Three
Amber called for me to come in as soon as I knocked, as if she had been expecting me. Her trailer was the farthest one from the main house and the closest to the road. I had always wondered how she filled her time, sitting alone in there day in and day out. She liked her privacy, I guess. I could count the number of times I’d been inside on one hand. My eyes took a minute to adjust to the darkness in her trailer after the still-bright sunlight outside. Before I could even see her clearly, she was pulling me by my wrist back to her bedroom and closing the door behind us. And then she was talking, her face very close to mine.
“There’s not a lot of time, Ami, and I’m sorry that I didn’t do this sooner, but now we just have to make the best of a bad situation, so I’m sorry for what I’m about to say. Do you understand why that man is here?” I felt embarrassed and could only stare at the floor. “He is here to try to make you have a baby. Has Ruth ever … do you know how that happens?” I nodded, still studying the ratty brown carpet at my feet. “I know what your papa says, and I know you’ve been taught that this is the right thing to do, but I don’t think so. And neither does David or Jacob or your aunts. And Ami”—she put her hand under my chin and pulled my face up to look at her—“neither did your mama.”
Now my heart started pounding and my stomach felt like every fluttering thing on earth was in there flying around. My mama? My mama hadn’t seen me since I was a week old. What did she know about it? Amber must have seen the confusion in my eyes, because she answered as if she had heard me.
“I know it’s hard that your mama never came back for you. I know it’s hard for her too. If your grandfather wasn’t such a…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “It just wasn’t like you think, Ami. It was complicated, and I wish I had time to explain it all to you now, but I don’t. I think they’ll give you tonight to yourself, but tomorrow they’re going to expect you to get cozy with that man, and tomorrow night I don’t think you’re gonna have much choice in the matter. So I’m askin’ you now: Is this what you want? Because if it’s not, I’m gonna help you.”
I didn’t know what to say. What did my wants have to do with anything? This was my duty. It was my place in God’s plan, according to Papa and Ruth. I had to try, didn’t I? I had to make myself a vessel for His will. How could Amber help me? Could she make me not a sixteen-year-old girl with a good chance of being one of the last fertile mothers on earth? Could she rewind time and keep my mama here to protect me? Could she make me be born somewhere else, in the time before the sickness? All those thoughts raced through my mind in the space of a few breaths, but all I could say to her was “How?”
She turned around and took something out of a dresser drawer. “When you were little, maybe nine or ten, a … a traveler came through. You probably don’t remember. He knew your mama. He knew where she was. He only told that to me on your mama’s instructions, but I told David, and pretty soon your aunts and Jacob knew too. He gave this to me, and over the years, we all agreed that when this time came, when they tried to breed you to some stranger, we would give it to you and let you choose.” She put the thing she held into my hand.
It was a thickly folded rectangle of glossy paper covered with words and a photograph of a big building by a lake. Across the top it said Lake Point Resort. I looked down at it, confused, and then understanding began to dawn on me. Could it be possible? Amber must have seen the question on my face, because all she said was “Yes.” My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped that paper, but I held on to it like it was the only thing keeping me standing. Mama, I thought, over and over like it was the only word I knew. Mama, Mama, Mama. And just like that, I knew that I would go. I would run away from Zeke Johnson and Papa Solomon, from Heavenly Shepherd and everyone I had ever known, and run toward the person I had never known but always needed—my mother.
“What do I do?” I managed to choke out while the tears spilled over and my breath felt trapped in my chest. But Amber was focused and determined, and she started moving around the room, collecting things and piling them in one place, talking all the while.
“All right now, Ami girl, it’s all gonna be okay. I know you wasn’t expecting none of this, least not like this, not today. I’m just sorry we didn’t never tell you or do more to get you ready. I tried to tell your aunts we was running out of time, but what do I know? They don’t never listen to a word I say. But what’s done is done, and we’ll just have to make the best of it now. You’ll take your bedroll and a change of clothes. The one good thing about the way you’ve been raised is that you know how to take care of yourself in the woods. Eufaula, where this place is, is not really that far from here, I think. I went there once with my parents, when I was a little girl, and it seems like it was just two or three days’ ride on horseback. I don’t know; it was a long time ago…” I wondered if she was really talking to me anymore, or to herself, as she paced around the small trailer picking things up and sometimes putting them back down, sometimes adding them to the growing pile on the couch.
“If you follow the hi-way, it should lead you straight there. But they’ll be looking for you, so I don’t want you out on the road in plain sight, understand? We’ll try to throw them off, send them a different way if we can. That damn Solomon, though, can’t nobody tell him nothing. Maybe I should tell him to look exactly where you’re going, that way he’ll be sure not to do it. Ha!” I barely registered the shock of hearing her cuss on top of insulting Papa, who was the man of the house and the spiritual leader of this family. My mind was already spinning. Was my mother alive all this time? A few days’ ride, maybe a week’s walk from me, in Eufaula, at this Lake Point place? If that were true, why hadn’t she ever come back for me? I didn’t want to believe that she would do that, abandon me like that, but at the same time, I wanted more than anything to believe that she was there. I didn’t have the strength to do what I was about to do without telling myself that it was her I ran to.
Amber still talked and paced. “Might be four days’ walk, maybe five. I know you can forage, but you’ll need food and drinking water. And do you even own a pair of shoes? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear them.”
“What?” I asked, dazed. “What do I need shoes for? I can walk all day just fine without them, and it’s not like it’s cold outside.”
“Well, this is walking for days, Ami, and then who knows after that. And you won’t just be in your regular stomping grounds. This is uncharted territory you’re heading into. Here, try these on.” She dug around in the back of a closet and pulled out a pair of bright blue-and-green shoes that laced up across the top of the foot. They looked foreign to me.
“Lord, girl, you’re lookin’ at them shoes like they was made of snakes! They’re just runnin’ shoes. My mama said that everybody used to wear them. Fast and light and already broken in for you. I used to be like lightnin’ in these old shoes of hers. Not that it did me much good…” She trailed off and I had the feeling again that she was talking to herself more than to me, but she still held the shoes out, so I took them. She dug around in a drawer and then handed me a pair of small white socks. She watched me expectantly and then motioned impatiently toward the couch.