Free Going to Bend by Diane Hammond

have her students keep journals for a semester, but that so many of them had confided terrible things, she didn’t give the assignment anymore. Even so, she said, last year one of her students had stayed after school and whispered that her mother’s boyfriend had started sneaking into her bed sometimes on the nights her mother was at work tending bar for the Elks. It hadn’t been that way when Rose and Petie were growing up. The teacher had told Rose she would be leaving the school system at the end of the year to teach at a Christian school for two-thirds the pay.
    Rose pulled up to the curb, switched off her car engine and had just settled down to wait when she saw Carissa bounce out of a side door, one of the first children to appear, her backpack strapped onto her small shoulders—she was delicately made instead of roomy and soft like Rose.She was dressed to the teeth in new jeans, new shoes, a new enormous sweatshirt with an expensive brand name on the front, fancy braids—her one good back-to-school outfit. A proud, bright, healthy girl in the throes of delight. Christie was home. When she caught sight of Rose she broke into a happy smile.
    “Did you bring Jim?” she said, peering eagerly in the window. She wrestled the door of the car open.
    “He’ll have supper with us. He’s down at the docks.”
    Carissa tossed her backpack into the rear seat, where it landed with a heavy thud. She was a diligent student. “Did you tell him I was going to cook?”
    “I told him.”
    “I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t fry the chicken, you know, in case he’s been eating a lot of fried chicken on the boat or something. I could bake it.”
    “Even if he’s been eating fried chicken every night, sweetie, it’s not going to have been home-fried chicken, and it’s not going to have been you cooking it. Go ahead and fix it like you want. He’ll like it either way.”
    “I’m so glad he’s back, Mom. Aren’t you?”
    “Oh yes.”
    They drove in silence for a couple of blocks. Then Carissa said, “You know Billy Wall, who got arrested over here for doing nasty things to boys?”
    Rose was startled. “How did you hear about that?”
    “Oh, everyone knows. One of the boys he did that to, he’s in my class.”
    “Well, you stay away from him.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s probably feeling real bad. He doesn’t need kids watching him.”
    “I wouldn’t watch him or anything.”
    “Well, you just keep some distance, all right? He’s had some bad things done to him, and sometimes children have trouble after that.”
    Carissa’s thoughts had turned back to home. “Mom, when Jim’s away, do you think he misses us?”
    “I don’t know. He must, in his own way.”
    “I bet he can feel us missing him all the way up in Dutch Harbor. Do you think someday he might decide to just stay home?”
    Rose glanced over at the small rapt face and looked away. “I don’t think so, sweetie,” she said gently. “No, I don’t think so.”

Chapter 4
    H UBBARD’S POST office was at one end of town, a flimsy old box rancid with cigarette smoke and mold. Through the service window you could see into an apartment carpeted in old apple-green shag. The post office was not part of the postal service proper, but was a concession operated by Lou and Lee Boyles, who delivered the mail in a Ford Aspen station wagon with bad shocks and one taillight out. In Gordon’s opinion, whatever the Boyles were being paid by the postal service to keep zip code 97360 alive, it wasn’t enough. On days like today, when he was moderately depressed, he would gladly have paid an extra penny a stamp through the next millennium just to subsidize a fresh paint job and some new Formica.
    He stepped up to the free community bulletin board, pulled a pushpin from a card in his jacket pocket and tacked up his last flyer.
    Watch for it! From soup to nut breads, it’s
Local Flavor,
featuring the best of Hubbard’s souperior soups, breads and desserts.