Page 1 of Finders Keepers

Isit on the edge of the creaky motel bed, watching my daughter color in her worn princess coloring book. The room smells of stale cigarettes and cheap air freshener, but it’s better than where we were a few hours ago. My hand instinctively reaches up to touch the bruise on my cheek, and I quickly pull it away when I notice Sophie looking up at me.

“Mommy, can I have some juice?” she asks, her little voice barely above a whisper. She’s been quieter since we left, and it breaks my heart.

“Of course, baby girl.” I dig through our hastily packed bag and pull out her favorite cup with purple butterflies. My hands shake slightly as I unscrew the top and pour some apple juice from the bottle that I bought at our last gas station stop.

The neon sign from the motel flickers outside our window, casting an intermittent red glow across the room’s faded yellow wallpaper. We’re somewhere in Texas now, I think. The past few hours have been a blur of highways and back roads, constantly checking the rearview mirror, my heart jumping every time I saw a black pickup truck.

Sophie abandons her coloring book and climbs onto my lap, her small arms wrapping around my neck. She smells like the strawberry shampoo we brought from home, one of the few familiar things we have left.

“Are we gonna see Daddy again?” she asks, and that familiar tightening in my chest from my anxiety starts.

I hold her closer, running my fingers through her soft blonde waves. Sometimes it’s like looking in a mirror when I see her, those same ice blue eyes staring back at me with an innocence I wish I could protect forever. Even at four, she’s handled this chaos better than I could have ever expected. No tantrums, no screaming fits, just quiet questions and those soul-searching looks that make her seem so much older than her years.

“No, baby,” I whisper, continuing my fingers through her hair. “We’re going on an adventure, just you and me.” I try to keep my voice steady, to sound excited rather than terrified.

The room’s air conditioner rattles to life, making me jump. Sophie squeezes me tighter, and I realize she’s picking up on my anxiety. I need to be stronger for her. I force myself to take deep breaths, just like my therapist taught me before I had to stop going, before my husband found out I was seeing one and accused me of cheating on him.

“Hey, want to play a game?” I ask, attempting to inject some cheerfulness into my voice. Sophie nods against my shoulder. “Let’s pretend we’re explorers discovering a new kingdom. What should we call it?”

She pulls back, her eyes lighting up slightly. “Princess Land!” she declares, and for the first time today, I see a glimpse of my bubbly little girl.

“Perfect! And what kind of princesses live in Princess Land?” I ask, grateful for the distraction.

As she launches into an elaborate description of princesses who ride unicorns and have pet dragons, I glance at my new prepaid phone. No missed calls or texts, which is good. I’d only given the number to my friend Emma, who’s back in Oklahoma and she promised to let me know if she heard anything about him looking for us.

The mattress springs creak as I shift positions, and I make a mental note to check us out early tomorrow morning. We can’t stay in one place too long. The cash I’d been secretly squirreling away over the past year won’t last forever, but it should get us far enough away to start over.

“Mommy, I’m hungry,” Sophie says, stopping her story about a princess who turns scary dragons into butterflies.

I check the time, nearly seven PM. “Let’s see what we’ve got in our special adventure bag,” I say, trying to make our meager supplies sound exciting. I open our bag and pull out some crackers, a jar of peanut butter, and a banana. “Look, we can make peanut butter boats!”

She claps her hands, and I set about preparing our makeshift dinner. As I spread peanut butter on the crackers and place banana slices on top of them that I cut with the plastic spoon I also picked up at the gas station, I notice my hands aren’t shaking anymore. Maybe it’s her presence, or maybe it’s the growing distance between us and him, but I’m starting to feel the tiniest bit safer.

After ‘dinner’, I help her change into her favorite unicorn pajamas and she insists on sleeping with her stuffed rabbit, Mr. Hoppy, the one thing she refused to leave behind when I woke her up in the middle of the night and told her we had to go on our “adventure.”

“Mommy, can you close the curtains more? The red light is scary.” She points over to the window where the flickering neon motel sign is casting its glow into our room.

“Sure, baby girl.” I make my way over to the blinds and pull them shut. “There we go.”

“Story time?” she asks hopefully, already settling under the thin blanket.

“Just one tonight, sweetie.” I grab “The Paper Bag Princess” from our bag, her favorite book and, I realize now, perhaps not a coincidental choice for her to love. I snuggle into bed with her and as I read about the princess who outsmarted the dragon and decided she didn’t need a prince after all, Sophie’s eyes grow heavy.

“Love you, Mommy,” she mumbles as she drifts off to sleep.

“Love you too, baby” I whisper, kissing her forehead.

I get up and sit in the room’s only chair, pulling it from the corner and positioning myself where I can see both the door and my sleeping daughter. The night ahead feels long and daunting, but watching Sophie’s peaceful face, I know I made the right choice. I plan to continue heading south, since Texas stretches on forever. I’ll search for a tiny community where we can make our home, somewhere far from bustling cities and crowded neighborhoods.

My chest aches as I think about everything we left behind, Sophie’s room with its butterfly decals, my small garden, the life I thought I was building. But as I touch my bruised cheek again, I remind myself that we’re not running away from home. We’re running towards one. A real one, where neither of us will have to be afraid anymore.

I jolt awake to the mechanical whir and clunk of the vending machine outside our door. My heart pounds against my ribs before I realize what the sound is. Sophie is curled up against me, her warm little body rising and falling with each peaceful breath. The TV casts a glow across the room with some infomercial and I realize that I must have crawled into bed at some point.

My throat feels like sandpaper, and I carefully extract myself from Sophie’s grip, making sure not to wake her. I notice Mr. Hoppy has fallen to the floor, and I tuck him back under her arm. She stirs but doesn’t wake.

In the bathroom, I cup my hands under the faucet and drink, then splash some water on my face. The cool water helps to ground me, but as I inspect my reflection in the speckled mirror, the bruise on my cheek seems to throb with remembered pain. And just like that, I’m back there—back to that night.

I’m wiping down the kitchen counters, the sharp smell of lemon cleaner hanging in the air. Sophie is playing with her blocks in the living room, building towers and knocking them down with her toy dinosaurs. I hear his truck before I see his headlights flash across the living room window, the engine revving too loud as he pulls into the driveway.

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