Chapter 12. Jenny
JENNY
The air smelled of warm bread and French fries.
Jenny closed her eyes and inhaled the scent, until the sound of tires on pavement startled her.
She spun around as a red car zoomed past and made a sharp turn into the A&W.
She stared after it, remembering how she’d wait for her mom’s cherry-red Volvo to appear around the corner of her school.
Her stomach would be tangled in knots, the noise of the other kids fading.
She didn’t laugh or play. Everything was narrowed to the moment when she could see her mother through the windshield.
If her mouth was painted in bright lipstick, her hair done in barrel waves, it was going to be okay.
But if her mother was wearing her large sunglasses and her hair in a scarf, Jenny didn’t dare make a sound.
She couldn’t sniffle, or rustle her books or clothes, and she never commented if her mother was late. It didn’t matter if she’d been standing for an hour in the pouring rain.
If she failed at any of those, her mother’s hand would lash out with a quick slap to the back of Jenny’s head, her arm, the exposed skin of her leg if she was in shorts or a skirt.
Simon reached for her now, pulling her out of the memories, and walked her into the shade of a tree near the river. He turned her to face him, and held her close, the warm skin of his bare arms encircling her waist and his thumb rubbing against her bicep.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
She lifted her chin to look up at him, still startled by how different he looked with his new haircut and color. “I don’t want to steal all their money.”
“Why the hell not?”
She searched his face, worried he was angry with her, but he just seemed surprised.
“How will they get home when we’re done?
They’ll need money.” She didn’t know what done was, though.
When was the end to all of this? They couldn’t leave Tom and Alice and take the RV.
Jenny had only driven her mom’s car around their town—and barely at that.
She got nervous at yellow lights, four-way stops, and while reversing. She never drove at night.
It had been months since she’d even touched the steering wheel. Her mother had taken away the keys because she’d scraped the sides of the tires on a curb too many times.
Simon’s dad wouldn’t let him borrow his truck, not even so Simon could get his license.
Sometimes Simon was able to use a friend’s car to practice, but after paying rent for the apartment above the marina and buying groceries for both of them, he was too broke to take the test. She knew he felt bad that their only transportation was his boat, but she’d loved that metal skiff, and she’d hated that they’d had to abandon it once they’d made it up the Fraser River.
She missed watching him navigate the water, laughing with him when they went over the waves. They’d found secret beaches and coves where they collected rocks and sea glass that she could use to make her jewelry. Her eyes prickled with tears when she thought about those days.
“Why are you so worried about them?” Simon said. “They’re probably rich and have family who can send them money. We’re the ones who have to start over with nothing, Jenny.”
He was right, but she still knew it wasn’t right. “What if we were to pay them back?”
“How?”
“One day. When we get settled.”
“You want to mail them a thank-you card?” He smiled to take the sting out of his words, and added, “Maybe we can make amends somehow, okay?”
It was vague, nothing concrete that she could land on, but it needed to be enough. She had to believe that they weren’t ruining Alice’s and Tom’s lives forever.
“You knew when we left White Cliff that we’d have to steal,” Simon said. “Hell, we stole backpacks and sleeping bags from one of the boats that night.”
It was true that they hadn’t had much, just a few dollars, but in the panic of running away, the concept of stealing had been blurry and involved nameless people.
“Everything feels so out of control.”
“I know, baby. That’s why we can’t argue in front of them. Alice is smart. She watches everything. So just go along with whatever I say.”
He used to like hearing her thoughts on everything. He would wait until she added her ideas. She thought of her mother, how she’d walk away sometimes when Jenny was in the middle of a sentence, but this wasn’t the same thing. Simon was doing this to protect her.
A beige station wagon with wood paneling turned in to the rest area, rolling to a stop not far from the RV. The door opened and two kids jumped out, running past them to the bathroom.
Simon shifted so his back was to the station wagon and she was blocked from view, then whispered, “We’ll head straight back to the RV. Keep talking to me and smiling.”
They turned around but now they were walking closer to the station wagon. All the doors were flung open. A harried-looking mother was sitting in the front seat, a baby on her lap. She was feeding it a bottle. She looked hot and flushed and gave them a wan smile.
A man got out of the driver’s side and leaned against the side of the station wagon, watching them. His orange checkered shirt was unbuttoned, showing a hairy chest and belly.
“Hey!” he said loudly, but Simon kept them walking forward. The man repeated his call. “Hey, you two! I’ve got to tell you something.”
Simon stopped with a grimace and looked back at the couple. “Yeah, man?”
“You see any hitchhikers?”
Simon shook his head.
“There’s some killers on the run.”
Jenny felt Simon’s hand clench around hers. They had to make a comment, or it would look strange, but she panicked. Should she act scared? She was scared.
Simon said, “We heard something about that. We’re being careful.”
“They’re a real pair of crazies. They chopped up her mother.”
Jenny sucked in a gulp of air, a strangled gasp, but the man didn’t seem to take it for anything more than genuine horror and gave her a solemn nod. “Keep yourselves safe.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Simon said. They were at the RV.
The man pushed away from his station wagon and took a couple of steps forward like he still wanted to talk to them. If he came up to the door, would he see Alice tied to the table?
The kids came sprinting back from the bathroom. The mother smiled and patted one on the cheek, then pointed toward the playground. The kids ran away again, yelling at their father to come watch. He glanced at Simon and Jenny one last time, then followed the kids.
The woman stepped out of the station wagon, bouncing her baby, and cooing at him with silly faces.
The baby giggled. Jenny watched, transfixed.
She could be like that. She could be a fun mother, one who woke her baby with kisses on its belly, who smiled when the baby reached for her or grabbed her hair.
She would never mind if the baby had sticky fingers or spit up on her.
Simon stopped at the bottom of the RV steps. He tugged on her hand until she looked at him, and then whispered, “You okay now? You understand why?”
Jenny nodded. The baby. She would do anything for her baby.