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“Are you sure?”
“Yes. But before you go . . .”
I turned down the makeshift collar. She flinched and closed her eyes, but stood still. Only bearing
it, but I still thought it was progress. I kissed the hanging flesh that had been her cheek and then
turned the quilt up again to hide it.
“How can you?” she asked without opening her eyes. “It’s awful.”
“Nah. It’s just another part of the you I love, Sadie. Now go in the other room while I change these
sheets.”
When it was done, I offered to get into bed with her until she fell asleep. She flinched as she had
when I’d turned down the quilt and shook her head. “I can’t, Jake. I’m sorry.”
Little by slowly, I told myself as I plodded across town to Deke’s in the first gray light of morning.
Little by slowly.
13
On April twenty-fourth I told Deke I had something I needed to do in Dallas and asked him if he’d
stay with Sadie until I got back around nine. He agreed willingly enough, and at five that afternoon I
was sitting across from the Greyhound terminal on South Polk Street, near the intersection of
Highway 77 and the still-new, fourlane I-20. I was reading (or pretending to read) the latest James
Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me.
At half past the hour, a station wagon pulled into the parking lot next to the terminal. Ruth Paine
was driving. Lee got out, went around to the rear, and opened the doorgate. Marina, with June in her
arms, emerged from the backseat. Ruth Paine stayed behind the wheel.
Lee had only two items of luggage: an olive-green duffel bag and a quilted gun case, the kind with
handles. He carried them to an idling Scenicruiser. The driver took the suitcase and the rifle and
stowed them in the open luggage hold after a cursory glance at Lee’s ticket.
Lee went to the door of the bus, then turned and embraced his wife, kissing her on both cheeks and
then the mouth. He took the baby and nuzzled beneath her chin. June laughed. Lee laughed with her,
but I saw tears in his eyes. He kissed June on the forehead, gave her a hug, then returned her to
Marina and ran up the steps of the bus without looking back.
Marina walked to the station wagon, where Ruth Paine was now standing. June held her arms out
to the older woman, who took her with a smile. They stood there for awhile, watching passengers
board, then drove off.
I stayed where I was until the bus pulled out at 6:00 P.M., right on time. The sun, going down
bloody in the west, flashed across the destination window, momentarily obscuring what was printed
there. Then I could read it again, three words that meant Lee Harvey Oswald was out of my life, at
least for awhile:
NEW ORLEANS EXPRESS
I watched it climb the entrance ramp to I-20 East, then walked the two blocks to where I’d parked
my car and drove back to Jodie.
14