Quo Vadis, Baby 4 |
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38 |
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She says she knows that, and yes, she would like that.
They strike out away from the road, and twenty minutes later they find a small stream, and he sits next to the bike, back to the stream, and in a few moments hears Ellen splash in – then squeal and quickly laugh, and he smiles, it must be cold. She splashes around like an otter behind her, and he shakes his head and digs his fingernail into his palm. He is staring out across the flat sparse land, he isn’t sure for how long, and then she is beside him and says she’s clean now, she feels better, thanks. He breaks out the blanket and sets it on the back of the bike seat and she clambers up behind him, and they are off again, back to the highway. Although first he has to show her a few things in the desert, he’s ridden there enough, and she has good reactions to the things he shows her, she seems lighter in spirit now. Time will heal her as only time can. But she has taken a step away from the past, and that is good.
He’ll buy her jeans the next chance they get, or give her money to get whatever clothes she needs. He has a fair amount of cash left from some serious Zen pool playing a few nights back, he can swing it easy. It’ll be nice. He never spent enough time with his kids. This is a way to make up for that.
They stop for the night at another motel, and get a room with two beds. Ellen takes another shower, and tells Max, before he can ask, that she is feeling much better, and it’s healed. He takes his shower, undressing and then dressing again in the bathroom, and he gives her one of his long T-shirts to wear, and washes her clothes in the sink, scrubbing at the pants as if he could eradicate the pain until the bloodstain is gone, and hangs them over the side of the tub. She is in bed when he comes back, with the sheet pulled up under her chin. He goes and gets them cheeseburgers, fries and shakes – a feast for kids of all ages – and they watch TV, whatever she wants to, mostly family sitcoms, and she is awake and smiling one moment and asleep the next. Her face, relaxed and smooth, is like a little doll’s. a little broken doll. Max would like to choke the sonofabitch to death three times, how a man does that to a child?... He doesn’t know. There is evil in the world, and it’s never been hard to spot, if you bother to look.
In the morning, he has her put on his extra pair of pants. The cuffs, rolled up to her ankles, look like flabby tire tubes. They tie her clothes on the handlebars – Ellen laughs as he does this – and they are off onto the highway and away, happy |
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All work within this periodical is copyrighted by the authors and Big Pond Rumour, January 2008. No part is to be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the authors and Big Pond Rumour Press. |