The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,53
were looking at him.”
“How was I looking at him?”
“Like he meant something.” Now she’s the one who seems embarrassed. “I mean, to you. It just hit me—funny, you know?”
No, I don’t know. But I don’t say that. I’ve been so caught up in Sam going missing and making decisions for Jack and trying to be “the man of the family” that it surprises me how nice it is to talk to someone else about their life. Even though I really don’t understand why me looking at Jack made her cry.
“Maybe I just miss being around people my own age,” she mumbles.
I could ask her why she’s here and a million other things, but instead I say, “Maybe I can see you in Fairbanks someday?”
She smiles.
“You mean, like something to look forward to?”
I nod. Why not?
“Ouch,” she says, her hand suddenly flying to her stomach. “Sorry, I’ve got a little boxer inside me these days.”
Her dress is stretched across her belly, and underneath it’s moving, rippling like a taut canvas or a drum being played from the inside.
“That is so freaky,” I say without thinking. But she doesn’t seem to mind.
She smiles at me, and I hope she’s never smiled at anyone like that before.
“I’m Ruth,” she says, “Ruth Lawrence, and I should get back.” I help her up. “I need the sheet, too.” She smirks.
“But first, here.” She ties the ribbon I’ve been holding around my wrist.
“Take this—because sometimes you just have to hold on to whatever you can,” she adds, mysteriously. Then she turns her back and waits.
I drop the sheet at her feet and whisper in her ear, “See you in Fairbanks, Ruth.” I never take my eyes off her and she doesn’t turn around, even when I am back in the middle of the river and I’m sure she can hear me splashing. She picks up the sheet, and I watch her slowly make her way back up the hill toward the abbey.
—
I’ll never understand how certain things that happen to us can climb under our skin and make us someone new. Big things can do it—like Sam going missing. Small things can do it, too, like having a stranger fall to pieces right in front of you. I’m beginning to think that everything changes us to some extent.
I can’t explain any of this to Jack, who is smart enough not to ask. But I catch him trying to size up the new bits of me that he can see around the edges of the person he’s always known.
We sit very silent in the back of the yellow Datsun as it crawls slowly along the Alcan Highway, the muddiest, dirtiest, potholiest road you’ve ever seen. It’s slow going. I just keep thinking about Ruth walking back up that hill alone. All the questions I didn’t ask start to plague me, as she becomes less of a reality and more like something I dreamed up.
It takes almost two weeks to drive instead of the one Isabelle had expected, because of how bad the road is. We have four flat tires in the span of a week; we lose a whole day just sitting on the side of the road. We run out of gas and have to wait for someone to come by and give us a lift to the next station—and then a lift back. And we spend countless hours waiting in the middle of the road for things like mountain goats to cross so we can pass. Isabelle is thoroughly grumpy by the time we hit the outskirts of Fairbanks, partly from sleeping in the car with two smelly boys and partly because she’s just realized she’s going to have to drive it all again in reverse. Jack thinks she’s sad that we won’t be with her, but I think that’s just Jack again.
Isabelle has grown on us, though, and when we see the sign that says WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN HEART CITY, a shadow falls inside the car. We pull into the parking lot of a dirty brick building.
“I have to go talk to this woman at the newspaper—alone,” she says. “Can you guys just wait in the car?”
We stare out the window without talking, both of us wondering if Isabelle is inside sealing our fate, handing us off to another family.
There is a murky gray river and a white church with a pointy steeple perched on its bank. People meander by, waving casual greetings or pushing strollers; kids on bikes wobble between wary pedestrians,