Free When You Go Away by Jessica Barksdale Inclan Page A

hand.
         "The baby's at home," Peri said, putting on her sunglasses, and sliding the motel key into her pocket, her jeans three-days worn and soft with dirt.
         "Whatever.  You know where I am."  He smiled, his two front teeth missing.
         Peri opened the Honda door, pushing aside the Burger King wrappers, and sat down, ignoring the man who continued to smile at her, raising his can in a toast as she drove away.  As she waited at a light, she flattened the map on the passenger's seat, following the grids.  Phoenix was easier to follow than San Francisco with it turns and streets that suddenly changed names.  But even with the carefully planned blocks and well-placed street signs, it was as if Graham was calling her, his bad deeds leaving a trail she could navigate by.  And within a half-hour, she was parked in front of a brand-new beige stucco house.  She sat with her hands still on the steering wheel and stared.  A green lawn spread out from the house like a thick, emerald robe, a brick and metal fence surrounded the entire yard, and a closed electric gate guarded the driveway. 
         Peri felt bile rise in her.  The lawn alone could have purchased the baby her wheelchair and the three-car garage the van she would need soon.  Without knowing it, she was crying, and she bit her tongue and hit the steering wheel with the heels of her hands, wanting the feeling to stop, knowing that this was the thing inside her that would explode and hurt people.  That mustn’t happen.  It couldn't.  The baby needed her.  All she had to do was talk to Graham.  She would tell the woman who had picked out this house about the baby and her curved body. They had to give her back what she’d lost, or the feeling would take over and something terrible would happen.
         Getting out of the car, Peri smoothed her clothes, tucking in her blouse and adjusting the drooping waist of her pants.  She would be calm at first, she promised herself.  Calm.  That's what she'd do.  She'd simply ask for and then take what she needed.  Then she would get back into the Honda and drive home.  And everything would be better.  No one would even have noticed she was gone.  She swallowed and pressed on her chest, containing the feeling into a small square under her breastbone .  Stay down , she thought.  Please .
         At the gate, she pressed on the intercom button, once, twice.  As she stood waiting, she looked around the neighborhood.  If the air were different, and the mountains disappeared, this could be Monte Veda, the same huge houses, the same expensive cars, everything that she and the kids and the baby had given up so that Graham could what?  Come and live here in an Arizona neighborhood so much like his old one, but with one major difference.  He couldn’t hear the baby and her crying.  Peri swallowed again, but the balloon inside her grew.  She breathed in lightly and glanced at the houses.  There were women inside staring at her.  She licked her lips and tucked her hair behind her ears so the women would know she was one of them, a mother of three children, a housewife with 2500 square feet to care for.  But she couldn't fool herself--she knew a baby like hers wasn't in any of these houses.  The women staring at her could tell that, couldn't they?  No matter how she looked, the baby was always there, pulling on her, stopping her from being normal, like all these people on this street.  Like everyone else.
          Peri pulled on her hair, trying to stop the air that was pushing up and up from inside her, but then there was a woman's voice on the speaker.
         "Yes?"
         "I need to talk to Graham."
         "Who are you?"
         She looked up at the house.  Like her neighbors, this woman was spying on her, too.  "I'm an old friend of Graham's."
         "Graham is out of town."
          "I need to see him right away."
          "He's not here.  Give me your