A sudden downpour lashes the windshield just as my wipers stop working. I clutch the steering wheel, press the brakes, push the hazards, and steer the Buick off the road to the edge of what might be a parking lot.

All while trying not to panic.

I’m on Route 9, probably still in Wellesley, and everything is a streaky watery mess. Squinting through the glass, I watch taillights trail ribbons of blood onto the puddled road. Thankfully, I’m a good driver. But I hate driving at night, especially in the rain.

Especially because it’s past midnight and I’m late to pick up Moth.

When the wall phone rang tonight it had a funny sound to it. I can’t explain it, it’s like a tiny little metallic twing! buried deep in the normal ring tone; it’s just something I hear sometimes.

It sounded like trouble.

Darla was asleep on the couch, her wild mop of strawberry curls sprawled across her teddy bear. I was lounging in my pj’s, working on my book report. Sped through the Cliffs Notes and typed a phenomenally convincing first page. Made a fresh pot of green tea and a bologna sandwich.

It had been a pretty good evening. It’s kind of peaceful in the apartment when Moth goes away. There’s no drama. No stress. Smells a whole lot better, too, without all the cigarette smoke.

A nice, quiet respite for me and Darla. We’re always happy for like the first couple of days. But, when days turn into a week, and then another, and still no word from her, of course we start worrying. (Honestly, I’ve been like a wreck this whole time. I even started biting my nails again, and I totally thought I’d kicked that habit).

This is the longest she’s been away. Don’t go! Darla’s too young to understand, so I told her that Moth’s visiting friends in Alaska, because it’s the farthest-away place I could think of.

I grabbed a breath and lifted the handset. “Who is it?”

Ruby, come get me, I’m at Cliff ’s.

She drawled it out all slow and languid, like “Rooo-baay,” so I know she’s already had a few too many. (The more she drinks, the more she sounds like she’s from Georgia. But don’t let her fool you – she’s Central Mass to the core).

I wanted to scream: I’m so glad you’re alive!

But I was sparking with anger. There was no I miss you, baby, so sorry for being away so long. Not a hint of regret in her voice. Because, as usual, it’s all about her.

To top it off, it’s a long drive, like thirty miles, with tons of traffic lights. “It’s so late!”

C’mon, Roo! Jazz went off with some guy so now I don’t have a ride home, baby.

Like she’d only been gone a few hours. And I had no idea who this Jazz was.

A long silence while I did a vibe check. I really wanted to hurl a train of hurt at her, like: Did you forget you have a five-year-old daughter? Like, have you even thought of us even once while you’ve been out whoring around, leaving us here worried sick, with no money and hardly any food in the fridge?

But that would stir the wrath of Moth.

And I just didn’t have the fight in me.

 All I could manage, with tears pricking my eyes, was a childish whine. “But Darla’s asleep…”

More silence, and for a moment I thought she’d hung up. But then she said, with a raspy catch in her voice: She’s a good sleeper, Roo. The best kind. Just…let her sleep.

And then a whisper. Baby, I really need to get home tonight.

That’s when it hit me. Not much background noise. For a dive bar, it sounded kind of quiet.

In my mind, I pictured Moth in all her rare beauty: dewy-eyed, dark-lashed, tanned arms lifted above her head, silver bangles glinting in the smoky haze as she swayed her waist- length tawny hair, coyly licking her lips, aware of all the men stumbling over themselves to get near her. She’s busy convincing them she’s some twenty-five-year-old hottie when in truth she’s past forty.

Her real name is Maude Evelyn Hansley. Sounds like an old librarian, right? Or a nun. Mother Maude. (Hah! Far from it!) And her initials –M.E.H. Okay, she never liked her name. I get it. But even though she’d get a bit depressed, (hey, who doesn’t?), she seemed to like being a nice-looking, slightly overweight single mom, living in a fifth-floor subsidized apartment with a view of Lake Chauncy. She cleaned houses, collected SNAP benefits and occasional child support checks (from my dad, who left us when Darla was a baby).

But the best part of Maude’s life was her boyfriend, Lonny, who worked for the landscaping company that serviced our apartment complex: generous, hard-working Lonny, his brown eyes so warm it was like they were lit from within, who wanted something steady, something real, something that Maude seemed to offer.

