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Show 95 but in any case continuing despair, decay, continuing loneliness without real solitude, and as they reach the house she can see the figure of her husband silhouetted against the window, looking out. Dear, sad John, she thinks, it will come to him now too, the stark starched regimen, the bedpans, the feedings, the lying there alone... "Keep going," she whispers to Luel's kid, and the child puts her foot to the gas; the old car, surprisingly nimble, hurries away, and she sees the door of the house open, a figure look out into the dusk, then go back in. She feels the lemons inside the bag, grips them hard between her hands. "Just keep going," she says, and the girl drives aimlessly at first, but eventually finds the main road along the coast. The girl settles back, her foot steady now on the gas, and eventually Annis' grip on the lemons loosens a bit. They drive for two days, not hurriedly, but not slowly either, talking; sometimes they stop for lunch or a cup of coffee in the afternoon, and at night they stop at small, random motels, where they slide in together in the same bed, and Annis sleeps dreamlessly all night. In the daytime, they talk, and though the girl does not say much of herself, she absorbs and cherishes what Annis has to say. But fear travels with them too, that they will be discovered, apprehended, that police bulletins will find them, that they will be taken back, delivered into custody. By the third day, it is enough., and they reach a small town far up the coast. |