Chapter 40

Lucy sat with Kristi a long time on a rotund white park bench amidst greenery in a Midway Greenhouse at the State Fair, making small talk and watching other people live their lives beneath a solar-powered train chugging effortlessly around and around and around in a never ending clockwise turn.

Kristi was in the CIA, but she couldn't talk about it.

Lucy wasn't even supposed to know.

But there they sat, surrounded by children shrieking with excitement and botanists leaning into specimens with bespectacled eyes and rounded backs.

"I miss living alone," Lucy uttered softly.

Kristi heard melancholy and, not accustomed to wading through emotional pools with others, decided to change the subject.

A thundercloud rolled by in the form of a napless baby in a vomit-covered stroller.

It was Lucy's sister-in-law, in a cloud of frustration, loudly ordering Kristi to retrieve Lucy's oldest nephew from the awning where he was hanging upside down and attempting to flip his hair back and forth.

With a shout, she was off toward the parking lot to intercept Lucy's father and pull a spare vomit-less stroller from the back of his truck. She would also hand him the baby while she took off on a mad walk to the nearest changing room with somewhat fresh clothing.

Lucy, suddenly filled with angst at the thought that she would see her father, needed to climb away. There were far too many cobwebs in her mind.

She'd never yelled at him. She'd never been angry with him. She'd never had a bone to pick with him. She'd always trusted him. WHY HAD HE FOLLOWED HER TO CALIFORNIA?

And then another, deeper, more insidious secret surfaced.

WHY DIDN'T HE TELL HER JAY WAS JUST ANOTHER STALKER?

A butterfly landed on Lucy's face, and she shrieked.

Her mother flipped a giant palm frond out of the way to see what all the ruckus was about, and the leaves smacked Lucy square in the eyes.

She was glad of it, because she had a reason for the tears.

"I'm going to go see the Budweiser horses before they're saddled up for the parade, okay Mom?" She said.

Lucy had never done her own thing at the fair before.

Every year, every time, she silently hobbled along, stuck to her family like glue, or sticking them together, or sticking it out, or whatever it had been that she'd done for twenty something years.

But now she needed to be alone, not only in her own silence, but in her own space, away from them.

On her way out, she turned back to her flabbergasted mother and shouted, "Oh, and tell Dad I know about California."

A train guffawed, and her mother's jaw fell down.

Lucy turned into the bright blue light and ran.

Someone in the bushes watched her go.

There would be trouble.