He moved in, to the delight of me and Darla. He made us laugh. He was a great cook. He brought Darla to kindergarten. He took us places, when he wasn’t working, like out to Ullman’s for ice cream, and all the way to Newburyport for a whale watch.

Maybe he was too good, too kind, too safe, maybe we didn’t deserve him, who knows. Darla loved him beyond words, and I did, too, but after a while Maude started to ignore him unless it was time to pay rent or she wanted him to buy something. One day Lonny told Maude she was a terrible mother, and that he knew she really didn’t love him back. Maude started going out and coming home really late, sometimes staying out all night.

One afternoon, Lonny caught her flirting with his boss.

He made a scene. The cops showed up.

The next morning, he got fired. For insubordination.

And then, he left us.

And that’s when all the stars went dark in the whole universe. We existed in wet, shadowy places, slithering like eels at the bottom of a silt-covered swamp.

I was able to crawl to the surface, eventually, but Maude – she could barely tread water, for like a really long time, for like months. She spent most of it in bed, alone, and lost so much weight, she started to look skeletal.

I was beside myself with worry.

And then, one day, all of a sudden, she emerged. As Moth.

Moth Hannah. Started telling people she’s a back-up singer for Blondie. (That’s why she goes to Boston. Too many people know her as Maude in the Worcester bar scene and it wouldn’t take long for someone to recognize her and blow her cover). Her transformation seemed easy, and complete, like she had always been Moth, like she had just been pretending to be Maude all those years; effortlessly kicking away the cocoon of her former life.

And of course, this new version of herself couldn’t have a daughter my age. Nope, that would be like biologically impossible. Instead, I had to dress in leather boots, jeans, leather jacket and wear tons of makeup, and be her younger sister visiting from Providence, Roo-baay, a little shy and a little sassy and just barely old enough to drink. (And I always have to be careful not to come across as too provocative because Moth doesn’t want any competition).

Maybe it’s a coping mechanism, this new life she leads.

To transform into someone totally different, to leave everything and everyone behind.

Anyway, that’s what my counselor thinks. Honestly, it’s got some appeal. And truth? Sometimes it’s a real kick to pretend. We’ve done some crazy things together, me and Moth. Like the night we crashed a wedding reception at a fancy hotel in Boston, when Moth jumped on stage and spontaneously sang lead as the band played the first few notes of Rapture.

She was so darn good, so at ease with herself, that everyone thought she was part of the show. The male lead singer was over the moon to have Moth sing soprano and they did the rap part perfectly, as if they had spent days practicing it, while I danced and pirouetted around them, waving a lace shawl.

Yeah. I’ve had a lot of fun playing make believe with Moth.

But not tonight. Tonight, I just want to finish my homework and go to bed.

“Can’t you, like, talk someone else into a ride? I’ve got a math test in the morning.” There was a deep pocket of silence. So deep, I felt the need to flip a sarcastic middle finger into it. “Tell them your tour bus broke down.”

More silence. Then a sharp, urgent: Don’t be sardonic.

I almost dropped the phone. Because that isn’t your run-of-the-mill, everyday word in Moth’s vocabulary – so I knew it had to mean a whole lot more than just cynical. Right then and there, I knew something far more urgent and maybe even seriously dangerous was going on.

Sardonic is our secret code word. It means danger to the nth degree.

“Should I call the police?” I whispered into the phone; my right hand gripping the mouthpiece. Moth didn’t reply. I heard muffled male voices and the bright clack of a pool cue striking a billiard ball. Did her silence mean yes? She made a throaty noise and I realized it was a really fake, nervous laugh, nothing like Moth’s normal sound.

It was code 9 for sure. Some creeper was hovering and she felt really threatened. She answered, then, her voice hushed and close.

Drive fast, Roo. I’ll be outside.

I took the Buick. It’s the only car we have. It used to be Lonny’s, but when he left, don’t go, Lonny, please don’t go! The car stayed behind, like a symbol of his bleached-out husk of a heart. It’s got bald tires, an expired inspection sticker, and I doubt it’s insured.

