Page 49 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
“We’re not official yet,” Oliver said. “But I hope we will be.”
He ended up also buying something from the Valentine’s display case—an infinity symbol where the two loops were hearts. It was like a math pun in jewelry form, and infinity was an elegant way to give Chloe the forever she had asked for when they’d kissed. She’d forgive him that the charm itself was a little bit cheesy.
That night as his brother, Ben, made dinner—a budding chef, Ben had taken over cooking for the family two years ago, at age ten—Oliver wrapped the jewelry box with the clover and infinity charms in a glossy page from one of his music zines, then carefully tied a bow with a red satin ribbon.Tomorrow, when candy grams were being passed out in the classrooms, Oliver would have this box delivered to Chloe. His heart beat faster now, just thinking about her opening it and knowing exactly what it meant.
The door from the garage flung open and slammed closed, shaking the whole house.
“We have to go!” Oliver’s mom, Jennifer, shouted.
“What?” Oliver stepped into the hall at the same time that Ben popped his head out from the kitchen. Their dad followed a second later from the living room.
“Now! Right now!” Jennifer said as she shoved past Oliver, her shoulder slamming into his. “Everyone pack only the essentials and leave everything else behind!”
“Jen?” his dad, Richard, said. “What’s going on?”
“I fucked up!” Her voice came from inside her bedroom, along with the sound of suitcases hitting the bed. “The Feds are onto me. They’re coming. We have to go!”
“The Feds? What are you talking about?” Richard asked. “And we can’t leave. What about our business? This is our home.”
Jennifer came back into the hallway, jaw clenched.
“Thereisno business or home anymore,” she said. “I lost it all. Our real estate agency, our savings, our house… everyone else’s money.”
Richard frowned. “I know the housing market has been sluggish, but I thought your timeshare business was going well…”
She didn’t say anything. And that’s when Richard hung his head. Apparently—shockingly—not surprised. “Oh, Jenny. You promised, no more get-rich-quick schemes.”
“This was supposed to be a surefire thing, baby. It was going to set us up for life. It just, well, didn’t quite pan out. But it’s okay, babe. We’ll start fresh. Don’t worry, I got this.”
Oliver and Ben stared at their parents, uncomprehending. Behind them, whatever Ben had been cooking started to burn. And Oliver still held Chloe’s Valentine’s gift in his hands.
Their mother fixed her gaze first on Ben, and then Oliver. “Justthe essentials,” she said. “We leave in an hour, not a minute more.”
They drove through the night, stopping only in a Walmart parking lot in St. Robert, Missouri, to steal the license plates off another car and swap out the ones that Jennifer had previously stolen before they left. She wouldn’t let them sleep in a motel, because they were still too close to home, and besides, they barely had any cash in their wallets. Credit cards—traceable by the cops—were absolutely out of the question.
So they drove and drove, and when Jennifer caught Oliver trying to text Chloe on the chunky silver Nokia he’d worked all summer to save for, she swiped away his phone, pried out the SIM card, and threw it out the window of their moving car.
“What did you do that for?” Oliver gawked behind him at the freeway zooming past.
“Are you kidding me right now?” His mom turned around to face him, her eyes wide. “The Feds can probably track you with this. In fact…” She moved to throw the entire phone out the window.
“No!” Oliver lunged from the back seat and snatched it back.
“You’re right,” Jennifer said. “We can pawn it.”
“I won’t let you,” Oliver said. He and Chloe had bought their phones together. They matched. They’d even gotten phone numbers one digit off from each other.
“I’m your mother, and you’ll do as I say.”
“If you were agoodmother, we wouldn’t be fleeing in the night for god knows what you did,” Oliver snapped.
“Everyone!” his dad shouted, which was a big deal, because Richard never raised his voice. “Please,” he said from the driver’s seat. “This is hard enough as it is. But we need to stick together. We’re family.”
Beside Oliver, Ben was shaking. He was only twelve, still a kid. The fury Oliver felt for their mom didn’t go away, but he crammed it inside for his brother’s sake. For now.
“Hey,” he said to Ben. “Look what I brought.” Oliver dug inside the duffel bag at his feet and pulled out two slim box sets of three DVDs each.
“The French Chef!” Ben grabbed the Julia Child videos and pressed themto his chest. Then he leaned over to Oliver and whispered, “But why? Mom said we could only bring the essentials.”
