It wasn't my name, but I responded anyway. I slumped into the seat and adjusted it to an upright position. Jolie's now matched. She stared over at me, her big hair so pretty with its daisy hairpin.
“Woodrow?”
She saw some kind of change in me.
I blinked twice, confirming it was me. My fingers stroked the kitten’s fur as he sharpened his delicate claws on my jeans.
“New friend?”
Two more eye blinks.
“Any others?”
One eye blink, much slower than the others. “He's alone.” I wheezed, my fingers adjusting the mass in my throat to let the words pass.
I kept wheezing as I struggled with my breathing.
“Are you okay?”
I couldn’t answer her. I didn't want to sin by lying to the woman I loved. And I didn't want to admit the truth.
Would Jesus judge me for either? My eyes landed on him, hanging from the opal rosary beads I’d wrapped around the rear-view mirror. ‘Would you?’
“Rough day?” she probed, interrupting my silent conversation with the son of God. “Hell was sick a lot yesterday. Maybe it was that ice-cream you ate.”
Again, I couldn't talk, the wheezing continuing with every breath.
“He didn't eat much yesterday; are you hungry?”
Jolie’s stomach rumbled, telling me that despite the feast she’d enjoyed last night, shewashungry.
I took a breath—a deep one—over the realization that I couldn’t sit here at the side of the road all day.
I twisted my body to Jolie, hoping she'd grant my silent request, so I, in turn, could take her for the breakfast her stomach had started growling for.
She sat back, offering her lap by flattening out the floral dress I’d gotten for her before understanding that she’d probably hate it. Luckily, I wasn’t there when she had to put it on, saving me from seeing the pained look on her face.
And luckily, that look wasn’t there now, as she regarded the kitten with a welcoming smile.
I placed my little friend in her lap, and he spun three times before finding comfort in a small ball.
Jolie was never a big animal person. They were something she put up with for me because I loved them so much. And as her hand reached up to smooth over the kitten’s fur, I knew she was doing it to make me happy.
The same as I'd force down a breakfast shake to please her. To keep her in the dark where the shadows of illusion would hide the truth of why I didn’t want food.
I started the engine, wanting the car ride and the added sickness traveling brought to be over as soon as possible.
The radio kicked to life, blaring through the static trying to interrupt the song that was playing; it was loud, so I turned it down.
The tune continued as I pulled back onto the road. Jolie started humming along to a song about a woman called Sally. Her soulful sound blended in with the tones of a band from someplace in the UK called Manchester. . . I wondered for a moment, what it was like there. What it would be like to start over there. . . to have the future we always wanted someplace new, if she didn’t appreciate the one I’d already built here on home soil for her.
Chapter 22
Jolie—aged eighteen
Ville hadn't done his weekly visit yet. And I'd scratched what I thought to be the right amount of days into the floor of the cage using Jesus' cross. The Lord and Savior—the only decoration in this room—had fallen to the dirt of my cage the same day I arrived, and in my terrified state, I’d convinced myself he’d done it to comfort me because nothing else could.
That was how it went now with Ville. For the last three months, I'd see him once a week, and on that day, he'd feed me if I earned it. I didn't want to think about what kind of meat he was bringing me to scavenge. And I couldn’t. My mind was always on what he’d subject me to.
