Hailey

          Georgia looked right at home in the driver’s seat of her cherry-red Dodge idling in the driveway. How a lady no bigger than five feet could see over the dashboard was beyond me, but Georgia seemed like the type who could drive a tank if she put her mind to it. I stepped off the porch and winced at the occasional jabs of gravel poking up into the thin rubber of Caleb’s shoes. Georgia waved me over, and reached out to pull me into the truck after I’d tried and failed to get in on my own.

            “You can go ahead and move that blanket there to the back. That’s Huck’s, he’s sure to be worn out after running around all night.”

I put Huck’s hand-stitched throw next to his crate as Georgia inched down the driveway. Quiet worries wore away at her face while she drove, and made me wonder what it was like to love a dog that much. Neither of my parents were pet people. Stuffed toys were the closest I’d ever gotten to having an animal.

Georgia’d been so scared for Huck last night that she’d risked her own safety just to look for him. Looking back, it was good we ran into her when we did, otherwise she would’ve spent the night by herself in that big old house. As tough as she was, no woman in the world is okay with being that lonely.

            “You know, I’ve had Huck for ten years,” she said.

            “Really?”

            “Yes ma’am. My husband, Dean, called me one afternoon when he was in town sayin’ he found a little huntin’ dog runnin’ around the junkyard. He didn’t know what to do with him at first, so I told him to bring Huck home for a night and we’d take him to the shelter in the mornin’. But Huck kept us up ‘til 3:00 AM howlin’ ‘til we let him sleep in our room, and we knew after that he’d make for a better part of our family than anyone else’s. He’s a good dog, wild, but a good one.” 

I wanted to say something, I wanted to tell her I understood what it was like to love something or someone so much that even their memories made you whole, but I’d never really felt like that. I flashed her a paper mache smile, a thick and plastered excuse to cover the creeping feeling that I was missing bits and pieces of life that other people treasured.

Georgia read the silence, like she knew I couldn’t do anything else but hide behind it, and switched on the radio.

The sun had risen just high enough to start showing through the trees. It was crazy seeing how the northern Virginia woods could look like a different world the day after a storm. All the bark on each pencil thin pine, oak, or poplar tree had turned dark grey in the rain.

The contrast made the leaves pop out across the skyline like little green four-leafed stars scattered all over. It was strange thinking that hardly anyone had touched the land here, that the trees were so many years older than I was, and not a skyscraper, monument, or office building would be in sight for miles.

You couldn’t find this kind of beauty in D.C. anymore.

The closest things to something authentic were the public parks, and designated trails the government made a point to preserve. But even with those places, I never felt as at home in Washington as I did out here. Driving through the heart of these woods, somewhere miles off from highways or landmark cities, I figured out the difference.

Country roads, stocked with miles and miles of trees, ruts, and rivers, never changed or asked anyone passing through to change for them. I could figure myself out here, without the nonsense of fancy suburbs, or pricey private schools, to tell me who to be. As far off the map as I’d wandered, I couldn’t have felt better about losing my way.

We came to a clearing at the edge of the woods, and Georgia turned onto the first paved road I’d seen in nearly four days. My stomach churned in time with John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” singing through Georgia’s speakers. I leaned against the window, watching the fog on the roads rush around the front wheels of the truck, and wondering how many miles were left between here and Midland.

We drove long enough to watch the woods give way to the yellow wheat fields sprawling out behind old wood fences. The hum of the still wet roads rising and winding through the country spread of land, lulled me to sleep for a little while. Long enough to forget about being careful. Long enough to stop paying attention.

            “Hailey, honey you better wake up and put your seat belt on there’s officers stoppin’ people up the road.”

A few cars ahead of us, a couple of county cops mulled around a checkpoint, tapping on the windows of anyone passing through and searching a handful of vehicles pulled off to the side of the road. Silent pressure built to a fever pitch in my chest as we pulled ahead. I stared down at my feet, waiting for the numbness spreading up through my ankles to reach the rest of my body.

            They’d see me.

            They’d know it was me, and that’d be it.

            I’d get Georgia in trouble without her even knowing the truth, and fall through on my promises.

            Think your way through it, Hailey. Think your way through it.

            “Georgia, do you have a Swiss army knife or scissors or anything like that in here?” I asked.

            “I might, there’s a first aid tin on the floor somewhere. Dean used to put all kinds of things in there.”

