threeâan older man and woman who remind me of my Papa and Meemaw, Daddyâs parents, which makes me sad because theyâve both passed on; and a man on his own, who Iâm pretty sure is homeless. I recognize him from when our Bible study gave out clean socks and granola bars to people who were down on their luck, which, from the looks of it, he still is. So he makes me sad too, and I start to wonder if itâs just a sad sort of morning. Or if maybe every morningâs a little sad at the bus station.
âOne way to Houston,â says Paul to the girl in the booth. Because hereâs our plan:
1. We will buy one-way tickets because weâre not exactly sure when weâre coming back, or how, or who will be with us. (Please, Mama, be with us.)
2. We will buy tickets just to Houston, so that if anyone tracks us to the station, we wonât have given away our final destination.
3. And we will buy tickets separately so that maybe the ticket girl wonât know weâre together. And thatâs an easy way to keep our money straight.
4. Also? You have to be fifteen to ride on the Greyhound aloneâPaul found that out in his researchâand since we are not exactly fifteen we plan to look as old as possible at all times. People like Mrs. Murray have always called me âmature,â so thatâs what Iâm counting on. Neither of us is wearing a school T-shirt at least, so thatâs a start.
Paul buys his one-way ticket to Houston, and I buy a bottle of Dr Pepper. And then, a few minutes later, after Paulâs gone to the menâs room and the homeless man has tipped over sideways in his seat, I step up to the window.
âA ticket to Houston, one way, please,â I say, and I slide a little of my babysitting money across the counter. The girl, who has long, curved, tiger-print fingernails, slides a ticket back. She never even looks up.
âHere I come, Mama,â I whisper as I walk away from the counter. âEverything is going to be okay. I promiseyou that. Everything is going to be okay.â
And as the morning sun comes beating through the windows of the little station, I believe this, through and through.
Chapter Ten
W e sit quietly in our seats as the bus starts up, hoping not to be noticed. Just like that, so quietly, and away we go. Right after we pass the big, beat-up sign for the county dump, the long lines of sooty, blackened trees appear. There was a week or so, not too long after the fires, when Daddy was coming out here all the time to help assess the damage and make bids on rebuilding the roofs. He said you could smell the smoke straight through the windows of his truck, and when he got home, his clothes smelled like heâd been camping. Now I lean into the rounded window at my shoulder and breathe in, but it just smells like bus.
Before long the skeleton trees are gone. Loomer is gone. We are really and truly gone. Iâm sure weâve got a long way to go before landing in Florida, but it feels like the hardest part of the trip is over already. We did it. We left.
I take another deep breathâmore like a sigh this timeâand I feel Paul do the same thing in the seat next to me.
âYâknow,â I say. âIâve spent nearly my whole long life wishing for a dog and wishing for a middle name.â
âIâm not one for dogs,â says Paul. And then a second or two later he says, âYou donât have a middle name?â
âIvy Blank Green,â I say. âThatâs me.â
âWell, what kind of a name is that?â asks Paul.
âA lame one,â I say. âMama and Daddy decided to skip the middle-name thing, like we always skip a verse when weâre singing hymns at church? It was supposed to be meaningfulâthey were leaving room for God, they saidâbut to me itâs just always felt like I was missing a name. And missing a dog. And now Iâm missing a mama.â
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