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18.12.2022 20:18

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early dawn. i wake up for a second to see we’re in the parking lot of some rest stop. i go back to sleep. a couple of hours later, i wake up for good and move to the front passenger seat.

the volvo’s analog clock reads ten in the morning. bright-blue early june morning as we cross the border out of massachusetts to be welcomed by a big green sign with the word bienvenue and the state’s motto, live free or die. our eleventh state is new hampshire.

live free or die. are we free? am i free? running like this all the time. worrying always about when the pattern will begin again.

“welcome,” mom says, catching me mouthing the words. “bienvenue is french for ‘welcome.’”

“kind of figured from the context, mom,” i say, and shoot her a corner-of-my-lip smile. i’m not being smug. i’m trying to show i accept, and am willing to agree, that all is normal and regular as usual—so much so, we can do a happy-times teasing banter. i turn to check on allen in his cat cage, where he’s chilling on the catnip i overfed him to calm his car nerves.

mom rolls her eyes. “whatever, smarty-pants.” she shoots me a thoughtful smile, taking quick glances ahead as she steers straight on this endless highway. the fact she’s smiling and going along with the teasing banter means she’s not going to raise, this morning, how i’m to blame for this latest run. relieved we’re not fighting this minute, i loosen the tension in my shoulders. but i must be cautious, can’t be the one to raise the topic, even if i want to apologize. my apologizing would only lead to a fight. mom’s lesson: never return to the scene of a crime.

the sides of the road are in high green, all sorts of thick shades, from lime to deep forest green, in the birch saplings, tall pines, leafy oaks, and fat maples. the world outside this brown volvo is green and happy and blue and full.

“baby, this life . . just till you’re eighteen, okay? when i know for sure they can’t take you again. another country away from me. god, no. your father’s family, they’d never let you leave, and the way they treat women, they have no rights. none. women are trash. i can’t . .”

“mom, i know. i know. we’ve been over it a literal million times.” i decide to take a chance. “sorry for not wearing my sunglasses. sorry for engaging that man.”

she stares at the road ahead, brings a hand to her lips, which she sucks in, i’m guessing as a way to stem her own words—caustic or loving, i’m not sure. her forehead accordions in a crinkle as she side-sweeps another look at me, checking that i am looking back, and i am. she’s got her serious face on. “lucy, i’m sorry about this life.” she winces and soon looks to the road again. i’ve noticed how ever since i started my period a few months ago, and since my body and face have been changing more and more, she winces more and more. sometimes, and maybe this is all in my mind, but lately it feels like the sight of me hurts her, so she looks at me less and less. or so it seems.

“mom, really. i get it.” because it’s true, i get it. my father is a powerful man with centuries-old connections to royalty in some other country (mom won’t say which one because she doesn’t want me googling and freaking myself out). she won’t say his last name, because his last name, she says, would quickly identify his country, his very specific nationality. he’s from a place in which she says mothers have zero legal right to take back their own babies. he’d already tried to abscond with me once before, but mom had a plan, and mom had her own connections. i was two years old when she stole me back and we ran. and now this life with two new names and constantly new states. we always use the same ids and variations of the formal names on those ids, since i need to be able to cleanly transfer into new schools, and frankly, mom says, the first fake ids were hard enough to get.