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Show 32 catch a bus. Leah had ten dollars in her purse; that was all. Hunt had the checkbook. And she didn't want it anyway; she had spent enough. Leah put her coat on and carried her suitcase and her quilt outside into the snow. Across the ice, beyond the horizontal of the lake, Leah could see the State Highway and its cars. One would pass every two or three minutes. Would someone pick up a thirty-six-year-old woman carrying luggage and a quilt? Maybe somebody would pick her up and use her. But even to have somebody want her, have somebody care; to be hurt by somebody instead of hurting: They could leave testimonial bloodstains on her quilt. Leah had never hitchhiked in her life. What do you do, she wondered: just hold out your arm? Leah fell twice on the ice: once severely on her elbow, once on her hip. She made the sound of crystal breaking. Her dark glasses flew from her face, their wide plastic rims clattering ahead over the frozen cold. Something inside her wanted to just wrap the quilt around her there, fallen, and stay. When Hunt got back from coasting with the boys, Leah was in the living room, ready: her coat and dark glasses on, her suitcase and quilt beside her on the couch. "I want you to take me to the terminal in Concord," she said. Hunt had on an Irish wool sweater that she had knit for him. His face was windburned; his hair, wet. "Where are you going?" "Away for a while." "Where?" "To be alone." "Where?" |