7
I hiss with the sudden pain stabbing through me.
Baby Salvador tugs at strands of my hair, and my scalp is on fire.
My hot face twists against the urge to shake him.
Stares are sliding to us from all around the public library.
I snub those looks as best as I can.
One arm cradling Sal, I bounce him on my thigh, because when Serena does it, it soothes him.
I’m having no luck.
He just keeps on shrieking and grabbing my hair and scratching at me.
Who knew babies had little talons for fingernails?
I arch my chin away from his reach and click the computer mouse.
The monitor flickers with the change of website.
Public libraries and their computers have come in handy since we left Hell House. More than handy, it’s been something of a saviour.
The snort catches in my nose, and I aim a dark look down at the baby.
Salvador, the name Serena gave him, her favourite grandfather’s name, means saviour.
And in the few months of his life, he’s yet to live up to that.
He’s more of a hindrance than anything.
And right now, an embarrassment.
A screaming, red-faced, hair pulling monster.
He slows me down.
I glance at the clock on the monitor. Just another ten minutes before I have to meet Serena at the car.
She’ll wait.
Not like she can just drive off and leave me with the baby she is so desperate to keep.
So I bounce my thigh, even though it’s useless and I’m convinced the baby knows I’m no mother, and I make soothing shush-shush sounds, and click from tab to tab on the screen.
I print them all.
Once that’s done, I close down every tab, erase the history, then restart the computer.
Might be overkill, especially since I’m wearing the frail face of a freckled woman whose hair is greying.
To those who glare at me, I look like an overwhelmed, stressed grandmother.
So there should be compassion in those looks.
People, I learn, are selfish wonders.
Pricks.
Most of them, anyway.
No one ever offers to help or gives a comforting smile when the baby starts wailing and I’m obviously overwhelmed. There is no compassion for mothers in this world.
It’s hateful.
And my mood is sour as I push out of the chair and clumsily strap the screaming baby into the car seat. The kind with the handle that helps me cart him around, but it’s not exactly light.
It pulls down my arm, sends aches up my slanted spine, as I heave it over to the printer.
Page after page comes out.
I printed every rental listing for every small town in this state.
Ohio is a relief after the searing heat of Mexico. But, after I shove the papers into my backpack, then haul both the bag and the baby carrier outside, the weather turns on me.
Rain is pelting the pavement.
The sidewalk, as the krums here call it.
But I knew that already.
It’s not too much of an adjustment to be here in the US. I’ve spent my fair share of weekends in New York City and Aspen.
Not these days, though.
Cities are above our budget.
Turns out, it costs a lot for two people and a baby to live comfortably.
And we’re already down a chunk of change, between paying off Sofía, and all the driving, the travelling, the baby stuff we had to buy, then the monthly sum to keep us shielded from afar, which is $1,000 a month… each. As in, me, Serena, and also Sal.
So, $3,000 every month just to stay hidden.
How we are supposed to afford to live on top of that monthly expense, I don’t know.
Sofía is eating through our funds faster than we are.
But maybe it will get easier once we are settled.
These print-outs of rentals are our future.
Something stable.
A town to stop in for a little while, a place for Sal to grow from a baby to a toddler.
Hopefully toddlers cry less.
He’s really screaming now.
The rain is getting him, and it’s getting me, too.
The car is all the way up the street, at the supermarket where Serena stopped in for some fresher food, salads and fruit.
When we reach the car, Serena is already sitting in the driver seat, waiting for us.
She doesn’t help me strap in the baby seat.
That’s a nightmare in itself.
But then we’re off.
Two towns over, where those manky motels sit near the highway. Our usual spots.
We endure the drive with Sal screaming in the back—for the next fifteen minutes when Serena decides she’s had enough.
She pulls over and climbs into the backseat with Sal.
I take over the driver’s seat.
Now that we’re out of the bigger town, on a highway, and headed to smaller settlements, the driving practice that filled much of my time at Hell House is coming in handy. Even if I can only drive automatics.
Confidence fails me in busier places and on more congested roads.
Serena says with practice, it will become second nature, like riding a horse.
I hope she’s right.
Because driving is stressful.
Even on bare roads.
The radio is dialled all the way down.
My music for the drive is Serena’s softly sung lullabies and the shush-shush sound we make too many times in a day.
Then, after an hour, both Sal and Serena fall asleep in the back.
I find a motel to stop at.
