The sunset over the pond was a disappointing, faded hue, muted by clouds and the heavy hanging moisture in the air. Naomi Foster, a gangly fourteen year old with too many sun baked freckles watched it anyways, swinging her legs in and out of the water over the side of the flimsy aluminum dock. This hour of the day was one of the few attractions of the campground, and picnic blankets lined the mossy shoreline for families in pre-planned serenity. There was no blanket for Naomi, no overnight camping trip that would end as soon as the tents and sleeping bags were gathered up and tossed into the back of a car. For her, there was only an old school bus, reborn as a trailer and parked anywhere the whims of her mother may lead.
Rose-Louise was the name of the bus, painted on the deep green walls of either side. Fitted with two bedrooms, a bathroom, a tiny kitchen and table, it had been their home for the past year. It was once an ordinary school bus, with sickly kale-green seats and dirt from the bottoms of children’s shoes etched into the crevices of the floor. The weekends of a whole year were devoted to converting the empty tin box into a home, day after day of research, plans, and crushing work. Naomi remembered sitting across from her mother, exhausted, just closing up a grease-stained pizza box. As soon as this is done, we’ll be out of here. I promise. Just you and me and a great big adventure. And all those months ago, at only thirteen, Naomi believed her. There was no way to tell one future from another, and how could she have known? Adventure meant weeks upon weeks of driving, night spent in empty campgrounds, days without groceries or conversation with another living soul.
“Dinn-ner!” A howl through the darkening mist. Naomi pulled herself up, a marionette hovering barefoot over the water, and began to walking back to the bus, tugging low swinging leaves and scraping moss from tree trunks as she went.
Alma Foster was a wispy looking woman, with a slight frame and feathers woven into her dusty brown hair. In one gentle motion, she pulled a disposable casserole tin out of the toaster oven and set it on the counter. “Terry’s coming over tonight.” she said.
“Fine. I’ll go out, then.”
“You know you don’t have to, honey.” She clutched the serving spoon for the casserole a little tighter. But Naomi didn’t want to stay. She didn’t want to see Terry, reeking of beer, his greasy ponytail slicked back against his rotten scalp. He had been coming over for the past four weeks, and the distance was shrinking between visits. She suspected that he, more than anything, was the reason they had stayed here for so long.
“I know.” she said, and she did. It was not, could not, be her mother’s fault, not entirely. Compared to her old, wild minded friends with unnameable instruments and equally musical voices, and even her father in his youth, Naomi was scant company for a long voyage. Alma continued to talk, telling her of the little jar of organic honey bought at the farmer’s market, the odd creaking noise Rose Louise has begun to make when put into reverse, and other daily intricacies that began to blur into the same lull of loose details and polished words meant only to fill the space. She seemed relieved when Terry’s elephant footsteps made the doorway groan, and Naomi slipped away with backpack in hand.
She didn’t get very far. Where was there to go? For miles there was nothing but the same clusters of white pines and craggy boulders, and wilted patches of wildflowers dried up in the summer drought. She sat on a wooden picnic bench, abandoned from the earlier sticky sweet barbeques of families got to leave after only one honey-tinted evening. Behind her, a gauzy yellow light streamed from the windows of the bus.
She fiddled with the zipper on her bag of a while, and remembered losing the backing to her favorite pin, the one her father had given her on her last birthday, sitting on the curb in front of his house. A real house, with curtains and a lock and a working bathroom. Despite the odds, she found the back again the next morning, nestled in the mulch of the campsite, and just for a moment, she believed in miracles. The backing fell off again a few days later, just before leaving yet again, this time lost forever.
Terry’s house, a boxy mobile home, was right on the edge of the campground. She had been there, just once, forced to by her mother to have dinner with the two of them. From this, only two memories still clung to her; the key to the door was under the mat, and the key to his pickup truck was perched on a hook just behind the coat rack. Naomi could drive, if only well enough to give her mother a few hours of rest without losing time on the road. She wouldn’t have to go far. Her father’s house was only a few hours away, a few hours she wouldn’t be missed. She imagined pulling into the drive of the perfect suburban house, the relief on Dad’s face as he stepped through the squeaking glass front door. He wouldn’t be mad she had driven, or stolen or run away. No, he would take her up in his arms and and tell her Yes, of course you can stay here. Please stay. Everything will be alright. She knew he had kids, two perfect toddlers with his nose and the eyes of his new wife. She had seen the photos on Facebook. If he loved them, Naomi was sure she must love them too. They might even have a garden, fresh and full of sunshine like the one she used to tend when her backyard was not a blur behind her.
And what of Alma, left in her little green box, without a daughter? She would be fine, Naomi was sure. Glad, even. Good riddance, to the girl who could not sleep against the rocking of the bus on the long drives, who grew too quickly to properly fit scavenged clothes and hand-me-downs from other people’s children. Besides, Terry was here. She would not be missed.
Terry’s truck started without complaint, and more quietly than the matronly groan of the schoolbus. Naomi circled around to the front gate with a cautious lethargy on the pedals, and at last, she was free.
The highway was all but abandoned. It was a weeknight, and late, at that. Where was there to go? The children of the cookie-cutter homes nestled just of the exits were already tucked into bed, their parents adrift in the blue glow of the tvs in their living rooms. Naomi drove following the emerald flashes of road signs, waiting, hoping that she could get close enough to navigate the rest of the way on her own. It was this, perhaps, or simply inexperience, that kept her from seeing the deer until it was too late. It rolled over the windshield, and in the same motion, fell lifeless to the ground. Naomi shuttered the truck to a stop, and stumbled from the driver’s seat. She glanced at the deer, and back at the bloodied bumper of the truck, and held in the tears welling in her eyes. Don’t let anyone take a deer you hit away from you, is what Terry had said, overheard a few day after they had first arrived to the campground. No one, not even a cop. It’s yours, and yours to keep. They just want it for their own freezer. She hated hated hated him, and the crass way he spoke. Hated the campground, stuck too long to the wheels of a lopsided adventure. Hated the deer for jumping into the road, giving its life to nothing.
She shuddered, and turned away. The truck pulled away from the breakdown lane, a machine unaware of the life it had taken. And Naomi, of course, was a capable driver. So she drove, hurdling through the dark between her two worlds. To a welcome, and a bed, and some feeble sort of hope. Please don’t let her see the police sirens and raindrop tears and caked blood on headlights. Let the road be hers alone, for there is a long way ahead of her.
-Kaitlin Morris