I pull into the motel and check us into a room. It’s another
mish-mash of out-of-date décor, but it’s clean. I grab a bottle of water off the dresser and drink most of it down in one gulp.
“What do you want for dinner? There’s a Mexican place next door. Chicken burrito? Beef?”
Branwen looks down at herself and then up at me, a question in her eyes. I’ve forgotten what I promised her. Clean clothes if she was good, and I’ve stopped for the night in the middle of fucking nowhere.
“There’s nothing here, baby. I can’t buy you any clothes. Tomorrow, in Phoenix or something.”
The hurt in her eyes goes through me like a knife. “Did you draw me that map like I asked? No, you fucking didn’t. So stop looking at me like that.”
Branwen’s eyes are still full of reproach. I dig into my bag, pulling out a fresh T-shirt, and toss it to her. “Wear that.”
She takes the T-shirt and stalks into the bathroom. A moment later, I hear the water turn on and the sound of her scrubbing her clothes in the hand basin. Well, fine. They’ll be dry by the morning. What’s the damn problem?
The shower goes on, and Branwen emerges a few minutes later with wet hair and wearing my T-shirt like a dress. She gets into bed and stares stonily at the opposite wall. I go over and tie her wrists to the bed leg.
“Chicken? Beef?” But she doesn’t answer and I growl, “Fine. Sulk all you want but if you don’t like what I get you, then that’s your fault.”
I stalk out of the room and head into the takeaway joint next door. It’s hot and sultry inside, and the locals eye me with guarded expressions. A few of them are looking at my car parked across the road, their expressions covetous. It’s a ’68 Mustang in pristine condition. I fix each of them with hard looks until they turn their attention elsewhere.
I order two beef burritos with sour cream and jalapeños and grab a couple of drinks to go as well—a beer for me and a lemonade for Branwen. Taking them back to the room, I toss hers into her lap and untie her.
“Eat. Then clean your teeth and go to sleep. No dreams tonight. I need a solid night’s rest or we’re never going to get to Napa.”
In answer, she scowls up at me, and I know she’s still angry with me because I went back on my word. The hell I did. This is a two-way street.
We watch Golden Girls while we eat, and then Branwen goes into the bathroom to use my toothbrush. When she comes back, I tie her up and switch out the lights. It’s early still, but fuck it. I’m so tired.
I wake up so many times in the night and I lie there, listening, wondering if it’s Branwen who’s woken me. I can’t even hear her breathing so several times, I get up and take a look at her in the dim light. Her ribs are rising and falling. All the same, I feel like she’s not sleeping either.
Finally, around five thirty in the morning, I give up, switch the lights on and untie her. I don’t feel at all rested but I’m awake so we may as well go. Branwen sits up groggily and goes to use the bathroom. She tries to hide her face from me but I see her eyes are puffy and red, and I know she cried in the night. I suppose she muffled her sobs in the pillow so I couldn’t hear.
Guilt slices through me. She was too angry or afraid to let me hear. I wouldn’t have been mad at her if she’d woken me up with her tears.
A few minutes later, we head out to the car. Branwen looks damp and rumpled in her hand-washed clothes.
We drive in silence. Thirty minutes later, just as the sun is coming up, we reach Las Cruces. I fill up with gas and then pull into another drive-thru coffee joint and order the same as yesterday, this time adding a couple of sandwiches. They end up in the well between the seats, untouched. I’m not hungry and Branwen’s listless and pale.
I can’t bear the tension in the car so I turn on the radio and crank it up. Seventies classic rock fills the air around us. That’s better. Now I don’t need to think. All I have to do is drive.
Branwen
I feel sick as we drive, and the sweet, milky coffee doesn’t help. I spent the night in a state of semi-wakefulness and when I did sleep, I was visited by terrible dreams. This time, it wasn’t daddy holding the knife to Cora’s throat. It was Geraint.
This is what being a Lange means. Do as you’re told, or I’ll have to hurt you too.
Then he hit me, like daddy used to hit momma before she learned her place—a vicious back-hand slap that made pain explode in my cheek and nose and blood pour down my face.
Look what you made me do, he snarled. And then he cut Cora’s throat.
I cried silently into the pillows, my whole body shaking. I was weak and disobedient, both in my father’s eyes and in God’s. Nothing I do is right and no matter which way I turn, there are no answers. Cora died because of me, and there’s nothing I can ever do to make up for that.
I could hear Geraint tossing around on the floor and I didn’t dare make a sound. He might have come up onto the bed and touched me again. I was afraid he would and afraid he wouldn’t. Maybe we both would have got some sleep if I’d woken him up and he’d done those strange things to me. I wanted it as much as I was fearful of it. The nuns at the convent would tell me a man who wasn’t my husband putting his hands on me was sinful. That Geraint is trying to be my priest, my confessor, and my God, and that such a thing is blasphemous.
We cross into Arizona just after eight thirty and some of Geraint’s cold, silent anger seems to ease. With every passing mile, we’re drawing closer to our destination. His fingers tap on the wheel to the sounds of Blue Oyster Cult.
Even with the music playing, I doze off around mid-morning. The last thing I see before I close my eyes is a road sign saying Tucson: seven miles. A few bars of Led Zeppelin or Bruce Springsteen invade my consciousness every now and then as I nap. The tall gates of Avallonis loom before me, forbidding and unfriendly, but I know I have to go through them. When I do, I’ll feel the flames of hell licking at me, ready to devour everything and make me burn for eternity.