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“Yeah,” he grumbled. “Okay. I’ll call you in a bit.”
“I love you,” she said.
“Love you, too.”
She let him hang up before she pressed the button on her phone.
Then she walked out of the diner and hurried to the van.
At the bus terminal, she bought a ticket to Philadelphia, hating the
way the man who sold her the ticket kept trying to talk to her.
Rather than waiting at the terminal, she went across the street to
have breakfast. Money for the shuttle and the bus ticket had taken
more than half of the savings she’d collected during the year, but
she was hungry and she ordered pancakes and sausage and milk.
At the booth, someone had left a newspaper and she forced herself
to read it. Kevin called her while she was eating and when he told
her again that the phone sounded funny, she suggested that it was
the storm.
Twenty minutes later, she got on the bus. An elderly woman
motioned to her bulge as she moved down the aisle.
“How much longer?” the woman asked.
“Another month.”
“First one?”
“Yes,” she answered, but her mouth was so dry it was hard to
keep talking. She started down the aisle again and took a seat
toward the rear. People sat in the seats in front of and behind her.
Across the aisle was a young couple. Teenagers, draped over each
other, both of them listening to music. Their heads bobbed up and
down.
She stared out the window as the bus pulled away from the
station, feeling as if she were dreaming. On the highway, Boston