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serious. “Do you know why they left us alone?”
    “We weren’t interested.”
    “You think you’re talking to a bunch of boy scouts?” She leans her elbows on the table, moves closer. “They think we’re together.”
    “We are together.”
    “I mean together, as in a couple.” The light in Peggy’s eyes darkens.
    “Lesbians?” The word stumbles out.
    “Yeah, lesbians.” Silence, then, “What do you think of that, Evelyn?”
    “That’s ridiculous.” Evie glances at the men on the stools, their broad backs hunched over their meals. She smiles then and turns to Peggy. “But if it keeps them away, let them think that. Let them think whatever they want.”
    “That’s exactly what I say.” Peggy lifts her water glass, pushes a chunk of streaked blonde hair from her forehead and salutes. “Hell yeah.”
     

Chapter 9
     
    The headlights flicker past them like a long, blinking caterpillar against the night. Perched in the passenger seat of the semi, Evie can see into passing cars: men and women, teenagers, children sleeping in car seats, or huddled together, their silhouettes illuminated by the truck’s headlights. She tries to guess about the people as they whiz by; are the man and woman in the front seat husband and wife, husband and lover, brother and sister? And the infant in the car seat, is it the product of a long-awaited birth? An unwanted pregnancy? A prayer answered? A band-aid for an ailing marriage? Is the baby a boy or a girl? Does it have its mother’s eyes and its father’s nose?
    Does the mother ever think about getting in her car one day and driving out of the infant’s life, even though she loves the baby very much, loves the husband, and the dog, loves it all?
    Evie turns from the window. Rupe will be tearing apart the state trying to find her. She pictures him, scrubbed and brown, his muscles tight under a green Burnes Construction T-shirt as he combs the parking lots of Furmano’s, St. Michael’s, even Corville General Hospital, looking for her station wagon. Maybe he’ll stop off at the rectory, talk to Father Finnegan. Will he try Brenda? Will he actually do that?
    Quinn will help Annalise with her homework. Math is always a struggle for her but he’ll be able to show her. What are they working on now? Positive numbers? Next week is plotting on the number line.
    “Evelyn?”
    Annalise. Small. Fragile. What is she doing now? And then, What am I doing? What in God’s name am I doing?
    “Evelyn?”
    How many hours from home? Home. Where’s home?
    “Evelyn!”
    Evie jerks. “What?”
    “You’re ten million miles from here.”
    “Sorry.”
    “You okay?”
    “I guess. Just…I don’t know.”
    “You want to talk about it? I’m a pretty good listener.”
    Evie faces Peggy, props herself against the passenger door. The blackness of the cab reminds her of a confessional. The words fall out, tumble together in her need to speak them before they vanish in a jumble of confusion. “I left the house today to go to the grocery store, just like I’ve been doing every week for the past twenty years. It’s what I do, you know: big shopping on Fridays, little pick-ups on Mondays and Wednesdays. Rupe says we save more money that way. Today was exactly the same until I got to the last section. That’s where the magazines are.” She works her hands over her face, settles her fingers on the rumpled edge of her shirt and starts picking at it. “I always stop at the magazine section, just to look, not buy, but today I saw a Travel magazine with a picture of Niagara Falls on the front. And that was it. I left the cart, walked out of the store, and started driving. I drove until I ran out of gas and that’s when I started walking. Then you found me.”
    “What’s the big deal with Niagara Falls?”
    “My mother.” Her voice crumbles. All the dreams they shared. Broken, sad, empty dreams. You’ll be a wonderful painter, Evelyn. A famous painter. “I was eighteen. We were on our