https://jlmichaels.blogspot.com/
PROLOGUE
He is pale white, sitting in the driver’s seat with his shoulders high. His body is stiff as a corpse, his knuckles popping from strangling the steering wheel. I can almost see the gears clicking in his mind, shifting, turning. There is so much I want to say to him, but I don’t know where to start. We have been living parallel lives for far too long. It wasn’t always like this. We were close once. Now he hasn’t turned his attention my way since we left home. And we have been on the long road known as the Trail of Tears for hours.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask him, faintly.
Please say yes.
His grip tightens about the steering wheel as the red sun beats against the earth. It is hotter than it has been in weeks, surprisingly hot in fact. Steam rises from the asphalt like water against burning coals. For some reason it reminds me of the sound of static. For a second, I hear flies.
The space between my legs tingles, so I rub my hands against my thighs. That is when I take note of the blood under my fingernails. It is dry and flaking. My hands still throb from the pressure of the cord that was wrapped around them. I feel the spiraling sting radiate through my arms and neck.
If that is not enough, the tooth in the back of my mouth begs to be tongued. It is on a thread of gum. I can feel it. So, I shove my fingers into my mouth to get a better sense of the situation. Instead, I accidently yank the tooth out. Right away there is a rush of blood. I taste something metallic. The flavor reminds me of a copper penny. Blood slides down the back of my throat to sour in my stomach, while I roll the tooth between my fingers and stare at it blankly. The only sound I hear is the soft hum of tires against pavement.
It’s over, right? He’s gone.
Praise God, he’s gone.
Only, it doesn’t feel over.
My partner decides to look at me. It is impossible to ignore the sadness in his blue eyes. There is confusion there as well, with fear and rage as the binding force.
“I’m sorry,” I say without consideration. There are no other words I can impart. And to a degree, it is the truth. I am sorry. “You know that, don’t you? I never meant for this to happen.”
I only dreamed of it day and night.
My partner turns his attention to the road once more, so I look off into the distance in the other direction. It is picturesque outside with the sun in its golden glory casting buttery light over the land. There are birds in flight, grouped together in a v-pattern as they make their way toward the gray hills miles away. I study them in the manner a curator might study a painting and am filled emotion. In fact, I am drowning under the weight of it.
“You could have changed your mind,” I tell my partner coolly as my eyes follow the birds.
And maybe you should have.
A long silence ensues until he finally breathes, “No. Please, God, no.”
Immediately my head snaps forward, and I follow my partner’s line of sight to the grouping of police cars down the road.
“What do we do?” I ask him in my softest voice.
“Stay calm, Delilah,” he says. But I am not the one who looks panicked. And his grip tightens about the steering wheel.
“What if they try to look in the trunk?” I whisper as if the men in the uniforms down the road can hear us.
This isn’t happening.
My partner flashes me a dirty look. He is angry. I understand. But now is not the time.
“Maybe we should turn around?” I say.
“And what? You don’t think they’ll notice? No. Just let me do the talking.”
Without argument, I throw on a zippered sweat jacket to cover my bruises and lacerations then pull the visor down to flip open the mirror. Of course, I look like hell with my battered face. Adding even more concealer than I did before I left the house, I cover all of the evidence that I can.
But if they look too close—
“Your neck,” my partner says after he scans me quickly with his eyes.
There is a line of black and blue marks around my throat. It is tender to the touch, but I dab concealer over the bruises anyway. Then I zip the zipper on my jacket up as high as it will go and adjust my hair. With my knees close to my chest, I throw my arm across my knees and neck, clasping the hood of my jacket to hold everything in place.
If I can just hold it in place long enough to get through this—
“Don’t say a word,” my partner reminds me as we slowly approach the checkpoint.
There are three cop cars in front of us. A quick scan of the area reveals five police officers standing in various positions along the typically barren road. Two of the officers appear to be inspecting vehicles off to the side.
A car moves through the bottleneck, and we inch forward a notch. Another car moves through, and we inch forward again. Before long, we are next in line, my heart hammering inside my chest so hard it feels as though it might break a rib. And all the while, I hear the rush of blood in my ears.
“Don’t let them open that trunk,” I say once more.
“Be calm,” my partner replies without looking at me.