Before I left, I gently tucked the plush quilt around Darla and gazed down at her perfect pink cheeks and soft lips. So precious and innocent. So pure. I wanted to caress her face but didn’t want to risk waking her.

Darla hates being left alone.

For a second, I contemplated taking her with me.

Leaning in, I could hear her soft snore.

“Love you,” I whispered, blowing her a kiss.

I went to the patio door and made sure it was locked tight.

Then I crept from the apartment and secured the door behind me.

#

 

So here I am, sitting in the Buick, and it’s taking like all my mental fortitude not to freak out. I’ve picked Moth up at Cliff’s before, so finding the bar shouldn’t be a problem even without GPS. I’m not worried about that. It’s just that I can’t call her to tell her I’m on my way.

I can’t do the one thing she asked me – drive fast — because I’m stuck on the side of the road.

I can’t call anyone, because – dammit — Moth’s got my phone. (Again! She keeps losing hers!)

And I’m worried the storm will wake Darla. She’s afraid of storms. God, I’m such a terrible sister to leave her! But, wouldn’t I be an even crueler daughter not to get Moth?

Especially if something’s wrong.

Maybe I should have called the police. 

But instead, here I am, somewhere off the side of Route 9, caught in a flipping deluge. With no wipers.

Okay, Ruby, think. This shitbox is older than you with a hole in the floorboards big enough for a cat to squeeze through. Everything else in the car is working, except the rusted passenger door handle, so that must mean it’s a fuse or something. Maybe an electrical issue? A motor? Dome light seems fine. Flashers are working. Horn’s okay.

I open the glove compartment and start rooting around for the owner’s manual. There’s a thin flashlight, a bunch of old receipts, and a crushed box of Froot Loops. Two quarters and a dirty penny. An ice scraper. And way, way in the back, a can of WD-40. This stuff fixes everything! It’s made of some secret kind of formula. I’ve seen mechanics on TV spraying it on car parts. Can wipers stop working if they get too wet? WD-40 repels water.

That’s good enough for me. 

Besides, at this point, I’ve got nothing to lose. Damn rain is not letting up.

I pull the hood latch and step out of the car. The rain is so hard, it stings my eyes and drenches my vision and when I try to rub it away, I wipe my right contact lens out of my eye.

Steadying the flashlight, I aim the beam of light down near my feet and squint.

It’s useless. The lens is gone.

I flicker the light beam at the ground, and peer closer, just in case, but everything is blurry. Right then, the can of WD-40 falls from my armpit and rolls beneath the car.

There’s a sudden blast of lights. A scream of brakes. I do a split-second dive-and-roll just as a careening pickup truck smashes into the back of the Buick. The impact sounds like an explosion; there’s a flash of searing heat on my skin and all my breath whooshes out of me, all at once, like a balloon popped with a pin.

For a moment, I wonder if I’ve been blown to bits. Something feels all jumbled up in my head, like a cluttered kitchen drawer suddenly yanked open and the contents dumped; I can hear someone say, don’t go, please stay and be my Daddy! and I look out the kitchen window and see little Darla standing at the patio railing, crying and waving.

My brain slams the memory drawer shut. I’m on my back, gasping, the rain pelting me like nails shot from a high-velocity nail gun.

A hissing tire is spinning an inch from my face.

My heart’s doing a snare rush and all I can think of is, I’m late!

So freaking late. I need to get Moth!

Head pounding, I force myself to my feet. I steady myself by holding onto the side of the truck. The front end is totally mangled. I can’t even figure out where the truck ends and the Buick begins. Peering through the driver window, I make out the shape of a large man slumped over the deployed airbag. I yank the handle but the door won’t budge.

I bang on the window. “Hey! Mister! You alive?”

No movement. I scramble around to the passenger side, step onto the running board and wrench the door open.

He looks like a lump of powdered dough.

“Mister, the truck’s still running!”

He turns, stiffly, mumbling something. I aim the flashlight through the cloud of airbag dust, illuminating his bruises and bleeding cuts, and he shrinks back.

“Turn it off!”

He gropes for the key and twists off the ignition.

The pickup makes a guttural sound before going quiet.