The tyres roll over potholes and loose gravel.
The shift in terrain stirs Serena awake.
But she says nothing as I park, turn off the engine, then climb into the backseat with her.
She touches up my illusion. Changes it. And a bout of nausea jolts her shoulders.
She swallows the sick down, and my face twists with the blatant disgust cringing me.
I peel off my cropped black jacket, because it’s too feminine for a man, and she always changes my illusion to a man when we get to the motels.
The jeans, boots and t-shirt are neutral, so I don’t change before I creep out of the car as quietly as I can so I don’t wake Sal.
I rush to the office. Luck is on our side today.
We get the keys to a downstairs room, which saves us hauling all the baby stuff up to the second floor.
Serena sticks to the backseat of the car while I do the carrying—moving suitcases and a cot and the baby bags from the car into the room.
But not Sal.
We don’t risk waking him.
I give her the keys, she stays behind, and I head straight to bed in the motel room.
I only get an hour of rest before she’s coming in with Sal, fussing in her arms, and she drops the keys onto the little table next to the door.
It’s my cue to get up.
So I do, arms stretching above my sore, stiff body, a yawn splitting my tired, puffy face.
Serena makes herself comfortable on the bed, then starts nursing Sal. “Did you see the guy out there? The one with the plastic bag?”
I push off the bed and start on the pop-up cot. Sounds easier than it is.
“He’s at the phone booth now, but he was pacing near the diner earlier. He looked nervous.”
I just hum in answer.
I’m used to this now.
Serena thinks every person we see, at the shop, at the filling station, at the motels, is suspicious.
A witch on the lookout for us.
A tracker on our tail.
Every car that travels behind us for more than a few minutes is following us.
Every stranger glancing our way is a spy.
But I say what I always say, “They are looking for two women travelling alone. Not a couple with a baby.”
And that’s what we are.
Me, a man, and Serena, a woman whose complexion is pale and freckled, and whose arms are painted with tattoos.
Only Sal is unchanged.
We don’t illusion him—but even if we did, I doubt Serena could summon the energy to do it. She’s always teetering on the edge of her lassitude limit.
We will need to stick around here for a while, let her recover and restore her energy.
So that is what we do.
In a room that smells like dust-mites, surrounded by thin walls and shouting neighbours, and sometimes randy ones, the baby cries and sleeps on repeat.
But we make use of our time here.
We go through every rental listing, every print-out that details the towns and the demographics and jobs—until, on the third day here, we make a decision.
I drive.
The notebook sits on the passenger seat.
It used to be Serena’s, but over time, it became mine. It’s my manual to the krum world.
Everything I have learned is in that book. And everything I sometimes need help remembering.
Price ranges for food, gas, motel rates, diapers. And in the pages at the back of the book is our list of spending. And on another page, we track how much money we have left.
Serena and Sal stay in the backseat for the drive.
Mostly, they sleep.
I pull over for the feeding, because Serena gets in a twist about driving with the baby out of the car seat.
It’s a long drive to the cold, stormy coast.
But by the time the hatchback is rolling into town, a town small enough to walk, like the village near Elcott, Serena is awake and Sal is rested.
No crying.
Thank the gods.
Moments like these remind me of an eclipse. With all the right but rare conditions coming together, we pile out of the car with just our bags and find a cosy spot in the diner.
We have lunch.
Sal coos happily in his car seat, playing with a straw that’s apparently more interesting than I realised.
“Caesar salad,” I mumble my order, feeling the sluggishness of the drive wearing me down. “Dressing on the side, and three espressos.”
I don’t bother asking if they have almond milk. These places never do.
Serena rubs the dark circle under her eye. “Soup of the day.”
The two safest orders on the menu.
It’s the same at every diner we stop at.
It’s not so much food safety that restricts us—it’s the taste.
The taste of the charred, flavourless steak I had almost a month ago; the bland mushy risotto; the over-salted fries; and the burgers that only taste like whatever sauce drenches it, and cheap cheeses that are so much like plastic that I am suspicious of it.
“This is nice,” Serena says, after the waitress puts our drinks down on the sticky table.
I look around the dated diner.
There’s a piece of cardboard stuck under a table leg. Crumpled napkins and crumbs strewn over the next table. Fingerprints on the glass door. Cake in the glass case beside the register, and I’m pretty sure that cake has been in there for days, if not longer.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I scoff, then sip my coffee.
My lashes shut on the horror of it.