by M. ANNE AVERA
The alarm goes off at exactly the time you set it three hours before. A dumb feeling of surprise comes with it, as if time wouldn’t bother to pass and let this day happen. But things don’t have to happen anymore. From here on, any action and reaction will have breath. The mass of it unfolds, skittering across the hardwood floors like enormous bugs, their backs iridescent.
All of them belong here, somewhere.
One small suitcase for clothes—barely any fits, but the thrift stores in Birmingham will have nicer things, anyway—and the toothbrush Mama bought, still in its packaging. Ignore the way your hands shake as its body struggles to close. It comes natural. Not enough, though, as the light flits into the room, as the engagement ring sits heavy on the bedside table. A cute metaphor would be to call it a shackle, but the diamond stares at you more like a halo. A break in a line of women.
In a backpack—Tommy won’t miss the thing—goes the day’s supplies: a wallet, the small journal Riker bought as an engagement gift, a birth certificate, and a Social Security card. Everything that belongs to you.
The plan is simple—drift out in the early morning light and hitch a ride to the Greyhound beyond the county lines. Mama had said that anyone with sense would take pity on a girl on her own, thumbing in the August heat, but the unsaid notion was this: sense is only one part of the equation. Goodness is still tied to safety. If you make it that far without being caught, the Greyhound will roll and Birmingham will rise up in the distance and a roommate, a new stranger, will pick you up in a black Acura. Something to look for. Beyond that, there’s nothing.
Tiptoe down to the kitchen to fill a water bottle. The town already fogs with steam, clouded all the way up to the steeple and out to the lake. Now, people are getting up, starting their farm chores and their morning devotional.
Enough of wondering what Dad or Riker or Brother Amos will say. No one will understand better than yourself.
“Honey,” Mama’s voice lilts from the door. Whip around to see her, nightgown brushing her swollen knees, face unmade and hair tied back. “Let me help.”
Her mouth is pulled in a tight line as she cuts up a block of hard cheese, folds it in wax paper. Next to it, a baggie of dried fruit simmers in the window light. She still takes care of you, even now, even after you rejected taking on the glory of her life, her work. The thought of never seeing her again makes tears well and Mama notices, because of course she does.
“I couldn’t let them do that to you,” she says and it’s phonetic the way her eyes read. What would a wedding do that eighteen years in this house couldn’t? But a whole life has led up to a single moment, to her soft sniff at your shoulder blade. In your ear: “It should always be your choice. No matter what.” The words barely reach a whisper. Wrapped in her arms, the rest of it is trivial.
Nothing comes to mind like it should. So, pull away and shuffle the backpack on, heavier, yet still soft. Mama stops you, puts her hands on your shoulders and slides them down to cup elbows. Her eyes ring with tears but you must not wipe them away. Mouth open, she takes one rigid hand away and pulls open a kitchen drawer, slow and silent, then digs through the accumulation—chip clips and magnets, mostly—before she pulls out a thick, black phone, pressing it to you. Take it. The weight drags at your hands.
“It has our home number in it,” Mama says. “I won’t be able to answer unless…”
“I’ll just let it ring.”
Mama’s face cracks a touch when the floorboards creak under your feet and, like a finger that smarts on a hot oven rack then fights the impulse to burn itself again, you want to step heavier, make a sound loud enough to wake Dad up so he can put a stop to this whole thing. One low toned directive is all it would take to unravel the early morning, send you and Mama back to routine and safety. It’s within his power and his rights, even, to end the fantasy clean, cut it off at the source.
That’s not the choice, though. Instead, Mama watches you leaving the kitchen, slow and measured. Her face melts into the walls. All just scenery, now. Evidence for memory in the making.
The threshold hangs, a half-open mouth ready to spit while your hands clam up the door handle, thumbnail polishing the cool metal. Hesitation, then decision. One after another. It’s like someone else is inside these loose clothes, stepping out of the house, pumping legs down the stairs, light on the ball of the foot. Not a sound comes out when the door shuts behind you and ahead, a miracle sunrise shakes skyward. Like a wide orange net cast by God himself. The road glows heaven-gray. Humidity multiplies.
Unbridled fear nips at your heels. Dad didn’t wake up, didn’t see you trail out through the front yard, yellow brick roading away. How come it hurts so bad? With all the secrecy and the hush-hush, he couldn’t have. A past life winds around your head, now so much further from reality. No wedding/no chapel/out of the house/gone off/goodbye/sold a soul for the city and never came back.
Breathe fast to keep the tears at bay because you’re okay, always okay with your picnic lunch and your fleet feet in honey light. Each house along the way casts its singular circular glow. A few steps are scurried like prey in the half-darkness between porch lights and through the kudzu trails, the smell of green heavy enough to bead sweat around your mouth. Dart your tongue out to catch the drops. Salt. Nothing’s quite right.
