Chapter 9
We left my duffel bag by the front door. That was Lauren's idea without her saying it out loud. She zipped Sophie's little pink suitcase and set it by the stairs, then looked at the duffel and didn't touch it. I didn't either. It stayed where I'd dropped it that first night, green canvas against the gray siding in my head even though we were inside now. Leaving it felt like a promise I could keep without words.
Sophie climbed into her car seat herself and pulled the blanket up over her knees. It was the same light patterned blanket from the doorway, folded small now, edge frayed where she'd worried it. Lauren tucked it around her and I checked the straps twice the way the manual said. Sophie didn't fight me.
Highway 31 north was two lanes and a lot of dead corn. Lauren drove. I sat in the passenger seat because she knew the turns and I didn't know how to be a passenger yet. The heater blew loud and then settled.
"Her mom's about forty minutes out," Lauren said after a few miles. "Past the county line. It's straight up 31, then left on Miller Road."
I nodded. The fields rolled by, brown and stubble-cut, a water tower in the distance that said ELLISVILLE in faded paint.
"Traffic wouldn't be bad," she said, like she was testing the sentence. "If we did move up there. You'd have maybe twenty-five minutes to the VA clinic in town. They have that new building by the highway."
"Yeah," I said. "I saw it on the map. Appointments are easier there than the city."
She glanced at me. "And the school district's smaller. Sophie would be in the elementary next fall. My old teacher still teaches there."
I looked back at Sophie. She was watching the telephone poles pass, blanket pulled to her chin.
"What about work?" I asked.
Lauren kept her eyes on the road. Her hands were at ten and two. "My mom knows the manager at the clinic in Ellisville. Reception. It's not my old job, but it's hours. No weekends. And rent's... rent's half what we were paying here when you were gone."
She didn't say we couldn't afford the house. She didn't have to. I felt the weight of the duffel back home, unpacked, useless.
We stopped at the gas station just before Miller Road because Sophie said she was thirsty and Lauren needed gas. The place was called FastTrip, with a yellow sign and four pumps under bright white lights. A sheriff's cruiser was parked by the air pump, empty. Inside smelled like coffee and hot dogs turning on rollers.
Lauren pumped gas while I took Sophie inside. She held the blanket bunched in one fist and my hand with the other. Her boots made little squeaks on the linoleum. I bought her apple juice and a pack of cheese crackers and a bottle of water for Lauren. The cashier, an older woman with a name tag that said JAN, smiled at Sophie's pajama pants under her coat.
"You traveling?" she asked me.
"Just up to family," I said.
Sophie held the blanket up like she wanted Jan to see it. Jan said, "That's a cozy one," and Sophie nodded, serious.
Back in the truck, Lauren got in and handed me a receipt for the gas to throw away. She didn't. She folded it and put it in the cup holder. Sophie drank her juice carefully, both hands around the box, blanket still across her lap. The car smelled like gasoline for a second, then just heat again.
Her mother's house was smaller than I remembered from photos. White siding, same as ours but older, a carport with a blue tarp covering firewood, a little front porch with two plastic chairs. Mrs. Henderson — Diane — came out before we were even parked, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She was shorter than Lauren, hair cut short and gray.
"Well look who made it," she said, and hugged Lauren, then me, quick and warm. She knelt down to Sophie. "There's my girl. You brought your blanket, I see."
Sophie leaned into her grandmother's shoulder but kept hold of the blanket.
Inside was warm to the point of stuffy, heat cranked high, TV on low in the living room. The kitchen table had a puzzle half-done. Lauren's old high school photo still hung in the hallway. Diane led us down a short hall to the back bedroom.
"This would be Sophie's," she said, pushing the door open. It was a small room with a twin bed made up in a quilt, a dresser, a window that looked out at the backyard and a shed. A laundry basket sat in the corner. "We cleared the sewing stuff. Closet's empty for her clothes. You and Lauren would have the front room, I can sleep in the den. It's tight, but we'd make it work for a while."
I stood in the doorway. The room was clean and warm and cared for. It was also ten by ten, with no place for Sophie's little table, no place for my duffel even if I unpacked it. The walls were close. I could hear the refrigerator humming through the thin wall.
Lauren stood beside me, not touching, watching my face. Sophie stood at the foot of the bed and laid her blanket flat on the quilt, smoothing it with her palm like she was checking the fit.
"It's nice, Mom," Lauren said quietly. "Thank you."
Diane nodded, eyes on me. "No pressure, Daniel. Just an option. Better than rattling around that big house alone."
I put my hand on the doorframe. The wood was warm from the house. Outside the window the sky was getting dark early, that late November dark that comes at five.
"It's good to see it," I said. And I meant it. It was real now, not just an idea on the phone. A small warm house, forty minutes from the clinic, half the rent, a room that was already made up but too small to breathe in. I thought about the duffel by our front door at home, waiting where we left it, and understood why Lauren hadn't let me bring it.
Sophie picked her blanket back up and held it to her chest. "Can we go home now?" she asked, not whining, just asking.
May you like
Lauren looked at me. I nodded once.
"We'll head back tonight," I said. "Long drive home."
