Free October Snow by Jenna Brooks Page A

child’s upper lip, and he handed her a napkin that he pulled from his jacket pocket. “Here you go, sweetheart. Let me look at that.” He gently pulled her hand away, scowling at what he saw.
    Jo was going back and forth with the child’s father. “…I saw you hit her!” She was pressing 911 on her phone. “And I’m not dealing with you anymore. The cops can do that.”
    “Look, bitch…”
    Phone to her ear, Jo’s glare went icy. “That’s right,” she hissed. “I am a bitch. I haven’t survived idiots like you any other way.”
    The little girl started to cry harder. “Jo,” Max nudged her, “settle down.”
    The cars ahead of them had moved on, and the father threw his car into drive, yelling as he pulled away. “Kiss my ass, and mind your own business .” He took a hard right out of the lot, and was gone.
    Jo glared after him. “You got the plate?”
    “Yeah.” Max turned to look at the young man who had approached them. “Thanks for helping out.”
    He nodded. “I’m a paramedic. Name’s MacIntyre. Danny.” He had a thick, almost caricature-like Mainer accent. He pointed to the lipstick Max was holding. “Want to write my number down? I have to get to work, I can’t wait for the cops. But tell them that it looks for all the world like that girl’s nose is broken.” He sighed. “Hell of a thing.”
    “Going to get the truck out of the way. Move, Max.” Jo pulled the truck over to the side of the parking lot while Max took Danny MacIntyre’s number, and where he would be working that day. He waved as he drove off.
    An hour later, they finished relaying the incident to the policemen who had gotten the call. They returned to the truck then, and Jo sat very still for a minute.
    “Just want to relax a bit,” she said. Daisy was pawing at her from the back. Jo reached over the seat, patting her on the head.
    “Hey, we never got our food.”
    “Yeah. We should do that.” She rummaged around in her purse. “Darn it. Got a cigarette?”
    Max laid her head against the rest, eyes closed, handing her purse over. “Never a dull moment.”
    “They seemed more concerned that there were no car seats for the kids than for the four year old with the broken nose.”
    “No, they didn’t.”
    Jo passed a lit cigarette to her. “That was all they really asked about.”
    “That’s because you were very detailed about the rest.”
    She considered that for a moment. “Maybe.”
    “Think we’ll have to come back out here to testify?”
    “Probably not. It’ll go to Family Court.” Jo rolled her eyes. “We used to call that ‘the place where justice goes to die.’”
    Max looked over at her, eyebrows raised. “Who’s ‘we’?”
    Jo sighed and busied herself with the zipper on Max’s purse.
    “I’d like to hear about it sometime.”
    She reached over and patted Max on the leg. “You will. We’ll have lots of time.” She smiled at her then, hoping to end the conversation there. Max looked doubtful. “No, really. You will.”
    Max knew to let her off the hook. “Want to eat now?”
    She wasn’t hungry anymore, but was grateful for the distraction. “Yeah. I’m starving.”

    “Only about ten more miles.” Jo was at the same time excited and apprehensive. “You’re going to love it up here. Especially the house. It’s beautiful.”
    Max reached to turn up the radio, joining in with the chorus of a soft-rock song. “I…can’t do that to you …no no no…”
    “You can’t sing, either.”
    “Then I won’t try out for ‘Lungs’, or whatever the hell that show is.”
    The rain was clearing away, and the sun came out just as they crossed the town line. Max frowned. “Where are we? I haven’t been up this way in ages.”
    “Center-city Strafford.”
    Max looked around. There was a convenience store, a diner, two gas stations–one of which had a sign in the window, Welcome Home Mark! Semper Fi!– and a small grocery store, which apparently doubled as the local Post