Page 32 of Mail Order Bride

By the timethe police arrived, I was in bed. I still think about those flashing lights dancing eerily across the walls of my tiny bedroom. I lay awake, unable to sleep. It was too hot, or maybe I was simply too worried, or too scared. You don’t really know these things with certainty when you’re eight, but you know them in a different way.

“Oh, Darlene,” I heard Daddy groan. “What have you done?”

“Justice,” was all she said. I guess that’s when they took her away. Mona came the next day and stayed a little while. I don’t know where Daddy went, but he wasn’t home much.

Looking back, I think he was trying to find a way to hire a lawyer to get Mama out, but I guess he wasn’t all that successful. I know he sold the car, and we didn’t have one for a while. He borrowed the neighbor’s truck sometimes, but mostly Mona helped us out.

I visited Mama in jail, but only once. She didn’t look like herself. Not long after, she made her first attempt at escape. She was almost successful, but the warden found her in the next town over after someone called it in. She had injured herself on the way out, and it was a nasty cut, the kind that might have killed her if she hadn’t sought medical attention.

Going back to that place killed her all the same, but I guess she had a choice to make, and that was it. She wrote me frequent letters, and on my birthday she got what she said was her one phone call.

I’d sit out on the porch, rain or shine, and wait for Vinnie, the mailman, to arrive with the day’s mail. Mama’s letters were always filled with grand adventures. She made prison sound like the worst kind of hell, but she was always the heroine and she always came out on top.

In her second attempt at escape, she made it all the way home. Mama always had a way with people. She could talk her way out of anything—or so I thought then.

I woke up in the dark to her stroking my hair. “Hey, baby,” she said, the biggest grin on her face. I thought I must be dreaming, but she put her finger to my lips, and she sat there long enough for me to know it was real. “I can’t stay,” she told me with tears in her eyes. “But I want you to know I’m sorry. And I love you very, very much.”

I don’t know when she was caught exactly, only that the letters kept coming. She wrote she wanted to be home with us, but she couldn’t and she was sorry. Years later, my father said that if I read between the lines, I would know that Mama thought she would be happier on the outside, but she wasn’t. She realized she couldn’t go home again, and life on the run is hard for a woman.

And then, one day, the letters stopped coming. My birthday came and there was no phone call. I suppose Daddy thought he could lie forever, but I was getting older. I was learning what reading between the lines really meant.

There had been an accident at the prison. Mama had set herself on fire. “What kind of person sets themselves on fire?” I asked later, sometime in my teen years, when I was old enough to understand.

“She always burned herself to keep others warm,” Daddy told me. “That’s just who your mother was.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Joel

Ihit the road for Ohio after an uncomfortable breakfast with Gina and her father. Sometimes a clean break is the easiest way. I needed some time to sort out my thoughts, and the drive would give me space to do that.

I don't know what I was expecting, coming up here, but I never thought I would be heading back to Texas with a wife. I didn't expect to fall for her, but I guess that's what happened.

I only know that when I stood on her porch and said my goodbye, I never wanted to do it again. This shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish, as the trip to Willoughby will be a quick one. I'll be back tomorrow.

I pull into town after dark and take care of a few details. I call Layla to check in and see if any new jobs have come through. She doesn’t answer, but she’s usually busy most nights.

Later, I park behind the old motel. The Highway House, as the sign vibrantly displays. The place looks ancient. It’s a quiet and cold night, too cold, the kind of weather that makes you want to get down to business.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happens. The man I’m looking for is nowhere to be found. A trip that was supposed to take a day ends up taking over a week.

Eventually, though, I find him.

Robinette Mason or Robbie Hanson, as he’s calling himself these days, is staying in room number eleven at the Soft Mill Inn, two towns over from where I was told he’d be. It’s perfect, the last room right before an outdoor hallway that leads to the pool. I knock lightly on the door and then hide in the shadows. Sure enough, just as I presumed he would, Robbie opens the door and sticks his head out. I’ve never seen him in person, just a photo, but even in the pale light, I can see that he is exactly what I expect.

“Who’s there?”

He glances from one end of the breezeway to the other, and I make my move just as he's about to close the door. I shove it open, and Robbie staggers backward, looking surprised. “Sit on the bed,” I say, “and don't move.”

He's about to object, but I speak before he can. “Hands up!”

He does as I say.

“Keep them where I can see them,” I tell him. I know where he keeps his weapons—his shotgun is in the bathroom and there's a pistol under his mattress. Neither are within easy reach. I emptied both of their chambers earlier, but he doesn't know that. “On the nightstand,” I say. “Or under your pillow. Not much point having a weapon if you can't get to it.”

“Who are you?”

“Never mind that,” I say, as I slide my bag into the room. I close the door behind me, putting the chain in place. The room smells like a giant ashtray, but also like whiskey and evil.

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