Void Moon

49

SHE cut up Laurel Canyon to Mulholland and then drove the snaking road east. At a pull-over point overlooking the Valley she watched the sun creep over the mountains to the east and flood the flats below. She put the top down on the Boxster before taking off again. The dawn's air was bone cold but it kept her awake and somehow made her feel good. Where Mulholland dipped down to the Hollywood Freeway she crossed over to the freeway entrance and started heading north.

In her mind she conjured a vision of Max in his Hawaiian shirt on the night in Tahiti when they had made life promises and, in her heart, Cassie knew that their daughter had been conceived. She remembered how they slow-danced barefoot on the beach to music crossing the inlet from the distant lights of a fancy resort. She knew what they had together was inside. All inside. It had always been that way. The place where the desert turned to ocean was the heart. And she would always have that.

By the time she hit the Ventura County line she needed to put on her sunglasses. The air was warming up and whipping her hair around her ears. She knew she had to dump the car and get another. But she couldn't stop. She believed that if she took her foot off the pedal and even slowed down for a moment everything that was behind her would catch up and overtake her. All the death and guilt would come roaring down on her in the road. All she knew was that she had to stay ahead of it.

She just drove.