And there’s the New Testament Church, its handmade white-plaster glory reflecting orange and yellow, its spire flitting up, and its lawn melted with dew. It was a home too, but now it’s bereft, floating along Cade’s Junction. Funny, how when you were small, it was as if Brother Amos was everlasting, born for the service and destined to rule over town and Dad and Mama and, by extension, you. A festering, that holier and holier men will fight their way up soon, now there’s no one at New Testament’s helm. Some sick part of you hopes there’s no heaven, so the man who started this whole cinch in matrimony’s web would fade into nothing.
Could leave a note to Dad, a goodbye letter for closure. It could explain everything from the moment you were born to the last chance to make a life for yourself. A piece of paper would stick nicely between the chapel doors. He would find it when he comes for Amos’ vigil. A clean break is kinder, though.
Forward bound, the streets trail out, lamps flicking on in upstairs windows, folks making their way out of sleep and starting the day. At the corner, the Elbert property sprawls out. It’s not quite as big as your family home, but it’s wide enough to hold all ten of their children. One of which could have been yours. Or you could have been his; under his purview, his shadow. It could have been nice, making visits to the red brick house, in-law style, showing how good a life could be when lived the proper way. His hunting dogs watch your body bob-weave over the asphalt, chained up to the fence, unblinking.
Stop moving. There’s a person behind the Elbert’s door, watching you. In one simple moment, the whole day could go back to dust. Caught. There’s a different life before your eyes, one where you’re sacrament, joined in spirit, an expression of womanhood, of purity. Riker would want explanations. He wouldn’t leave well enough alone.
Your head moves and the illusion breaks. It’s a window’s reflection. A body, long and lean in the morning light. The body is you.
One of the hounds bays. He judged you lacking, sensed your escape, and is on the alert. You may not get away with it. When put into that fight-or-flight terror, the only action left is to break into a run, dragging the suitcase behind you. In through your nose and out through your mouth, the breath goes; always one step in front of the other, towards the edge of town, where the main road stretches beyond safety and into the growing light. Hard to keep up with a heartbeat. The town welcome sign gleams and the main road lapses out towards the lake and the county line, one in each direction. The danger isn’t finished, but it’s enough of an accomplishment to get through the road shoulder’s stining nettle in the early morning heat.
A thought swirls to stick a thumb out and call down a ride, despite the smear of anxiety from stranger danger. Asphalt’s empty on each side, though. The devil you know—solitude—carries the burden on, though your back aches and your feet sting.
Take the chance to sit. The curb is welcoming, warmed by the sun.
With both legs cattycorner to the road, your breath comes back in quick gasps. Time doesn’t bother passing as fast as it did in town. The morning turned into a day without permission.
Shuffling the backpack off, you unwrap the wax paper Mama so lovingly provided and squish a piece of cheese between your thumb and forefinger. It sweats in the daylight but tastes as good as fresh and goes down easy with water, settling your thrashing stomach and cooling the anxiety still nestled deep down. Out of the town and it’s not out of your head. You dig further and hit paper, scraping out an envelope beneath Mama’s bundle. The name scrawled in spidery hand reads: Jane.
There’s a whole wad of cash inside, heavier than the whole backpack. A gift and a promise. She acted like the whole leaving was normal, like something she divined years ago when she held a pink-wrapped baby girl to her breast. Growing her to give her away.
Out of the distance, a truck winds over the road. Its colors flash in green and rust red as it closes in, beaten down by days under the sun. Bile comes up your throat, thinking of all the ways this could go wrong—out of the frying pan and into the fire, as Dad used to say. Danger here and danger everywhere. Could always turn tail and sprint back home. The truck slows, pulls to the shoulder and the window rolls down to reveal a wide, red-faced woman with blonde curly-q hair. She smiles.
“Darlin’,” she says. “You trying to get somewhere?”
Here’s a big pause, an intake of breath. Things might just be okay. Better off with a woman. Better off with a ride in the first place, especially as the heat carves the day out. Leaning in, watching her small eyes: “Greyhound station.”
“I reckon I can get you there,” she smiles. “Headed the way of Montgomery, anyways.” To get in is to take a massive chance. Unlatch the door and settle in the passenger seat anyway. The cab smells like smoke and leather, crowded with bottles and blankets, every surface covered in a fine down of animal hair. Air conditioner blasts, a balm from the heavens.
“I’m Sandy,” she says. She puts the car into drive and pulls off the road. Her hands are withered on the wheel, nails cut short. No wedding ring. The knot in your stomach unravels, slow but sure.
