a lot on my mind,” Charlotte said quietly, finally. Knox glanced away from Charlotte’s narrowed eyes and at their mother, who looked as if she’d been hit.
“Is there?” their mother said, trying to smile.
Charlotte looked at the ground and nodded. Freeze, Knox thought. If she were different she might fly down the stairs and tap Charlotte back into life. But she was frozen, too. Someone had tagged them all.
Their mother closed her eyes for a moment, the way she did sometimes when she exhaled the smoke from the cigarettes, Salem Menthols, that Knox knew she regretted as soon as she reached for them, having told herself, and whoever else was around, I shouldn’t have this.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll talk in the morning.” Charlotte turned and began to climb the stairs. Their mother followed, her footsteps thudding too loud for the late hour. They each passed Knox without speaking and went into their rooms. Knox had remained where she was until her legs began to shake from the cold and she didn’t want to think of anything anymore.
Knox looked out the window beside her bed. A magnolia was there, just beyond the glass, with great bowls of blossom that smelled like lemons. Charlotte was out there, too. Maybe she had lied about meeting Cash in order to impress Knox and was walking around by herself, “thinking,” or standing by the road trying to hitch into town. It was harder lately to know what Charlotte would do, even when it seemed like she was telling you. Knox lay still, and refused to shut her eyes.
BUT THEY OPENED, and she knew she had slept. The tree outside was just visible against a dull, breaking light. Everything was quiet. Knox let herself down from the bed and began to move toward Charlotte’s room as if she were still dreaming. She moved onto the landing and down the hall and felt something in the stillness that told her Charlotte wasn’t back in her room yet. She reached the door, opened it, took in the tumble and mess, the covers blown open and onto the floor, and saw that this was so.
I’m going, Knox thought, surprised at herself but feeling capable of something brave.
She picked her way downstairs, knowing which steps to avoid but wary of her own tread, which lacked the balance, the levity, of Charlotte’s. She was less sure of how far she extended, and often bumped up against things unexpectedly. Knox concentrated hard on steadying herself, coming awake now. She reached the bottom of the stairs and slid the soles of her feet against cold boards until she stood in front of the hall closet, took out a coat of her father’s, stilled the tinging hanger with a quick movement, pulled on the pair of old tennis shoes her mother gardened in, let herself out the back door.
The world was loud and busy in an instant. Knox stood on the porch in the damp air, thrilling to the sing of crickets, wind moving across the grass, the surprised nicker of the mare that stood at the fence line bordering the yard. She felt powerful in the knowledge that no one knew where she was—or thought to care. This was what Charlotte must feel on those nights she left them. Except, Knox thought, Charlotte tells me. Like babysitting; Knox was left to watch the memory of prior trouble, to watch the clock and mind the possibilities until their rightful owner returned.
Knox exhaled once, and again, more loudly, listening to her breath get lost among all the other sounds. A bird whivvied at her from a nearby tree. She stepped off the porch and began to walk.
Charlotte had told her once that she met Cash, the farm manager’s son, where their driveway butted up against the road. There was a set of wooden gates and a hedge against which Cash would sit, waiting for her to come. Knox made her way down the walk, past the garage, and onto the blacktop drive, the fields around her becoming more defined with each step. On both sides of the blacktop, land rolled toward barns and toward the stands of locusts and pin oaks that jagged up beyond them. The driveway slanted down and Knox traced it rapidly, her hands opening and closing in the pockets of the coat. Charlotte would be ripped about being looked for. Another one of her words, ripped. Pissed, freaked, chapped, fucked—there were others. But Charlotte might surprise, too. She might smile when