I close my right eye and scan the cab’s interior. Seems pretty intact from what I can tell. Not sure if his legs are pinned, but his arms are moving and his upper body is free.

“Got a phone? We need to call 9-1-1!” 

The man starts bashing his left shoulder against the door. “No! No! No!”

“Hey, easy. Trying to help you. Look, just slide this way, towards me. Lean back and I’ll grab you under your arms.”

Hard to tell his age; he’s big, though, thick and muscular, with paprika-colored hair and close-set eyes.

He swipes a powdery arm at me. “You! You did this!”

I cringe at his bellow, like a radio suddenly twisted to full volume.

He swipes again, knocking the flashlight from my hand. I lose my balance and my right foot slips off the running board, which flings me backwards, clocking the back of my head against the armrest.

“Hey, asshole, you hit my car!”

Snarling, he lunges, grabs my waist. He topples out of the truck, taking me with him, and we tumble and twist around on the ground; he’s slapping me and throwing punches. But before he can pin my arms, I elbow jab him in his Adam’s apple and he pitches off me, gasping, clutching his throat.

I scrabble beneath the wreck like a wounded crab.

But he catches my right ankle; he’s screaming and I’m screaming, and my lungs feel like hot needles; he’s pulling me harder as I try to grab onto anything that will hold. I kick with my other leg, hard, but now he’s got a grip on both ankles, and I can’t hold on; I scrape my fingertips across the ground, and grab the bottom edge of a tire, and part of it pulls away in my hand. I’m on my back in the rain again, with this monster over me; then, he staggers, just slightly, and right at that moment, I anchor my left foot around his calf and yank, with all my strength, and he goes down, backwards.

Like a giant tree being felled.

Wheezing, I roll away from him and get to my knees. I turn to see if he’s still moving, and he is. He’s trying to get up. And he’s growling, like something feral.

I lift my right hand, realize I’m holding the can of WD-40, and spray it, full blast, into his eyes. He screams, whips his head toward me, and I whack him in the forehead with the can, hard as I can.

He stops moving.

Sirens growing louder in the distance, I flip him to one side and edge his phone out of his back pocket. The screen is locked, so I lift his right thumb and press it against the glass.

She answers on the first ring.

 That you, Roo?

 “Yeah.”

 Moth pulls on her cigarette, hard.

Hell you been? Should have been here an hour ago.

Her voice is so cold and distant. I want to scream that I almost got killed like twice by a crazed maniac. I want to tell her how much my head hurts, my ribs hurt, my brains feel like they’re sloshing around in my skull like loose worms.

I want to tell her that I fought a really good fight. But I’m almost out of strength.

It’s all leaked out of me. Still, I would trek up a mountain of pain if it would change things, if it would take away the grief that keeps scabbing over, only to be ripped wide open, again and again, raw and bloody, no matter how much you try to forget that it’s still there.

No matter how much you pretend. And I just can’t anymore.

“Where the hell have you been! You’re not the only one who’s hurting! (Did I yell this to her, did I, just now?) More than anything, what I really want to tell her is that I’m a young woman who really, really needs her mother right now.

“Not a Moth!” Simple as that. Simple as rain.

“Just tell me one thing,” I say, my voice quavering as I fumble for the courage to ask.

Sure, baby.

“Are you, like…really in danger?” I steel myself for the answer.

She snorts. I picture her doing an eye roll as she pushes sweaty, dyed-blonde bangs from her forehead.  I had to say something to get you to come get me, didn’t I?

It’s a death blow, delivered straight to my heart.

I let the phone drop from my hand. With my arms clasped tight around my waist, I stagger towards the bonfire of flashing lights.

The rain has finally stopped.

A handsome paramedic comes over and wraps a blanket around my shoulders. “You okay, sweetheart?” I nod as he helps me sit by the back of the ambulance.

He holds up a pencil light and asks me to follow his finger. He and another paramedic triage my injuries: blood pressure is low, lots of contusions, a possible concussion and some bruised ribs. They think it’s all from the accident.

No one knows the guy attacked me. No one knows I won.

My pain throbs like a prize and I do a mental bicep flex as I watch the police cuff the man and drag him to his feet.

