Chapter 1
The green nozzle was still in my hand when he turned.
Heat came off the silver pump housing and the concrete smelled like gasoline and hot rubber. I'd been watching the numbers crawl on the meter. My boy sat seatbelted in the passenger seat, knees pulled up just enough that I could see the yellow-purple bruises blooming over both of them. The car door was open. Then his voice cut the air and my fingers went tight around that nozzle like it could hold me upright. He stood by the pump in his tan shirt over the blue tee, jeans, wedding ring catching sun, and his head snapped toward the SUV like he'd caught us trying to disappear.
It didn't make sense. Uncle Elias had said he was safe. That was the word he'd used on the phone that morning, safe, and I'd repeated it to keep myself calm while I checked the tank. But my son's left cheek was swollen under his eye and his forearms were mottled, and the cut on my own chin stung every time I swallowed. The contradiction sat right there in daylight between the trees and the road behind the station, too clear to blink away.
My name is Diane. That afternoon I was supposed to be just getting gas.
He was beside the driver window before I could rack the nozzle. He didn't touch the door at first. He leaned into the open window and the whole interior of the SUV got smaller.
"Stop acting like a baby. Put your hands down. Stop. Help me." His voice was loud and flat and my son flinched at the first word. My boy covered his face with his bruised arm, elbow tucked, the way he'd been doing since last night.
I gripped the steering wheel with both hands. My right forearm burned where the bruise caught the wheel. The leather was hot. The keys swung gently from the ignition, that stupid light blue tag Elias had put on them so we wouldn't lose them, and my left hand twitched toward them without me telling it to. I could see the gear selector, the dust on the dashboard, the Lincoln emblem on the wheel under my thumbs.
He pointed at me through the window. "Put your hand down, Diane."
I didn't. I couldn't tell if he meant my hand on the wheel or the one inching toward the keys. My son made a small sound beside me and dropped his arm to look toward the window, eyes wide, his cheek and knees all lit up in sun.
"He's my responsibility," he said, and it wasn't to me, it was like he was claiming something out loud so I'd stop arguing it. My son whispered, "Uncle Elias? We have to go." His voice cracked. I answered before I thought, "We have to go," and then he cut in over us both, louder, "No, who did that to his arm?"
I stared at my son's arm. The bruises there weren't from falling off a bike. I knew what a bike fall looked like. These were finger-shaped and layered, and my stomach dropped because I'd let Elias explain them two days ago with a lie about roughhousing.
"Give me those keys."
His hand came through the window frame and hovered near the ignition. He didn't grab yet. He blocked the door with his hip so I couldn't push it open. The watch on my left wrist ticked against the wheel. My chin throbbed where the cut pulled.
He leaned closer. The stubble on his jaw, the sweat at his temple, I saw all of it. My boy was breathing fast next to me, seatbelt locked across his chest, distressed and trying not to cry.
"You said he was safe, then explain those."
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I didn't have an answer that fit in that car. Elias had said safe and I'd wanted to believe safe because the alternative meant I'd left him there. The man outside my window was still shouting but under it I could hear the pump beep behind us, my son's breath, my own pulse in my ears. My hand hovered over the blue tag. His fingers flexed toward the handle. The lock button was right there under my thumb, but if I hit it he'd pull harder, and if I didn't he'd take the keys and we'd be stuck at this pump with everyone watching and no one moving.
His hand curled around the top of the window frame. Mine stayed frozen near the ignition. I didn't turn the key.