“Jane.” Sandy hums a response and reaches into her console, searching for a moment, then pulls out a pack of Marlboros, the red even recognizable to the sheltered. A white lighter finds her thick fingers below the radio, a thumb darting out to flick at it, idling, then Sandy shakes the pack. A single cigarette peeks out. She pauses, tilts the pack towards you. Another decision.
Take the thing, only because you know just how mad Dad would get, if he could ever know. The cigarette sits light in the palm of your hand, just yellow filter and white body and hot-dark-exhaust smell. When you put it to your mouth, Sandy lights it and the cherry glows while you suck, hitting your lungs hard. Any knowledge of what to do floods out. Sandy can tell, because her face twists and she holds her own cigarette to her mouth, pulling a puff from it and letting it out.
“Like this, sweetheart,” she says. “Just gotta puff at it.” It stings the throat, wrapping around soft tissue and esophagus and she laughs, coughs on her own and pounds at her heart. “That’ll put some color in your cheeks, for sure,” she says.
“Thanks.”
“You looked like you needed it, honey.”
Another pull. This one goes smoother. Maybe this is something you’ll do in the city.
Sandy doesn’t talk too much after that. She cuts on the radio and points the truck towards the horizon. A man’s voice flits through the speaker, mixing with cool acoustic guitar, the song is built to bring up tears and memories, croon wistful and elated in one, singing about God and Heaven and it’s true. It’s so very true.
Not far ahead, the Greyhound station spans a stamp of land, more parking lot than terminal. Maybe you could have walked the whole way, but nothing needs regretting. Sandy slows, pulls into the drive, and circles the lot for a momen before she parks and you slide out of her truck, still burning the last bits of the cigarette, so small all of a sudden.
Her lips click together. “You gonna be okay?”
Soft: “I think so.” Then stronger, with your chest: “Yeah, I will. I’ll be okay.”
It’s another new world outside. The station is sparse in the heat, a few travelers crowded in corners, mouths and eyes everywhere. It smells distinctly of urine and exhaust, but it’s easy enough to acclimate to. At the counter, no one looks twice. The ticket costs forty-five dollars and an hour of wait, which seems a silly price, but it’s worth it to have the slip of paper in hand, to sit on one of the last benches in the shade of a wide metal awning. Now, shuffle through your things, making sure that everything is in its place—all your belongings are still belonging. The phone sits at the very top, coming out heavy in a sweaty hand.
One phone call and Mom would take the family car all the way to the station to bring you home, back to your place. She’d hate it, but she would do it because she loves you. That singular reality doesn’t feel as heavy or as fortified as the one in front of you.
You take it and flip it open to the only contact, press the call button. It rings three times before you hang up. Like morse code. It’s the only link you have back to Cade’s Junction.
Slam the thing to the bag’s bottom. The journal is next, opened blank page, cream white paper straight and perfect, open, hardly exhausted. It stares up for a long while, occupying space and time, sucking tiny bits of guilt out of your head, making you feel numb, chilled. It was a gift from Riker, but once he gave it away, it’s no longer his.
Take a pen and write one thing and one thing only: the date. Your handwriting is neat, geometric. You taught yourself everything you know.
The bus pulls up at the bravery’s final moment. You know it’s yours because it has to be, because of course it is. The thing shudders like an animal, groaning and huffing its exhaust out. People around the station stand up, brush their clothes off, yawn, and stretch. Fall behind the other riders and file into the beast, watching the way the window seats in the back fill up first. Every surface is patterned like old carpet and a tiny bathroom stands in the very back. A cough comes from behind. Silly to be holding up the line when the decision is already made.
To the driver: “Hi. Thank you.”
He looks away, so your legs shuffle on the aisle until you collapse onto a seat, a row to yourself. Exhausted, your body and your eyes. To the left are more people, busying themselves on their phones and in newspaper and outside, the parking lot. The cars look much smaller than they did in the station and the sky is yellow-blue, cloudless and high like a blown-glass bulb. There should be worry. There should be a sense of danger in the unknown spread out over the wide world. But all that stands is relief, trust in yourself, and knowing that God would want it to be this way, too.
Watch the bus doors close and hear the engine start up. Track how the shapes change through the window. Further and further away now. And, in this reflection, there’s a smile on your face.
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M. Anne Avera is from Auburn, Alabama. Her work has been featured in Waxing + Waning, Third Wednesday, The Awakenings Review, and others. Her debut collection of poetry, “Complete and Total Honesty” is now available through Neon Origami Press. You can find her at writeranneavera.ghost.io.
© M. Anne Avera
Halfway Down the Stairs 