I threw my legs over the backseat and sunk into the floor space in front of Huck’s crate. My arms felt too short to find much of anything, but after thirty-seconds of struggling, my fingertips tapped against a rusted first aid box stuffed between a couple of old food wrappers and a crumpled mechanic’s cap.

I stuck my nails underneath the edge of the tin, pried open the kit, and dumped everything inside on the seat behind me, waiting for the silver gleam of scissors to pop out of the woodwork.  

            “Whatever it is you’re up to back there, Hailey, you better hurry up. Those county boys work fast. Can’t imagine what’s gone so wrong that they’re stoppin’ everybody at this hour.”

With a little digging I found them—a small pair of surgical scissors still sharp enough to cut through anything if they needed to. I tugged on the top of my bun, and gripped it tight. Prep-school me would’ve died before making this kind of decision, but I had promises to keep and old personas to kill.

The first couple cuts came easy. I pulled up against gravity, and trimmed the strands holding sixteen inches of hardly washed hair to my head. The truck inched forward, and I stopped being careful and started chopping away chunks at a time, until my bun came loose in my fingers.

 And that was it. 

Without stopping to look at what I’d done, I reached back under the seat, stuffed my dead and detached hair into an old McDonalds cup, and grabbed the raggedy mechanic’s hat.  

            “You alright, back there?”

            “Fine, just fine.”

            I shoveled an arm full of first aid contents off the backseat and into the tin they’d come from, before putting it back where I’d found it. Georgia’s brakes creaked to life under the car, and I got to my knees just as we pulled forward into the county checkpoint.

I slid into the seat behind her, lowered my cap, and pulled Huck’s blanket over as much of myself as I could cover. The tap, tap, tapping of a cop’s flashlight echoed against the driver’s side window. Remember to breathe, Hailey, just remember to breathe.

            “Ma’am can you open up please?”

            The cop’s voice seeped in from the outside through the thick metal of the driver’s side door. Nothing but glass, Georgia, and God were left between me living through the day and losing everything.

            “Georgia?” I asked.

            “What is it honey? Make it quick.”

            “Please don’t tell them that I’m—“

            “Ma’am? Roll down your window please,” he said.

            “Don’t tell them what?”

            “—that I’m a girl.”

            “What on earth? Why, honey?”

            “Please.”

            “Ma’am, open the window! ”

            “Alright, alright, I’m comin’. Hold on!”

            I shut my eyes, and listened to the sound of my fears springing to life. The crank and rattle of Georgia’s window rolling open, the static spitfire of police radios, and the deep southern drawl of the officer leaning into the truck.

            “Mornin’ Georgia.”

            “Dale, what in the hell are you doin’ rushing me like that? You know how beat up this truck is, you’re lucky the window came down at all.”

            “Sorry Mrs. G, it’s protocol. The captain’s on our asses this mornin’, so we gotta treat everybody like a suspect or so he says. But I’m not worried about you Georgia. You got your license and registration on ya?”

            “Son, do you think I go around without it? Dean and I practically taught you how to drive! I remember your Pa bein’ too scared to take you on the back roads, so you better think about who got you that license before you treat me like a stranger!”

Georgia popped open the glove compartment and shuffled through a stack of papers till she found what she was looking for.  

            “What’s all the fuss ‘round here about anyway? Ya’ll are never out this early,” she said.            

            “Well, the boys over at state are lookin’ for two kids, boy and a girl. The captain says it’s some kinda murder, kidnappin’ situation or somethin’ but I was half asleep during the briefin’. We got federal warrants out for their arrest, but they’ve been gone for a couple days. Probably dead if you ask me.”

            “That’s terrible, Dale. Terrible. They dangerous?”

            “Not that we’ve heard. But the report says they’ve evaded arrest across state lines and all that, so they’ve got some charges on em’.  I’m supposed to give you a flier, you want one? I know you’re not up to trouble though, Georgia.”

            “That’s alright, Dale. I’ll give you a call if I see anything.”

            “You should, there’s twenty-five thousand cash in it for anyone with information. Maybe you could fix up this old truck.”

A hand slapped against the window just over my head and I kicked Huck’s crate out of shock.

            “Who’s that you got back there, Mrs. G?”

            “My nephew. Stop rattlin’ on that window and let him sleep. Dean’s brother’s family drove him in from Raleigh late last night. They don’t like me bein’ on my own much, so they sent him up for the summer. Good thing, too. The house needs fixin’.”

            “Does he have an I.D.?”

            “Dale, he’s fourteen what kind of I.D. is he supposed to have? His Cub Scout card? Let him be!”

