Spit Delaney's Island by Jack Hodgins Page B

turned it on. Then she set up the ladder and climbed it, puffing, both feet on each rung, and pushed her head up through the door in
the ceiling.
    The boy was asleep and too heavy for her to carry this time so she shook
him awake. “We’re moving again,” she whispered to him over and over
until she was sure it connected somewhere inside that head with other
memories and made sense. “We’re moving again, going some place nicer
this time.”
    She went ahead of him into each room to turn out the light, then came
back and guided him forward. “This time it will be different,” she promised him. “This time it will be nicer.” And she helped him down the steps
as if they were both blind, both unsure, both frightened. Telling herself: it
will soon be all over, we’ll be able to relax, the nightmare will end.
    When he was in the car she slammed the door and went around to her
own side to get in. “I still don’t have any shoes on,” she said, swallowing a
giggle. And remembered too, that she hadn’t packed a suitcase for either
of them. “I’ll come back and move the rest,” she said.
    Again the headlights hit the wall of trees. “We’ll find another place,
nicer than this,” she said. “A little farmhouse somewhere, surrounded by
apple trees, a little house covered with cedar shakes.”
    She started the engine and backed the car around. She patted the dashboard gently: Help me once more, she told it, just one more time. Then
said, “This time we’ll never have to move again,” and put her hand on the
boy’s knee. His head rested against the window on his side. He looked as
if he had gone back to sleep.
    I won’t turn the headlights out, she thought. This time I won’t sneak
away. She drove slowly up her driveway, feeling the car vibrate beneath her
like a purring cat. Don’t stop, she thought, don’t stop for anything until
you’ve got us somewhere safe. “And something else, Richard,” she said,
trying his name aloud for the first time in fourteen years. “There won’t be
any prison in this next house, no locked doors. You’ll live with me the way
a son should.”
    For a moment she thought that somehow the door on his side of the car
had fallen open and she slammed on the brakes. But he wasn’t falling, hewas leaping free of the car, squealing; he landed on one foot, rolled, then
leapt to both feet again and started running, ahead of her, down the road.
    She didn’t get out to catch him, she drove behind, her front bumper
inches from his legs. He’s never run before, she thought, he’s never even
done much walking. Sooner or later he will tire or fall or forget how to
move his legs, or realize he doesn’t know how to run. Then I’ll stop and
pick him up and take him away. Just take it easy, she whispered to the car.
And felt something of herself drain down through her fingers and into the
wheel.
    His figure in the light ahead of the car was like a puppet dangling, his
legs and arms all uncoordinated and loose. And yet he kept on, slowly, and
did not duck off to the side to escape or fall to his knees to be caught. He
fled before her as human as a shadow, down the darkened tunnel of road
beneath the trees.
    But as Mrs. Starbuck was approaching the bridge another pair of headlights came around the corner and bore down on her, coming too fast.
    â€œYou’ll hit my son!” she screamed, and jammed one foot down on the
brake pedal. Without taking the time to pull on the handbrake or turn off
the engine or even change out of gear she pushed open the door and leapt
out (commanding “Wait here” as if to a servant or child), then ran ahead
to catch the boy before those other headlights could hit him. In front of her
own still moving car her hand touched him, just brushed him, a split-second before she stumbled and fell to her knees. The other car