Heidi ran toward her. “It doesn’t matter. Pack up your suitcase again. We have to go!”
Apparently, Harvey had broken more than his shoulder. He could hardly get to his feet. When Heidi and Carrie returned to the stairs, their suitcases swinging, they watched as he staggered around the kitchen, knocking into things. Blood gushed from his nose. He wasn’t fast enough to catch them, but he could always contact someone. He could always send someone else after them. They had to be quick.
Heidi threw their suitcases out the side window so that he wouldn’t see them. They landed with healthy plops on a mound of grass. Then, Heidi and Carrie walked down the stairs, Heidi with her head held high. “Baby, we’re going to go get the doctor, all right?” Heidi said, although she remembered too late that the doctor was still out of town. “I mean, we’re going to get the car. We’ll pick you up and take you to the city to get patched up. All right?”
“We can’t afford that!” Harvey gasped angrily. “We can’t afford what you did to me!”
“Honey, I didn’t do anything to you,” Heidi said, edging toward the door with Carrie right behind her. “You fell, all right? We all saw it. Didn’t we, Carrie?”
Carrie nodded. “We’re going to get the car,” she said. “Hang tight.”
Before he could say anything else, Heidi and Carrie rushed outside, grabbed their suitcases, and began to run down the hill, past the courthouse, through the fields, and out the yonder side, where a highway cut through the mountains. This deep in, there were no buses. There was no way out unless you had a car of your own. And Heidi had decided that stealing her husband's or her father’s car was a way to get caught quicker than they needed to be.
Carrie was crying quietly, clutching her suitcase.
“It’s going to be okay,” Heidi called, throwing her arm forward and sticking her thumb up. She prayed that a creep wouldn’t pick them up, and it would be a family of four, or an older woman who didn’t know the dangers of hitchhiking. Most of all, she prayed it would be someone they didn’t know, someone who wouldn’t take them straight back to Harvey and their daddy.
The first few cars whizzed past, but then a clunky truck pulled over. In the driver’s seat was a kid around the same age as Heidi—nineteen or twenty, maybe, with shaggy red hair. He was listening to hippie music on the radio. He was probably a hippie himself, although Heidi had never really met a hippie and wasn’t sure.
“I’m going to Nashville,” he said, grinning. “Hop in!”
Heidi and Carrie threw their suitcases in the back and got into the front of his truck. Heidi sat in the middle, wanting to protect her sister from this stranger. But within a few minutes, Heidi was already pretty sure that he was safe. His name was Isaac, and he was adorable, happy, always singing, and banging his hands on the steering wheel. He was from Alabama, and he’d been visiting some of his cousins in a neighboring town. “But I’m going to Nashville for the music,” he said, beaming.
Heidi had, of course, heard about Nashville’s music scene. But it had felt so far away from their little town, nearly as far away as Los Angeles or New York City. She’d certainly never imagined going there.
“I have a friend who can help you find a room there, if you need that,” Isaac told them.
It didn’t occur to Heidi to go farther than Nashville. Nashville seemed like the other side of the planet. “That sounds grand,” she told Isaac, throwing her head back so that she could feel the cool mountain air through her hair. Maybe this was the first day of the rest of her life.
She removed her wedding ring and shoved it in her pocket. Carrie saw her do it and said nothing.
8
Present Day
Afew days after the reading of the will, Candice called Nathan to check in on things back in the city. Again, he told her that the writing was going well, that he’d already written nearly a quarter of the first draft and felt “more creative than I have in years. Even withThe Human Agenda, I felt more stumped than I do now.” Although this put a sour taste in her mouth, Candice tried to tell herself to fall in love with his excitement. She told herself that his joy was her joy, since they were still married and hadn’t discussed divorce in the slightest. But her heart felt shadowed.
What’s going on with Janie?She didn’t ask because she was too frightened. And she wanted to believe it was over between them. She needed to.
Candice explained to Nathan what had happened with the will and what her mother planned to do with the Harbor Estate. Nathan was surprised. “I thought that house would be perfect for future writing retreats,” he said, reticent. “I was thinking aboutgoing there this fall, you know. After you started up again at NYU.”
Candice felt a jolt of anger. Nathan couldn’t use the Harbor House as a writing retreat. She was the one who needed one. “The transitional women’s center is what she wants,” Candice said instead. “But maybe it isn’t over. Henry wants to contest the will, and Lindsey is backing him up.”
“And what do you want?”
Candice gazed out at the water, rolling up along the white sand. “I don’t know. Her assistant’s right, in that it was my mother’s dream to open this place up. It was her vision. I don’t feel comfortable saying no to that.”
“But you don’t want to give the place up. You love it there,” Nathan insisted.
“Yes. I suppose I do.” Candice was quiet. By accident, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and remembered she hadn’t washed her hair in far too many days. It was stringy and strange, plastered against her cheek and forehead. What would Nathan say if he could see her now?
“But I was thinking, you know. Maybe you and the kids want to come out to the Vineyard sometime this month? We can sail and picnic and hike. Gosh, I can’t remember the last time we had a family vacation. Lindsey and Henry will probably be here, too, but I’m sure they’ll be busy with their own stuff.”
In truth, Candice and her siblings saw so little of one another during the day. Candice had no idea what they were up to.
“I’ll have to think about it,” Nathan said. “As I said, I’m in a flow state, and I’m scared to leave that. But the kids should definitely come! I think Peter’s basketball camp ends pretty soon…”
“It ends on June seventeenth,” Candice said. She knew there was a window between sports camps. She knew that Sarah could make time, given her schedule and what she was needed for inthe city. Like most mothers, she had her children’s schedules tattooed to the back of her mind. She couldn’t forget if she tried.