“Know that guy?”

I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Heard he’s got arrest warrants a mile long.”

 “Must be a blessing he crashed into me, then.”

 Both paramedics laugh; the cute one starts dabbing my forehead with antiseptic. I flinch at the sting.

I squint as a cop tucks the man into the cruiser, taking care to keep him from hitting his head. He bends to say something to the driver and then bumps the roof with the heel of his palm. The cruiser pulls away. The cop turns toward us, then, and approaches: he’s tall, a bit stooped, with a round face. When he passes through my ring of blur, I notice he has crinkly, kind eyes, and for one painful, heart-seizing second, I think he’s Lonny.

He’s not, but still – a close resemblance.

I shut my eyes tight. My whole body starts to shake.

“Hello. I’m Officer Bartz.” I lift my left eyelid, read the concern in his face. “Can you tell me your name, and how old you are, please.”

My eyes fill up. He even sounds like Lonny.

 The truth slips out of me, right then, like yoke plopped from a cracked egg. “Ruby Hansley.” I pause, sniffling, while he scribbles on his notepad.

“I’m…thirteen.”

 Bartz blinks a couple of times, and nods, but otherwise this revelation doesn’t seem to faze him. “Anyone else with you in the car?”

I shake my head, no.

“Vehicle’s registered to an…Alonso Moreno.”

 Lonny.

 My memory takes flight, streaking through the sky like a dark bird. We’re watching Lonny walk down the street, away from our building, his shoulders slumped. “Don’t go, don’t go!” I yell it first, through the kitchen window, then Darla yells it, from the outdoor balcony, her voice plaintive as a baby, and the wind carries the cry from her lips right to Lonny’s ears. He turns, sees us waving, and I watch sadness spread into his eyes.

Bartz clears his throat. I wrench back into the present. “You acquainted with Mr. Moreno?”

I nod, but I cannot speak. It’s just too much.

Bartz studies my face like a jigsaw puzzle he’s trying to assemble. He moves away to talk with the paramedics, then returns a minute later.

“Okay, Ms. Hansley. We’re gonna transport you to Mass General. Get you looked at.” His voice goes quiet. “Someone we can call? Parent?”

“No,” I hear myself say, as the paramedics help me onto the stretcher, but it doesn’t really sound like my voice at all, more like some weird kind of echo. “Just my…Moth.”

Then — an electric jolt — as I remember Darla.

 I struggle to sit up. “Wait, w-wait! I-I can’t go to the hospital, I can’t!” There’s this pulsing, irrational fear that someone will break into the apartment and steal her from me.

“My little sister! Her name’s Darla. Get her!” I can picture her, sound asleep on the couch, and then out on the patio, looking down at the empty street. Fear spreads like dark water. My head’s spinning, faster and faster. “Get my little sister! Please!”

And I hear someone say, in an underwater voice, “BP’s crashing,” just before I stop fighting. Exhausted, I open my arms to the crushing wave of blackness.

#

 

In the distance, there is nothing but gray: endless fields of tall grasses swaying in the breeze. A silver moon hangs in a frost-colored sky. The wind is a whistling seashell held to my ear. I like this, this feeling of flying. With quick, fluttery wing-beats, I ascend into the sky, then open my wings and soar over a lighthouse, glide past a granite cliff, and bank across an ash- colored sliver of beach.

“Ruby?”

The wind becomes a pale cloud of breath. I feel myself slowing, tilting backwards, lifting the front of my wings as I descend.

My feet reach forward to touch down onto the sand.

 Where I’m met with beeping and clicking noises, and footsteps, and muffled voices.

 “Think she’s awake.”

A gentle hand on my shoulder. I open my eyes to a white-coated woman bending over me, pressing a stethoscope to my chest. She turns to a flashing monitor, then says something to a younger man sitting in a chair. He’s typing into a laptop. He gets up, reaches for the IV, makes an adjustment.

“We’re giving you some fluids,” the woman doctor says. “You just rest.”

They leave, and two other people appear, one standing close, and someone else in shadow, sitting by the door. I blink a few times; Officer Bartz is holding his police hat in both hands.

