Waiting for Augusta by Jessica Lawson Page B

have been lying, but it can get tiring on your heart to go around thinking maybe people were always lying to you. I’ll be back by supper , Daddy would say before staying out after hitting balls, playing guitar with friends instead of coming home to me and Mama. Your daddy’ll be home to take you fishing, don’t you worry , Mama would say before shaking her head and gritting her teeth. More painting time , she’d say, like it was what I wanted to hear. You know your daddy loves you anyway . That last one wasn’t a lie, because maybe she thought that was something she knew. But love isn’t a fact,it’s a feeling, and the feeling that my daddy loved me was like catching fog. It was there, but I couldn’t get a solid hold on it. I think maybe it was that extra word that made it all seem slippery. It was the anyway that made it feel like a lie.
    â€œOkay,” I told Noni.
    We went up and down eighteen coal cars before we found Daddy. Noni and I were both filthy-exhausted by then, covered in coal dust from head to toe. It was well worth the time and effort when I saw the backpack tucked into the corner where Noni’d tossed it. The sight of the urn nearly made me cry, and my neck lump moved a little, rotating a slow dance of relief.
    â€œBenjamin?” Daddy coughed himself awake from whatever blank space he’d been in. “Where the heck am I now?”
    â€œYou’re on a coal train, Daddy. Heading east.”
    â€œYou jumped the train?”
    â€œYep.”
    There was a pause while my father considered me. “Good boy,” he said.
    With a smile that stretched right through the lump in my throat and into the pool of lumps surrounding me, I felt my insides get filled up until I swelled with that good boy . That good boy was like a long drink of cool water. That good boy made me wonder if I couldn’t keep my daddy around if only I could keep finding pigs to butcher and trains to jump on. Maybe I could become who Daddy needed me to be and maybe he could dothe same for me and maybe he wouldn’t have to go anywhere because he would realize that he’d belonged with me all along.
    â€œHe okay?” Noni asked.
    I nodded. “Noni? About you taking my daddy . . .”
    â€œLook, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to do. But we’re a team, okay? I’m going to help you, and you’ll help me. So far I’ve been carrying more than my load of the helping part, but you’ll get there.” She put her hand on my shoulder and leaned close. “I’ve got faith in you, Benjamin Putter.”
    â€œI butchered a whole hog,” I reminded her. “And I just drew a picture that got us a lighter and a spoon.”
    â€œWhich you wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t picked the wrong bus. But I won’t hold a grudge.”
    â€œWrong bus? If you’d brought any money from wherever you came wandering from, maybe you could have taken your own bus.”
    She frowned. “But I like having company.”
    That caught me off guard. I searched her face, but she didn’t seem to be joking. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it. Don’t take the urn again. Okay?”
    â€œFine.” A remnant of the stink eye she’d had when I met her flared up, along with her nostrils. “And don’t you go trying to stick your nose too much in my business.”
    Has to get the last word, doesn’t she? the coal beneath me pointed out.
    Don’t let her, suggested a Marlboro patch.
    â€œFine,” I told her. “And next time you decide one of us can’t talk, pick yourself.”
    She nodded. “I just might do that.”
    I wasn’t expecting her to agree. “Oh. Well, okay.”
    The sun was starting to head toward setting. It was maybe five o’clock. With the train’s movement, the Alabama heat felt cooler and it was downright