11
Serena watches the rearview mirror more than she watches the road ahead.
Even when she calls Sofía and updates her on loudspeaker, her eyes swerve back to the rearview every other second.
But no one is following us.
Sofía confirms it.
Says our shield is restored.
I don’t heave the same breath of relief that Serena does in the driver’s seat. I don’t sob a happy cry, choke on it, like she does.
Crammed in the back, the door pressing into my side and the kid’s car seat digging into my hip, and Sal squirming on my lap, I just stare at the middle console, all the scuffs and scratches and juice stains on it.
I can still smell him.
Oliver’s cologne lingers in my nostrils.
‘I miss you. We all do.’
My fist tightens around the Jacob & Co timepiece. Not the one I bought for his New Year gift—but it makes me think about the watch that I accidently sent to Eric Harling instead of Dray Sinclair.
It’s not like I haven’t thought about everything that went down back home. But it was years ago. And I haven’t seen them in all that time.
I blended into this new life on the run. Unwillingly. And I had thoughts of home here and there, but when I did, it was more like living in echo.
Then Oliver appeared in front of me, real enough to touch my cheek, real enough to smell his cologne, and it burst the bubble around me.
A whole other kind of shield.
And he let me go.
I look at the watch in my hand.
Sal is tugging it, agitated, held still for too long.
The rise of his whining into tears is just background noise to me, blended with Serena’s warble. She rattles off her anxiety, our next move, formulates our plan out loud, and it’s only now I realise that Sofía isn’t on the phone anymore.
Frowning, I sit up straighter and push Sal onto his car seat. He’s hitting me now, kicking and swatting, demanding his smart tablet.
I wrestle him into the straps, then buckle him in.
I ask, “Where’s his tablet?”
I lean over the backseat for the boot space. The station wagon is roomier than the old hatchback.
Better for us since we move around a lot.
Besides, we can’t go driving the same old car for years. That’s one way to get caught.
“It’s at the apartment,” Serena says, and her voice is almost shrill with the panic.
I grab at the bags in the back, tugging them closer, rummaging through them at random, all with the seat digging into my middle.
“Didn’t you get it?” Then, like she’s just now realising I don’t have anything with me but her son, silence strikes her. “Why don’t you have anything from the apartment?” Panic hitches her voice. “What took you so long to get to the car?”
“My father was there—at the apartment. Mr Younge was at the parade. Dray was at the car show. I don’t know where your father was.”
But he must have been around somewhere, now that I think about it.
Desmond, too, her brother.
“The bags…” Serena’s whisper is guttural. “The bags! Oh gods, all of our money—”
“I know.” The words heave out of me, from the defeat and the seat pushing into my gut.
I snatch the blue backpack from under the duffel bag, then haul it onto my lap.
I thud down on the seat with a grunt.
Sal is screaming now.
Screaming from a purple face, that kind of shrieking that clangs my bones and surges rage through me.
I dig through the kid’s backpack.
I bite down on the insides of my cheeks.
Sal reaches out of his seat—and starts scratching me, pulling my hair, kicking.
I promised him the tablet.
But all I can find in his go-bag is an old game console that he is too young to understand.
“Fuck,” I mutter, then pull out my phone.
I switch through the apps, then click on the slithering snake game that sort of hypnotises him, and shove it into his hands.
Immediately, his scream turns to a snivel, and he takes the game.
It silences him for the most part.
And I breathe a sigh of relief.
Stuffing the watch into my jean pocket, I clammer into the passenger seat.
Serena’s cheek is turned to me—and I see the silent tears running down her warm complexion.
“Your illusion is fading,” I tell her, then flip down the sun visor.
Mine, too.
I flip the mirror back up, then run my hands down my face. “Just keep driving.”
She does.
We drive until the tank is empty and we have to pull over for petrol. I fill up after she fixes my face, then we’re on the road again.
This time, I drive.
She sits in the back with Sal, and even after he’s fallen asleep, Serena just sits there, staring out of the window.
Her tears don’t fall anymore.
But the loss is written all over her.
Serena doesn’t even give me directions or demand the direction I’m headed in.
Doesn’t tell me one state is better than another, or what backup plan we should move onto.
Because in all the schemes and plans we had in place, losing all of our money was never accounted for.
I could tell her about the watch.
But I can’t talk right now.
And if I tell her, she won’t stop talking, she won’t stop vocalising her thoughts as she calculates steps on pawning it, how much we’ll get, where we can go—
I just can’t deal with any of that right now.
Not when I’m barely holding it together.
Hands gripped too firm on the steering wheel, my face is pulled tight as I fight off the tears.
I steel myself against the rolls of sorrow crashing through me.
I need everything to be quiet.
So Serena sits back there, catatonic, and grieves our money.
And I drive.