“You never even told me why.” Her voice was almost too weak to say anything.
“I can’t explain it now. It’s complicated. Adult stuff. Just go with your aunt and take care of Nathan. I’ll call you in a few days.”
“I don’t even like them. They’re weird. I think Aunt smokes,” she said, knowing that Dad didn’t want her anywhere near a smoker.
“She quit smoking years ago. They aren’t so bad. They’re funny. You’ll have a great time,” he said, leaning over to hug Olivia. He said it in a way that really meant “No argument.” She buried her nose into his shirt. She never liked the sour smell of the pine sawdust he always had in his clothes from working the pulping yards, but she didn’t mind it so much this time. He didn’t hug her as hard as he usually did. His hands dropped faster than normal.
“Dad. Dad, don’t make us go. Please,” she said with tears running down her cheeks, “give Mom our phone number.” But he was already walking out the door.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Olivia couldn’t figure out how, but Uncle crammed all of their stuff into the car and still had enough room for them to sit. Barely enough room. She squeezed herself into the back seat next to a finch cage filled with socks. On the floor, she shoved a miniature vacuum cleaner to the side with her feet. Olivia was convinced that the first time they turned left or hit the brakes, the entire wall of junk would bury her forever.
Dad didn’t watch them leave. He didn’t wave. He stood out back by the cottonwood tree.
And that was the last time Olivia saw Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
Olivia stared out the window. Gnat sat next to her making faces at the other cars in between levels on his video game. Lips smacking on a caramel, his fingers jumped around methodically over the game’s buttons for hours. She could hear the laser sounds blasting through his headphones. “He’s going to be deaf before he turns six. And toothless,” she thought.
Uncle tried to tell funny stories. He kept looking in the mirror to see if she was smiling. Aunt kept asking her if she was comfortable.
“Do you need anything? Can we get you something?” Over and over and over.
Olivia wanted to scream “NO already!” She wanted to scream loudly, like an adult, so they would take her seriously. But she didn’t move a muscle. She simply stared out the window. She pressed her forehead into the glass. After one hour, her forehead hurt. After two hours, she couldn’t feel a thing.
Olivia didn’t want anyone to know she could hear them, or see what they see, or think any of this was acceptable. Once, she even held back a sneeze until she felt her head would explode. The thought of someone saying “Bless you!” or “Gesundheit!” if she actually had sneezed made her sick to her stomach. She watched the landscape pass by as they drove south, pressing her forehead harder and harder into the glass.
There were prisons in Illinois with names like “SuperMax” and “Ten Towers.” They passed a dinosaur made from tractor parts, some mountains, and a waterfall. In Kentucky, she heard that there were a lot of horses; there were billboards that said so, but she didn’t see a single one, not even a pony. One town in Georgia had a giant peach standing high on top of a pedestal. She thought there mustn’t be a single place in that flat town that couldn’t look up at any time of day and see that peach up in the sky.
At some point along the way, Olivia was not quite sure where, all of the pancakes turned to waffles. All of the apples turned to pecans. The Holsteins in the fields turned to Brahmans. The lilacs vanished. The birds grew larger than any bird she had ever seen and they stalked the roadside ditches for frogs.
They stopped at a gas station that looked like an old nineteenth-century plantation, at least on the outside. Behind the two-story columns was an enormous store containing every variety of jam known to mankind. Gnat ambled through the candy aisle filling a little paper bag with exotic sour balls and novelty chocolates. He beamed with excitement. They sold candy by the pound!
Olivia walked to the rear of the store, past the preserved alligator heads and rubber tomahawks. She was eating a fresh praline that she bought with her own money and it was pretty good. Suddenly, two men hustled her through a back door behind the plantation. One man covered her mouth so hard she thought she wouldn’t be able to breathe. Olivia kicked and squirmed. She slipped out of their hands but before she could take a step, they grabbed her again. Their eyes darkened like pieces of coal. As hard as she struggled, they didn’t even budge. The man behind her grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back. Tears streamed down her face. She was too scared to scream anymore. The second man leaned closer. He stunk of hair grease and old popcorn. He grabbed her by the chin and forced her head first to one side then the other.
“There must be some mistake,” he scowled. “She doesn’t have the mark.”
“There is no mistake,” the shorter man said. “Let me see.” They traded places, only this time the greasy-haired man didn’t grab her hair.
“Maybe you are right,” the short man said perplexed, straightening up. “How can that be?”
Olivia saw her chance. With all of her strength, she stomped her heel on top of the greasy man’s foot. With a yowl, he released her and she darted through the door back into the store. She heard the door click safely shut behind her as the men tried to force their way in.
“Oh! There you are, sugar,” Aunt announced from halfway across the store. “Are you ready to get going again?”
Olivia wiped the tears from her cheeks. She had been crying for the last day and a half anyway, so no one really noticed these tears fell for a different reason. She knew she should have those men arrested, but she was so confused about everything right now.
She nodded her head and sped for the car. She saw the two men get into their white minivan and drive off. The short one stared at her with his black eyes.
“We are almost in Florida,” Uncle announced, cramming Gnat into the back seat and quickly shutting the door to keep him from falling out. “It will be nice to be home again.”
Back on the interstate, Olivia watched the wind pulling last year’s cotton up from the fields. It floated like snow against the windshield. Uncle called it “orphan’s cotton.” Aunt punched him when he said it.
And then, finally, she saw the great and glassy sea. Olivia had never seen the sea before. Or palm trees. The closest she had come was on Palm Sunday when stern Pastor Kwashanski handed everyone a piece of palm frond to wave in the air when he gave the command after the Invocation. Although it seemed an odd thing to do in church, Olivia thought she would like a place like Florida where the palms waved in the air all year long.
Olivia’s eyes grew big. She saw something silver jump just beyond where the waves were turning white.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Aunt whispered over the seat. Olivia turned away so she couldn’t even see Aunt out of the corners of her eyes.
Uncle pulled the old blue car over and yelled, “Everyone take off your shoes!” and the next thing Olivia knew he was running down the dunes toward the water. A trail of junk followed him. He left the keys in the car and the door open. There was a great commotion as Aunt pulled off her sandals and ran after him squealing. Gnat waddled along behind with his headphones still on and the cord dragging on the sand.
“This is stupid,” Olivia said loudly in the empty car. She looked down the highway for the white minivan. Nothing. It felt good to be alone after being cooped up with these oddballs for so long. She took off her shoes and walked toward the beach. The sand burned her feet. Gnat was kneeling on the sand and sticking his fingers down a crab hole. Aunt and Uncle splashed each other in the waves. Olivia walked to a quieter spot down the beach and let the water wash over her burning heels. She watched each sparkling wave rise up clear as glass then foaming white as it crashed