“Ms. Hansley. Glad to see you’re doing better.”

“Am I…under arrest?”

“Not today.” He smiles, and I see a chip on his front tooth. “But…you need to promise me something.”

“What?”

“No more driving until you have a license.”

 He reaches out his right hand and we do a solemn pinky swear.

“Just so you know. We’ve located your mother. We’re arranging to get her here. And — everything is…secure at your apartment.”

I let out a relieved breath, not realizing I’d been holding it.

“Oh, that’s great! So—so you’ve got Darla?”

He blinks, turns. “Um, well, yeah, I brought –”

The other human in the room walks into my field of vision.

Something familiar about him.

It takes me a few seconds before I realize.

“Hola, mi amiga.”

My heart soars. It can’t be true!

He looks so different. He seems shorter. Thinner. He’s got a mustache. His face looks battle-worn. But it’s him! I lift my arms and we hug, awkwardly, as Lonny tries not to hurt me and gets a bit tied up in the IV cords.

He sits down. Gently strokes my forehead. Neither of us says anything for a while.

Then Lonny sighs, deeply. “Sorry I left, Ruby. If only I could…go back. To that moment. And…change things.”

 “No,” I say, shaking my head. There’s a sharp stabbing in my heart. (What is it, fear? Pain? I don’t know).

All I know is that I don’t want to do this. I can’t – I won’t – do this.

“No!”

Officer Bartz sees the look of anguish on my face and steps away, slipping quietly to the back of the room. Lonny grasps my hand and squeezes. “It was…never your fault, Ruby. Ni por un minuto.”

Something inside me comes undone. A cinched belt suddenly sprung loose.

 “Your mama and me, we weren’t getting along? I thought — if I left, like for a little while, and found a job, she’d miss me? And beg me to come back. I…never wanted to leave you and Darla. That’s the last thing I wanted.” His voice breaks. “We were…una familia.”

I can barely breathe; it’s all coming back so fast.

I’m doing dishes, when I see him from the kitchen window, waving to us, his body language telling us it’s goodbye, and Darla is at the patio railing, crying “Don’t go, Lonny, please stay and be our Daddy!” and she’s wriggling her little body forward, stretching herself into the wind to reach for him, and I see sudden bulging stones where Lonny’s eyes had just been, his sinewy arms lunging forward, as if he is willing them to stretch all hundred and five feet back to her, and I race to the patio, but she is already spinning in the air, my little sister, my beautiful Darla, a fragile bird in sudden flight — and all I can do is grab for her right foot; my eyes trapped by the horrible, ragged “O” carved into Lonny’s tortured face, my fingertips snatching at her right heel, feeling it fall away from me – leaving only her tiny sock behind — the one with yellow puppies playing with a bunny.

“And when it happened, I was…sucked down. Into Hell. I just couldn’t…find my way back, Ruby. Not for…a long while.”

Officer Bartz returns, his hands clutching something.

Not his hat. Something bigger. He holds it out to me.

It’s a doll.

 A baby doll, with a mop of curly reddish hair.

 Lonny is sobbing. “You know, all of us, we have different ways of dealing with dolor, the pain life brings,” he says, wiping his eyes with his shirt sleeve. “And it’s okay, Ruby. Whatever it takes to work…through it, I want you to know that it’s…all okay.”

“Darla!” I say, feeling my lips stretch into a smile. Bartz places her into my arms and I cuddle her, trying to get her into a comfortable position. I gently finger her cork-screw curls. They are dry as rope, not like Darla’s hair at all, how could I have ever thought that?

Darla’s hair was a sunset gold, soft as silk.

“You were the best sister to her, Ruby.”

“She…loved you,” I say, my voice croaking.

“She was to me, like a daughter, mi hermosa hija,” Lonny says, staring into my eyes, “and you, too.”

I wrap myself around Lonny, then, as tight as I can, and the two of us are hugging each other, and the doll, and the memory of Darla, and suddenly the pain in my ribs doesn’t matter anymore, because I know I’m coming awake again. I’m coming alive, and I’m holding on to life, and to love, and to everything good and right in this world.

And this time, I will never, ever let go.