Fugitive Mom. Lynn Erickson

you’re heading north?”

      “No, I’m going to the coast, the San Francisco Bay Area.”

      “Okay, then, I’ll figure around a ten-hour drive from here and leave the number. Is that going to work okay?”

      “Yes,” Grace said, feeling Charley tug at her shorts with sticky fingers, “and thank you so much.”

      “It’s the least any of us can do.”

      THE WESTERN UNITED STATES, and particularly the high desert of Utah and Nevada, was suffering an intensely hot dry summer, and as Grace drove away from Salt Lake City the following morning, she knew the day would be a rough one both for her and her son. Last night, just before she’d taken the exit on Interstate 15 to the safe house, her air-conditioning had gone on the fritz.

      “Mommy,” Charley said from the back seat, where he was playing with his Lego toys, “I’m firsty. It’s hot, Mommy.”

      “Yes,” she said, feeling her short-sleeved cotton top glued to the leather seat. “It sure is. We’ll stop at the first rest area and cool off, okay?”

      “Put on the air conditioner, Mommy,” he whined.

      “I wish I could,” she said, but she’d already calculated the cost of stopping and having the car fixed: the time and expense made that impossible. They’d have to suffer.

      By noon, driving along Interstate 80 toward Winnemucca, Nevada, she wondered if they would even survive. Utah at least had mountains and greenery in places, but Nevada…She might as well have been driving the surface of a long-dead, barren planet that broiled unprotected beneath a giant sun.

      Charley justifiably complained and wanted to stop often, and she herself felt the summer heat frying her brain cells. Still, despite her discomfort and nagging doubts, a plan was beginning to take hold. She realized there were only two options open to her. Well, three, she decided. But the third—turning around and surrendering Charley to his…to Kerry Pope—was out of the question. So that left two options.

      One, she and Charley could stay on the underground railroad until it was safe to stop and take on new identities, even get a job, settle somewhere for the rest of her life—their new lives, that was.

      Or, she thought, there was option two. She was not yet a fugitive and at this point she could elicit the advice of her parents, particularly her father, who was a retired policeman. The last thing she wanted was to get her folks involved in this mess, but her dad could at least advise her on what she needed to do to enlighten the court on the inadequacies of Kerry Pope, forcing that court to admit the very real danger to Charley.

      In short, as her father, Big Bob Bennett, would say, Grace needed to get the goods on Kerry Pope. And Big Bob had not only been a policeman, but a juvenile officer with the San Francisco PD. Who better to advise her? On the other hand, she hated to lay her troubles at his feet. Really hated the thought. She’d never had to turn to her parents for this sort of support. Thinking about it now, she supposed she’d been a real Goody Two-shoes. Shy, cerebral, nonconfrontational. Heck, the only experimenting she’d done as a teen had been in science class. How was she going to explain her actions?

      But who else could she turn to?

      They spent their third night on the underground railroad on the outskirts of Sacramento, and from there, using a pay phone at a convenience store, she finally called her parents. As she dropped change into the coin slots her hand trembled, and she had to tell herself over and over that her mother and father loved her as much as she loved Charley. Turning to them for help was the right thing to do.

      Amazingly, she realized as the phone rang in her ear, she’d never fully comprehended the true commitment of parenthood. She would ask for their help and they’d unstintingly give it, just as she was going the whole nine yards to protect her child.

      The phone continued to ring. Maybe they had already left on their annual summer vacation. Maybe…

      “Hello?” Her mother, Sally, whose name Grace also carried.

      “Mom?” Grace had to clear her throat. “Mom, it’s me.”

      “Gracie! What a lovely surprise. You never call.”

      “I do, too. I…”

      “Not enough. Is Charley there with you?”

      “Yes, Mom, he’s standing about two feet away, eating an ice cream cone.”

      “It must be his bedtime.”

      “Well, ordinarily it would be, but we’re not in Colorado.”

      “You’re…?”

      “Mom, we’re only a couple of hours away, just east of Sacramento.”

      “You’re where?” Sally gasped, and Grace began the awful tale of the past two days. When she was finished, all Sally Bennett could say was, “I guess I’d better put your father on.”

      Grace sighed. “Good idea. And Mom, I love you guys. I’m so, so sorry to be dumping this…”

      “Oh, for the love of Mike, honey, just can it, will you?” And then Grace heard her call, “Bob! Bob get in here, Gracie needs you.”

      Telling her father was even tougher. She knew it was because he’d been a policeman his whole life and Grace, in another forty-eight hours, was about to break the law big-time.

      He surprised her, though. Rather than tell her to turn around, drive back to Boulder and obey the court order, he hesitated for a second and then said, “Those damn juvie courts. Sorry, baby, but if this just doesn’t top it all. You should have let me come to that hearing. I warned you. Your mother and I were wondering why we hadn’t heard from you, but then we figured everything must have gone okay.”

      “Well, Dad, now you know,” Grace said. “And I hope I’m not making things worse. I just couldn’t let Kerry Pope have him. It isn’t that I’m selfish, Dad, honestly, and I haven’t gone crazy. If you could see Kerry’s criminal history, Dad. If you could—”

      “You think that after almost thirty-five years with juvies I don’t realize? Grace, honey, give me some credit.”

      “Sorry, Dad. It’s just that I don’t know how to get proof that a girl like Kerry will never be rehabilitated, certainly not to the extent that she could raise a child, and—”

      “Look,” Bob Bennett cut in, “you get yourself to San Francisco with Charley and call us. Best you don’t stay here, okay?”

      “Of course, I understand.”

      “Okay. Then get here and we’ll come up with something. You haven’t broken the law yet. Maybe…I have to think about this. Talk it over with your mom. Listen, do you need any money? I hope you haven’t been using a credit card, honey.”

      Grace laughed without humor. “No, no credit card, Dad. I’m getting to be a real good fugitive.”

      Bob groaned.

      “Sorry, but that’s how I feel.”

      “Okay. You call us as soon as you get settled in one of your safe houses, and we’ll figure this out together.”

      “Dad, I only need advice, really. No way am I getting you and Mom involved.”

      “Now, you listen here, Gracie. I may have been a cop, but there’s nothing more important on the face of the earth than you and that boy. You let me worry about our involvement.”

      “But, Dad…”

      “Don’t Dad me. Just drive carefully.”

      He hung up before she could utter another word of protest. She stood in the growing darkness outside the market and watched the customers coming and going. Ordinary people with ordinary lives. Sure, they had their problems, but not like the ones she had. She wished—oh, how she wished—she could be like them, back in her comfortable, safe life