that carried blood to heart. “I’m gonna have to leave her here, I’m afraid,” Moira said.
“Leave her here? Why?”
Sal looked properly shocked. In previous days, Moira would have sooner left her beloved pig for the buzzards before parting with the predatory machine she powered down the tangled back roads of Terrebonne Parish.
“I’m headed to the airport,” Moira explained. “And I can’t leave her settin’ in the lot till Judgment Day. Lord knows what I’d owe for parking by the time I got back. I’ll pole Skip over to Little Earl’s dock and have him run me into St. Bernard. I can catch a ride into New Orleans from there.”
“So, you know at least that much about where you’re headed.” A wary shine waxed Sal’s eyes. “What are you gonna do when you get there?”
Moira shrugged and scratched beneath Cheeto’s chin with her index finger as the little pig leaned into her hand. “I’ll know.” Of this, she had total confidence. Some unseen anchor had sunk deep into her middle, binding her to a larger force whose trajectory she could either follow willingly or be dragged behind. The longer she sat talking here on the bed with Sal, the tighter the rope pulled, the more unbearable the pressure to take flight became.
“You got money?” Sal asked.
“Enough,” Moira answered. The lie clung to her throat as she swallowed it down. But she found she was glad she had spent her last wad of tip money stocking the fridge and cupboards now she knew Sal and the boys would be on their own for a while.
“Well,” Sal said, rising from the mattress, “I guess you better get on your way then. Light’s best on the water with the sun overhead.”
Moira knew. Knew the way she had always known when it came to the water. She could look at its surface and read it as clearly as the expression on a beloved’s face. She reached for the oversized shoulder bag she had stitched together from the worn-out camouflage pants Red always picked up from the Army Surplus. More than four decades out of Vietnam, he’d still wear nothing but.
Lifting the flap on the compartment she’d sewn especially for the purpose, she tucked Cheeto inside, sliding his collapsible water and food bowls into additional pockets.
Last of all, she slid her feet into the worn flip-flops by the door, already hating the thought of keeping them on until she reached whatever destination was in store for her. The stairs sang their familiar lullaby of squeaks and groans as she and Sal made their way down and out the screen door.
Moira paused at the patch of dead grass by the Badger’s tail pipe, grass daily blown flat when she’d light out for wherever she was going.
She laid a hand against the car’s rear spoiler, already warm from the spring sun. “You be good,” she instructed.
The dock shifted beneath their feet like a funhouse hallway as they made their way out to Skip, the old pontoon lashed to a metal peg by a length of slimy rope. Moira hopped down first and waited for the boat to settle before reaching up to take her duffle bag from Sal. “Promise me you’ll get Bunky out to look at the dock.”
Sal snorted and spat another brown glob into the already murky water. “Bunky Robichaud’s got a pecker for a head and brain small enough to fit.”
Moira bit her bottom lip to keep from smiling. If Uncle Sal had actually seen Bunky’s junk, he’d know that was more compliment than insult. “That may be,” she admitted. “But he’s a decent carpenter and he’s already agreed to fix the dock. Ordered in the new poles an’ everything.” After I rode him to glory and back, came her mind’s unwanted addendum. “Promise me?”
“Oh, all right,” Sal grumbled. “But I’m hidin’ the beer before he comes over.”
“I told you,” Moira said. “You ain’t got to worry about that no more. He and Layla are back together. He’s not drinkin’.”
“You never did tell me how you managed that,” Sal said, that familiar suspicion creeping back into the creases of his face.
“Never told Layla neither,” Moira winked. “And it’s better that way.” A brief flash of borrowed anger welled up inside her, shaking her enough to sit her down hard. She covered it up by reaching for the rope, which Sal unlooped in three practiced swings.
Sal paused at the top of his motion, holding the last line tying her to the life she knew. His eyes