No more, she thought. Not ever.
They crossed the ball diamonds to the roadway fronting the bluffs and walked to the crest of the slope to look down over the bayou and the river beyond. Harper had found a stick and was dragging it through patches of frost, making designs. Bennett took out a cigarette, lit it, inhaled deeply, and sighed. She was a mess. She wasn’t using, but her health was shot and her head was all fuzzy inside where reason warred with need and emotions fragmented every few days in a fireworks display that was truly awesome. She thought of her mother and hoped she was burning in hell, then immediately regretted the thought. Tears filled her eyes. She had loved her mother, loved her desperately, the way she hoped Harper loved her. But her mother had abandoned her, disappointed her, and rejected her time and again. What was left for her when it happened so often but to flee, to try to save herself? Her flight had saved her life, perhaps, but had cost her in measurable increments her childhood innocence and sense of self-worth and any chance of escaping her mother’s addict life.
But it would be different for Harper. She had made that vow on the morning she had learned at the free clinic she was pregnant and had decided whatever higher power had given her this one last chance at something good, she wasn’t going to mess it up.
So here she was, come back to where she had started, back to where a few things still seemed possible. She was dressed in another woman’s clothing, and the clothes her child wore had been stolen from or discarded by others, but even so she felt new and hopeful. Nest Freemark had been so good to her in the past. If anyone could help her find a way back from the dark road she had traveled, it was Nest.
A train whistle sounded, distant and forlorn in the midday silence, echoing across the gray, flat surface of the Rock.
“Choo choo,” Harper said, and she made some train noises. She shuffled around in a circle, dragging her stick, chuffing out clouds of breath into the sunshine.
lean make this work, Bennett thought, staring off into the distance, out where the whistle was still echoing through the winter silence.
“Hi, there, cutie,” a voice behind her said. “You are about the sweetest little muffin I’ve ever seen.”
Bennett turned quickly, shifting in a smooth, practiced motion to place herself between the newcomer and Harper. The young woman facing her smiled and shrugged, as if apologizing for her abrupt appearance while at the same time saying, so what? She was close to Bennett’s age, tall and lanky, with wild red hair that stuck out. Her bright, green eyes fastened on Harper with an eagerness that was disconcerting. “Hey, you.”
Then she glanced at Bennett, and the look cooled and hardened. “You are one lucky mom, to have someone like her. How are you doing? My name is Penny.”
She stuck out her hand. Bennett hesitated before accepting it. “I’m Bennett. This is Harper.”
Penny shifted her stance without moving her feet, loose and anticipatory. “So, are you from around here or just passing through, like me?” Penny grinned. “I’m visiting my granny for the holidays, but you can believe me when I tell you this place is in a time warp. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to see. I can’t wait to get out. You?”
“I’m from here, back for a visit with a … friend, an old friend.” Bennett held her ground, watchful, the hand in her pocket fastened on the switchblade. “We’re staying on awhile.”
Penny sniffed. “Whatever. I’m outta here December twenty-sixth and good riddance.”
She looked off into the distance as the freight train swung into view out on the levee, wheeling down the tracks with a slow-building rumble of iron wheels and pistons. They stood motionless, the three of them, staring out at the train as it bisected the horizon in a seemingly endless line of cars, a zipper motion against the still backdrop of water and winter woods. When it disappeared, the sound faded gradually, still audible when the train was several miles up the track.