Part 31 (2/2)
”No,” she said frantically, her breath raw, ”you can't call them.”
He pulled his arm away, narrowing his eyes.
”How long has your brother been missing?”
This, Shane felt, was a good question.
”Around six hours.”
”You'll need to contact your local police when it's been twenty-four hours.”
”Hold on, I'm sorry.” He kept his eyes on June, she kept shaking her head no. ”Okay, I'll do that. Thank you, Officer.”
Hanging up, he looked quizzically at her.
”We have to avoid the police,” she told him, loud and exasperated.
”Why,” he asked, stunned, ”would we do that? They'll help us find them. They have cars, radios.”
June explained what she had heard at the store, what Mack had told the rangers, what Caleb had explained would happen to Lily should the police take them in. Shane looked at her. It did not seem like a preposterous fear.
They would see Caleb after thirty-six hours of running, and Lily, pale and undersized and wheezing. They would find out that they were not father and daughter. They would listen to Caleb explain that he was running to San Francisco. And they would call in Child and Family Services without a second thought.
”Okay, so you think he's in the next rest area?”
”Well, either that or he kept going.”
”Kept going? To where?”
”You.”
”To my house?” Shane asked incredulously.
She nodded yes.
His frustration overflowed. ”Caleb's not a superhero, okay? He can't run two hundred miles with a baby.”
”Yes he can,” she explained. ”This is what he does.”
”But things go wrong in these ultramarathons, don't they? Everyone who starts plans on finis.h.i.+ng, but sometimes they don't.”
”Please,” she whispered, ”he has my daughter.”
Shane looked out the dark window, shaking his head. ”I didn't see them on the highway.”
”He wouldn't be on a highway.”
”That's the shortest route.”
”He'd be where he feels safe.”
”Where is that?”
”In the mountains.”
”Well, we're not going to drive through there,” Shane gestured at the wilderness frustratedly.
”On the small roads,” June nodded. ”That's where they are.”
Shane left the diner lot and pulled onto a smaller road that seemed to run parallel to the highway. This seemed to be what Caleb would have done. He moved slowly, thinking how senseless it was to imagine that they would just stumble upon them.
For the next hours they scoured the pitch-black road. Two hours turned to three, four. He found his way back to the highway and drove to another strip of fast food for coffee, but it was his fear that kept him awake. Next to him June's eyes strained, finding hope in every shadow, seizing it with an audible intake of breath, and then dropping it in pain.
They spoke very little; somehow the silence felt necessary. But somewhere near Stockton he felt a desperate need to connect, to stay awake if nothing else.
”So what's it like?” he asked her.
”What?” she replied, the exhaustion leaking from her voice.
”To run like this?”
An unexpected blissful expression took over her eyes. ”It's beautiful.”
”But you put yourself through all this pain?”
”Pain's not a problem. I mean, physical pain.” She looked out her side window, speaking to herself. ”The other kind of pain hurts more.”
”What kind?”
”Being a mom.”
Shane nodded.
”No one ever tells you how much it's going to hurt. They make it seem so perfect in those books,” she said, her voice rising. ”But when I'm listening to her try to breathe, watching her just try so hard to crawl, and laugh, and she smiles anyway? I've never respected anyone like that. She looks at me wheezing and I can't make her better. I'd rather run a thousand miles. I'd rather run Yosemite and break my back than go through one more second of not being able to help her.” She turned her head from side to side in the manner, he thought, of an injured bird.
”I have a son,” Shane reminded her by way of commiseration.
”Is he healthy?”
Shane put a hand on her shoulder. It felt to him like bone, and he pulled away. Embarra.s.sed, he stared ahead at the amethyst sky, looking for shapes on the shoulders that might be his brother and her baby.
5.
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