            “ Alright, alright. Just doin’ my job.  He’s awful small, you should feed him somethin’ so he can bulk up. If you ever need more help out at the house aside from the kid, give me a holler. I’ll bring the wife and kids along. They’d love to visit you, Georgia.”

            “Will do, Dale. Will do.”

            “Take care ma’am!”

Georgia’s engine revved to life, but I stayed glued to the backseat until the police lights looked like tiny red and blue sparklers in the rear window.

            “Honey, come on back up here, it’s alright.”

I didn’t know how she could say something so untrue, so honestly. Nothing was all right—nothing at all. For a mile or two, I didn’t say anything, just picked bits and pieces of shredded hair off of Dean’s jumpsuit and watched the strands fall through my fingers.

I waited for Georgia to get angry, to pull over the car and leave me on the side of the street. But she did what she always seemed to do, and surprised me with her patience. Georgia kept on driving, and the minute my legs had enough strength in them to walk into telling the truth, I climbed up and sat next to her in the front seat.

            “I’m sorry, Georgia. I’m sorry we didn’t saying anything—“

            “Well, if I were ya’ll I wouldn’t be much for telling that kinda story to every stranger I met either. Don’t apologize for nothin’, if I thought you two were trouble, I woulda left ya’ll out in the woods where I found you.”

The road ahead blurred black and yellow before I could blink the tears out of my eyes. I didn’t feel like I deserved this sort of kindness from anybody, so it hurt at first. New feelings usually do, and trusting strangers more than I did my own family was newer to me. But Georgia and Caleb were worth the risk. They didn’t make sense to me in all the right ways, but I guess that’s what having faith in people feels like.

            “Ya’ll are good kids. I didn’t need to talk to ya’ll for more than five minutes to know that. I don’t know what kinda trouble you’re in, and I don’t wanna know, but I want ya’ll to be careful. Those county boys hardly know the right way to hold a gun, but the fellas from the state are a different story. Ya’ll still headed to Charlottesville?”

            “Yeah, I’m just worried about, Caleb.”

            “Honey, I worried about him too. He’s in better shape today than when ya’ll first showed up. I cleaned up that bullet wound he’s been hidin’ last night, but don’t tell him I told you that. He’s lucky that bullet hit him shallow and through and through, or he’d be in worse shape than he already is. If we get back to my house without any trouble today, tomorrow I could try to drive ya’ll a little closer to Charlottesville.”

            “It’s okay, Georgia. I don’t want you getting in any trouble because of us. Besides, if the cops are checking highways out here, they’ll be all over anything major leading down to Charlottesville. We’ll be alright. Walking might take a day or so but we’ll be okay, I promise. Caleb says he knows the woods pretty well, anyway.”

            “Honey, all men say they know everything. Everything except what’s best for em’. Ya’ll can do whatever ya’ll need to, but if you need help before you go, just say somethin’.“

Georgia tightened up on the steering wheel, like gripping it harder would take away the tension in the air. The light-hearted twang in her voice died away a little when she offered her help, not because she didn’t mean it, but because I think she realized how little she could do for us.  

Even with all the trouble we had looming on the horizon, I didn’t want her worrying about anything else but getting home safe with Huck. That was her life before us and it’d be the same way after we left. I believed in that ‘cause I believed in Georgia, and whether or not she said it, I had a feeling she believed in me and Caleb even more than we did ourselves.

            “Actually, I was meaning to ask you something,”  I said.

            “Is it about that hair? I wasn’t gonna say anything but as smart as you were for gettin’ rid of it, you did a hack job.”

I laughed loud enough to drown out the squeal of Georgia’s breaks bringing the truck to a stop in front of the county pound.

            “I’ll fix that mess when we get back home, wouldn’t want Caleb to see you lookin’ like a ragdoll would we?”

I pulled down the corners of my lips to keep from smiling.

            “You always tell it like it is, Georgia.”

            “What else would I do? That’s why Dean married me. Thank God for that or I would’ve ended up an old maid,” she said.

            “That’ll probably happen to me. Statistically speaking, I’m totally supposed to end up solo. I don’t know how you and Dean did it,  because my parents sure couldn’t. I don’t think I’ll be able to stick the whole marriage thing either.”

            Georgia pulled the keys out of the ignition and let the truck rumble quiet.

            “Well, I’m not gonna sit here and talk up your future when I don’t know how it’s gonna be. But what I do know is, you’ve got good young man waitin’ for back my house, and that’s all you need sometimes, Hailey, that’s all you need.”