Chapter 7 #2
Carrie took a tentative step back. Heidi willed her to slam the door in Harvey’s face, and she was surprised when Carrie actually did just that, smashing it just before Harvey entered her room.
Harvey raised his fist and began to batter it against the door.
“Open up! This is my house! Carrie, for crying out loud.” But it seemed that Carrie had locked the door.
It wouldn’t hold forever, Heidi knew. But it had stopped him for now.
Of course, Heidi hadn’t considered that Harvey would come after her next.
He turned around and glared at Heidi, where she stood at the center of the steps.
“You disobeyed me,” he said firmly, stepping back toward her.
He didn’t have a weapon, but he had those big fists.
Heidi had been conscious of those fists from the get-go.
She’d seen them during their wedding. She’d known what they were capable of.
Heidi had a single chance, she knew. When he came closer to her, when he took that first step down, she smelled the alcohol on his breath and remembered that he wasn’t entirely stable on his feet.
When he went to reach for her, eager to hurt her in whatever way he could, she slipped past him, then watched as he lost his balance and fell down the stairs.
He landed all wrong on his shoulder, then began to howl louder than she’d ever heard a man howl.
It was the worst sound she’d ever heard.
But it was also the soundtrack to her freedom.
She knew it was time to get out of there.
Carrie flung open the door, gasping with panic. “What did you do?”
Heidi ran toward her. “It doesn’t matter. Pack up your suitcase again. We have to go!”
Apparently, Harvey had broken more than his shoulder.
He could hardly get to his feet. When Heidi and Carrie returned to the stairs, their suitcases swinging, they watched as he staggered around the kitchen, knocking into things.
Blood gushed from his nose. He wasn’t fast enough to catch them, but he could always contact someone.
He could always send someone else after them. They had to be quick.
Heidi threw their suitcases out the side window so that he wouldn’t see them.
They landed with healthy plops on a mound of grass.
Then, Heidi and Carrie walked down the stairs, Heidi with her head held high.
“Baby, we’re going to go get the doctor, all right?
” Heidi said, although she remembered too late that the doctor was still out of town.
“I mean, we’re going to get the car. We’ll pick you up and take you to the city to get patched up. All right?”
“We can’t afford that!” Harvey gasped angrily. “We can’t afford what you did to me!”
“Honey, I didn’t do anything to you,” Heidi said, edging toward the door with Carrie right behind her. “You fell, all right? We all saw it. Didn’t we, Carrie?”
Carrie nodded. “We’re going to get the car,” she said. “Hang tight.”
Before he could say anything else, Heidi and Carrie rushed outside, grabbed their suitcases, and began to run down the hill, past the courthouse, through the fields, and out the yonder side, where a highway cut through the mountains.
This deep in, there were no buses. There was no way out unless you had a car of your own.
And Heidi had decided that stealing her husband's or her father’s car was a way to get caught quicker than they needed to be.
Carrie was crying quietly, clutching her suitcase.
“It’s going to be okay,” Heidi called, throwing her arm forward and sticking her thumb up.
She prayed that a creep wouldn’t pick them up, and it would be a family of four, or an older woman who didn’t know the dangers of hitchhiking.
Most of all, she prayed it would be someone they didn’t know, someone who wouldn’t take them straight back to Harvey and their daddy.
The first few cars whizzed past, but then a clunky truck pulled over.
In the driver’s seat was a kid around the same age as Heidi—nineteen or twenty, maybe, with shaggy red hair.
He was listening to hippie music on the radio.
He was probably a hippie himself, although Heidi had never really met a hippie and wasn’t sure.
“I’m going to Nashville,” he said, grinning. “Hop in!”
Heidi and Carrie threw their suitcases in the back and got into the front of his truck.
Heidi sat in the middle, wanting to protect her sister from this stranger.
But within a few minutes, Heidi was already pretty sure that he was safe.
His name was Isaac, and he was adorable, happy, always singing, and banging his hands on the steering wheel.
He was from Alabama, and he’d been visiting some of his cousins in a neighboring town.
“But I’m going to Nashville for the music,” he said, beaming.
Heidi had, of course, heard about Nashville’s music scene. But it had felt so far away from their little town, nearly as far away as Los Angeles or New York City. She’d certainly never imagined going there.
“I have a friend who can help you find a room there, if you need that,” Isaac told them.
It didn’t occur to Heidi to go farther than Nashville. Nashville seemed like the other side of the planet. “That sounds grand,” she told Isaac, throwing her head back so that she could feel the cool mountain air through her hair. Maybe this was the first day of the rest of her life.
She removed her wedding ring and shoved it in her pocket. Carrie saw her do it and said nothing.