Page 13 of Goodbye Paradise
Caleb’s scowl was fierce. “They gave you fifty bucks for a bus ticket, so that you wouldn’t hang around here, and end up telling the police what happened to you. Thoseassholes.”
I burst out laughing.
“What?”
“You’re cursing. All the time! It’s funny.”
“I’m not living by any of their rules anymore, Josh. I’m not kidding. They think God doesn’t like it when you curse? But God isjust finewith throwing you out by the side of theroad?Do youhearhow messed up that is?”
The laughter died in my throat. I did hear it. And I didn’t want to. My memories of the time I spent in the back of that truck getting tossed around like hay bales were too ugly to contemplate.
In spite of how lonely the hours afterward had been, I was glad that Caleb had not been there to see my humiliation—my most pathetic moment. There was a stain on my heart now, and I would never be able to remember my last minutes at the Compound without feeling low.
“Here,” Caleb said, handing me my shirt. “Let’s go find out how much bus tickets cost.”
“To where?” I asked. Funny how I’d just gotten around to asking the most important question. It had been such a relief to find myself safe and with Caleb that I’d forgotten to worry that we had nothing and no one.
“Western Massachusetts,” he said immediately. He shook out his sweater, another hand-made item from his mother.
“Where?”
“Remember Maggie?”
“Miriam’s sister?”
He nodded. “She lives in Massachusetts with her husband.” My mouth dropped open, and Caleb laughed. “You should see your face. It’s true—her family knows where she is. They didn’t hear from her for two years after she left. Then Maggie sent a UPS package to her father, disguised as a tool delivery.” Their father was a metalsmith. “And there was a letter from her inside.”
“So…” I cleared my throat. “Will we be welcome there?”
“Yeah, I think so. The letter said to send anyone their way who needed to leave.”
“Even us?” I asked softly. He had to know what I meant. The boy who had just abandoned Miriam couldn’t easily ask for help from her sister.
Caleb sighed. “Even us, okay? Because I think Maggie would want news from her sister. Even if it’s bad. And did it ever occur to you that maybe I can help Miriammorefrom the outside?” His voice took on a gruff, irritated tone, which frightened me. Because Caleb never got angry with me.
“Okay,” I said quickly. And I knew he’d try to help her. It’s just that he and I weren’t in the position to help anybody, and I didn’t see how we would be, anytime soon.
“Let’s go.” He stuffed the last of our things into the backpack and zipped it up.
* * *
The clerkbehind the ticket window at the bus station dashed our hopes in ten seconds flat. “Two hundred and forty-one dollars,” she said.
“For both of us?” I asked, hopefully.
She shook her head. “Each.”
“Goddamnit,” Caleb muttered. That was the worst curse he’d said yet.
We turned away, disgusted. “Plan B is hitchhiking, I suppose,” I said.
He grunted. “We could ask how far fifty dollars gets us. But that would leave us with almost nothing, and we’re going to need food.”
Outside, we turned toward the East, and started walking. Because that was the only logical thing to do. Logical, and yet ridiculous. Because we could not walk to Massachusetts.
“If we can’t make it all the way there yet,” I reasoned, “we could do farm work somewhere until we earned two hundred and forty one dollars. Each.”
“In November?” Caleb asked.
