Chapter Fourteen Ren
Ren didn’t remember falling asleep. She remembered the gentle rumble of Fitz’s voice and then nothing, not even the relief of letting go of the day. After a few hours of deep, dreamless slumber, her eyes drifted open, and in the darkness of the hotel room with only the even rhythm of Fitz’s breathing and the occasional rattle and drone of the heater, she was trapped completely alone with her thoughts.
Sometimes, at the most grueling points of the planting or harvesting seasons, Ren would tell herself to shut off all musing and keep moving forward. Don’t think about the relief of being done, or the bounty at the other end. Just complete one task, then the next, and the next. Yesterday was a little like that. She was moving toward a goal, not thinking about the possibility of a father somewhere ahead of her, or of the two worried parents back in Idaho.
But once consciousness opened the spigot on her thoughts, she couldn’t turn it off. Worry rose like a salty tide, guilt and doubt and regret close on its heels. She was foolish to have left the way she did, impulsive. In two and a half days Gloria and Steve would drive to campus looking for their daughter, and she would be all the way across the country. She had to keep them from coming to campus on Friday. No matter how angry she was at whatever lie the DNA test might have unearthed, she couldn’t just vanish.
A letter wouldn’t get there in time, and there was no landline on the homestead so there wasn’t a way to call—
Her eyes widened, the nightstand taking shape in the dim light. It was early Wednesday, the day her parents went to town. If Gloria and Steve stuck to their routine, they’d be at the Hill Valley Five and Dime at seven, right when it opened.
At six, she got up and used the restroom, brushed her teeth, and climbed back into bed. Fitz was still out cold. At six fifteen, she opened a couple of drawers, closing them softly at first, and then less softly. He was still out. At six thirty, she feigned a coughing attack, and he slept through the entire thing. And at six forty-five, she said his name three times—nothing.
But even so, when the clock on the nightstand turned to seven, she glanced over at him, silently studying him for any movement. All she noticed were slow, steady breaths and tiny muscle twitches as he slept. Carefully, she slipped his phone out from beneath the corner of his floor bed and tapped the screen. A digital keypad appeared, and Ren stared at it, unsure what to do. She tapped zero. Waited. Nothing happened. She tapped one-two-three-four-five. Nothing.
Releasing a quiet growl of frustration, Ren tried to remember how he’d accessed his phone for her in the car. With a hopeful wince, Ren held the phone up to Fitz’s face and let out a tiny squeak of victory when it unlocked. Opening the browser, she googled the number for the Hill Valley Five and Dime, writing it down on a piece of notebook paper from the desk.
Number in hand, she tucked Fitz’s phone back under his bed and took the cordless room phone into the bathroom, carefully shutting the door. After only two rings, the call connected, and she sent a silent wish to the universe. Please let them be there.
She’d recognize old Jesse’s voice anywhere. Years of smoking unfiltered Marlboros had left tracks through his words, dragging them each through gravel and smoke and ash. “Hill Valley,” he said. “How can I help you?”
She cupped a hand over the receiver, careful to keep her voice down. “Jesse?”
“Yes’m?”
“Hello…it’s—it’s Ren.”
A pause and then, “Ren? Ren Gylden? Girlie, what’re you doin’ callin’ me on the phone for?”
“I’m not sure if you heard, but I’m away at college now.”
“I did hear that,” he said, and her heart squeezed at the communal pride that filtered through the line. “That’s really somethin’.”
“It is, yeah, thank you.” She cleared her throat. “So, the thing is, I don’t have any way of reaching my folks, but I got the date wrong for my spring break next week and need to let them know.”
“Why’re you whispering, hon?”
“Oh.” She glanced at the thin door separating her from the silent bedroom. She could only hope he was as dead to the world as he’d been a few minutes ago. “My roommate is still asleep, but I wanted to call the store early, knowing that Steve and Gloria might be coming in for supplies soon.”
“Ah,” he said, “I got you. You want to give me your number, and I’ll have them call you from here?”
“I don’t mind staying on the line if it’s all right with you. I expect they’ll be there soon.”
Jesse’s laugh was a rumble that tightened into a cough. “Well, all right, hon, if that’s what you want. I’ll put them on when they get here.”
His receiver thumped against the counter, and she listened as he explained to his wife, Tammy, in the background. Anxiety churned, acidic, in her stomach at the sound of Jesse helping a customer in the background, the ding of the cash register and the slam of the drawer.
Stepping into the empty tub, she sat and pulled her knees to her chest, throwing a towel over her head for added insulation.
She startled when the phone scraped across the counter and her mother’s voice, so unfamiliar this way, carried through the phone line. “Ren? Is that you?”
Cupping a hand over the receiver, she whispered, “Hi, yes. It’s me.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wanted—”
“Why’re you whispering?”
Wincing, she lied. “Miriam is asleep still.”
“It’s seven in the morning,” her mother said in disbelief. “Light as day outside.”
Squeezing her eyes closed, she tried to think of the fastest way to get through the conversation. “I know. College kids sleep in late, I guess. Listen, I got the dates wrong for spring break next week.”
“You what? I can barely hear you.”
She glanced nervously toward the door again, ears on alert for any sound. “I got the dates wrong for spring break.”
“Now how’d you do that?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s actually midterm exams next week.” The lie felt oily and wrong in her mouth, but she swallowed it down and pushed on. “And I was hoping to use this weekend to study.”
“You’re saying you want to stay in the dorm over the weekend? And that you won’t be home next week, but the week after instead?”
Ren grimaced, wondering how she’d make up missing an entire week of classes after spring break. But she swallowed thickly, saying, “That’s right, ma’am.”
“I don’t know, Ren.”
“Please? I set up a drip system in the cold frames so you won’t have to water, and I can work extra hard the week after to catch up on everything I miss. I don’t think it would be too disruptive for me to stay just this one weekend before exams. I’ll only be in my room or the library.” She swallowed, wincing past the lie: “I promise.”
She heard Gloria’s muffled voice, then Steve’s, and Ren’s stomach crawled into her windpipe while they discussed it in the background. Finally, Gloria was back. “Just this one weekend, Ren. I mean it. We’ll be there the Friday after next, like usual.”
Relief was a blast of sunlight across her skin. “Of course! Thank you!”
“But you’ll need to earn this free time you’re getting. We’ll have a list for you when you come home.”
Ren nodded, elated. “Absolutely.”
“No leaving campus, nothing we wouldn’t approve of.”
“Of course, ma’am. I understand.”
Steve’s voice came closer, like he was leaning toward the phone. “We’re letting you do this one time, Ren. You get one free ticket, that’s it.”
A spike of panic stabbed through her, but she swallowed past it. “Tell him I understand and am so grateful.” Wincing, she lowered her voice again. “I’ll see you in a week and a half.”
Her mother gave a reluctant “All right, then.”
“I love you, Gloria!” Ren said, waiting to hear it back. “Hello?”
Her mother had already hung up.
Ren sat in silence for a long moment, trying to find relief in all of it but mostly feeling sick to her stomach. Gloria hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary, but Ren felt the distance yawning between them already anyway, and she hated it. For better or worse, they were all Ren had in the world…even if what she was doing secretly widened that distance even more.
Pushing out of her little cave, she stepped out of the tub, hung up the towel, and walked across the bathroom floor. Hesitating at the threshold, she listened. Still quiet. With a calming breath, she gently turned the knob and swung open the door. Dread slithered, slimy and cold, into her veins. There, standing on the other side of the threshold waiting for her, was Fitz.
“Before we go one more mile today,” he said, “you’d better tell me what the hell is going on.”