Don’t let them open that trunk.
The car in front of us is released seconds before the officer in charge waves us forward. She is a dark haired woman, small in stature, thin, Latina. Her eyes are far too inquisitive for my liking, her uniform near perfect with its creases.
“What is going on here, ma’am?” my partner asks her in a steady, clear tone.
The name on her tag says Gonzalez. “Where are you headed?” she replies, icily, without turning her eyes our way.
“North. We’re going north to visit friends.”
“Visit friends?” she says as she glances at my partner then shifts her attention to me.
Every particle in my body ignites with fear as she studies me for three long seconds.
My partner leans forward in his seat to obstruct her view and says, “Yes, ma’am. They live about forty-five minutes up the road in—”
“License, registration, and insurance,” Gonzalez says curtly as she checks the notepad in her hand as though it holds instructions.
My partner turns to me to retrieve the items from the glove compartment. At first, I just sit there like an idiot. A wave of heat washes over my body as ripples. It is the same sensation I felt as a child, the one that paralyzed me when I stood at the top of the stairs outside the quivering green door. Gonzalez and my partner are waiting with impatience. I can see it in their eyes, feel it in the air.
Move your hand.
Move your goddamn hand!
I lean forward to open the glove compartment to search for the appropriate paperwork. Every ounce of my strength must be utilized to keep my hands steady and hold my jacket in place. It is a balancing act.
Where the fuck is that envelope with the insurance and registration? This is my car. Where is it? C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.
While all of this is going on, a second officer steps around to the rear of our vehicle. He is tall and bald, muscular. In fact, he is so muscular that he shuffles along the pavement stiffly. His movements catch my attention. It is like he is a mechanical doll or a tin man. I cannot read his nametag from where I am sitting. But I am less worried about him than I am about the creature at the end of the leash in his hand. The German Shepherd looks young, barely more than a pup. Of course, that doesn’t mean the dog doesn’t know what it is doing.
My partner and I share a glance as the K9 heads toward the back of our vehicle. I don’t know dogs. I don’t know the difference between drug dogs and cadaver dogs or if they are trained in the same manner at the academy.
Please, dear God.
I cannot move. My mouth is dry, my throat on fire.
Everything seems to be happening in slow motion—Gonzalez blinks; people step out of their vehicles at the side of the road; the tin man officer reaches the back of our car; the Shepherd makes his first pass...
I hear the sound of flies. It picks up volume.
I cannot breathe.
But then a third officer, a female with tight blond hair and a severe facial expression, calls out to the muscle bound man in blue. “I need you over here, Tony,” the third officer says. And the mechanical doll with his trained pup shuffles away.
“Today,” Gonzalez hisses.
And my partner says, “Delilah, the paperwork.”
It is like a snap of a finger.
Locating the white envelope with the registration and insurance in it, I hand the paperwork over to my partner, who hands it over to Gonzalez.
“And your license?” she says, distractedly, while examining the documents.
My partner extracts his license from his wallet and gives that to her as well. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he says to Gonzales. “What’s this all about?”
Instead of replying, Gonzalez calls our information in through the radio that is attached to her shirt at the shoulder. “Last name Maconwood.”
We wait, and as we do so, I glance through my rearview mirror to see what is happening with the muscle bound officer and his dog.
A voice comes through the line of the two-way radio. It is hard to make sense of the words.
A second later, Gonzalez says, “Thank you for your cooperation,” and shoves the paperwork through the window of our car.
I want to breathe a sigh of relieve, but it is not yet over. We are still in enemy territory.
“Does that mean we are free to go?” my partner asks her.
“Just a second.”
C’mon, this is taking too long.
The muscle bound officer and his dog are now returning.
A tick clicks by on a clock somewhere in the distance.
And another.
And another.
There is blood in my mouth.
Tick.
And black and blue marks under my jacket.
Tick.
My bloody tooth sits in a plastic cup between my partner and me.
Tick.
While what we put in the trunk grows riper and riper still.
Tick.
I squeeze my partner’s hand.
Tick.
And the hound makes a soft whining sound.
Tick.
Gonzalez and the mechanical officer hold eye contact.
Tick.
But I know who I am now.
Tick.
For the first time in my life, I know who I am.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
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