Page 7 of Carver
“I’ll make some sandwiches for you and pack you something, since Hart is a few hours away.”
I can’t blink back the tears this time. “Thanks, mom. See you soon.”
Once they start, the waterworks streak silently down my cheeks. This is all a lot. My family usually goes to Seattle for supplies, so I’ve only been to Hart once before. The thought of having to fight my way through a bunch of big, burly bikers toget to the man I love. Finding him and somehowreaching him. Enduring the pain right beside him, cracking another line down the middle of my heart. The worst part is the thought of leaving my daughter. I’ve never been away from her overnight before. She’s had my family around her all her life, and often, my mom or my sister helped out at night. I don’t know what I would have done without my family, and I know they’ve got this, but it’s still just so…hard.
I try not to think about it for the rest of the drive, and when I get home, I focus all my attention on Elowen. She’s been crawling for a few months, and now she pulls herself up on everything, so she thinks it’s great fun to stand using the aid of the bed and watch me put a few changes of clothes into my backpack.
I make it a game for her, pulling funny faces and babbling in our made up language until she roars with that beautiful baby laughter.
We pack the truck together, along with my mom.
When it’s time to hand my daughter over, my heart cracks and splinters, but I force myself to keep smiling so Elowen won’t know that anything is wrong. I inhale her familiar baby scent and brush a kiss over her dark, downy hair. I make a big production of peek-a-boo with her while my mom holds her flailing, excited little body. As soon as I get into the truck, I roll down the window and wave madly.
My mom and Elowen both wave back.
She’s used to me going out for short amounts of time to run errands. She doesn’t lose her smile or break into hysterics. As long as my mom or Ginny is around, she won’t have any trouble with separation anxiety.
My brother and dad will spoil her extra when they get back from the fields too.
I keep waving and waving, smiling until my cheeks hurt, until I’m down the long driveway and at the main road. I still wave, but roll up the window quickly so the gravel dust doesn’t come rushing in to choke me.
This.
This is what it means to be a mother.
It means doing the hard stuff, even when it’s unthinkably painful. It means trying to make a better world for your child. It means protecting them from harm and mending their hearts before they have a chance to break.
Elowen is just a baby, but she won’t always be. One day, she’ll ask where she came from. She’ll want to know who her father is.
I’ll always love Dominic with every fiber of my being. There’s no part of me that would ever have given up on him and let him go. But having Elowen makes it more important than ever that I connect with him in Hart.
And finally tell him the truth.
***
The clubhouse belonging to the Satan’s Angels is a big brick building. It has a warehouse-y, industrial look to it. It’s a squat building, square and one level. I know I’m in the right place because there’s a massive metal sign over the front door, one of those machined types that hasSatan’sAngelscut out of it in bold, scrawling letters. There are also two large sculptures by the door, I recognize them as Dom’s.
They’re so beautiful that my chest swells until it hurts.
The front door is metal and looks strong enough to survive a bomb blast. It’s around dinner time. When I drove past, I noted all the bikes lined up in a chain link compound affixed to the side of the building. The razor wire along the top gives the place a distinctly unfriendly vibe, but I bang on the door anyway. I wait a few minutes and knock again.
No one answers.
I try a third time, and when the door doesn’t magically open for me, I stalk back down the sidewalk and grab the folded lawn chair out of the back of the truck.
Mom packed sandwiches, so I grab the lunch bag too. I set up camp right in the middle of the lush lawn. It’s neatly cut and so green that the place probably has underground sprinklers.
Twenty minutes later, after eating the sandwich I brought, I tuck the lunch bag back into the front seat and get out a book. Returning to my lawn chair, I plop down and start to read.
In the past, even during the worst moments, I had no trouble losing myself in a book. The first few minutes might have been rough, but if I pushed through, I was gone. That’s the beauty of reading. It takes you outside yourself for a while. You get to visit all sorts of different worlds, places, and times.
I can’t lose myself now. I’m very well aware of my surroundings. The clubhouse isn’t on the edge of the small city, but it’s not near downtown either. There are plenty of other warehouses in the area, peppered with stores and shops too. This corner lot doesn’t see a lot of traffic, at least not on a Monday evening.
I cross my legs to shift position. My back is starting to hurt, and my ass and legs are getting numb. If I wait much longer, I’ll have to find a bathroom somewhere, but I’m going right back.
I lower the book in my lap and set my fingers on the page to save my spot.
My dad moved away from the family farm when he was in his twenties. He had two older brothers who were supposed to take it over, but they had a falling out with their father and left him alone to farm the land himself. My grandpa did that until he was diagnosed with dementia. My uncles both had families, one in Florida and the other in New York, and neither of them were in a position to move back. My dad was working for an oil and gas company as a corporate lawyer. We had a nice house in Seattle, and I’d say we were settled and happy, but to my parents, family came first.
