one woke up.

All three of them were exhausted—one from being drunk, one from being pregnant, one from being locked in a trunk for four hours. Thank God Astrid had heard the baby when she did.

I got out.

The air was completely still.

I took my suit and mask, just to be safe. I was pretty sure the warning whistle would give me enough time to gear up.

A hoot owl was calling and the scent of pine was really strong in the cool air.

Sometimes, for a moment, your senses could spin your brain a story. You could forget about the disasters and just smell the crisp country air for a moment.

I sat against one of the large trees.

A few minutes later, Astrid came to me.

“You think the air’s okay?” she asked me.

I held up my face mask. “Just to be safe.”

She got hers from the backseat and then came to sit next to me.

“Is Rinée all right—,” I asked and she stopped me talking with a kiss.

The moon was up and her hands were on my face, and she kissed me gently. An apology of a kiss.

I drank in the sight of her big eyes, her rose-colored lips, that hollow at the base of her throat.

“You were really great with her today,” Astrid said to me.

“You feeling okay?” I asked. “Any cramps?”

She shook her head.

“I’m a little tired, is all.”

She leaned against me and we looked up at the nighttime sky.

“Remember when you said ‘it’s a real baby,’ when we were looking at the ultrasound?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I feel like that all the time. I can’t believe I have a real baby growing inside me. Under my skin! A little human being! And it’s going to come out and I’ll be a real mother. It’s surreal.”

“You’re gonna be a great mom,” I said, sounding like a cliché.

“Pah, who knows!” She laughed. “But you’re going to be a great dad.”

I closed my eyes.

She thought of us as a family. She did.

I needed to let it sink in, so I’d remember it the next time Jake drove me berserk.

“Got any more names in mind?”

Astrid wouldn’t let me or Jake or anyone know about the names she was picking out for the baby.

“Ferdinand, if it’s a boy,” she said, straight faced. “Or maybe Algernon.”

“That’s nice. Call him Algae for short.”

We laughed together, under a canopy of pine branches and above them, the stars.