Providence Read Online Free PDF Page B

adolescent style exclusive to friends of a certain age. Eighteen seems a lot younger now.
    Marianne must have planned this photo op because she returned in a flash with her camera, ready to pose Mitch and me. She had us stand next to each other in front of the passenger door of the navy blue car. My arm around his shoulder, his around mine, Marianne snapped the photo I still keep on the bookshelf in my office.
    “We’re leaving now,” I said seconds after the shutter clicked, as if all manner of business was closed. “We’ll call you when we get there. Daylight’s burning, and we’ve got a lot of traveling to do.”
    I pulled on the door handle, but Marianne reached out as fast as a ninja. She took hold of my sleeve, preventing me from getting in the car. We stared silently at each other on the gravel driveway next to the house where we’d both grown up fast and far apart.
    “So that’s it, Jack? You’re just going to leave? You don’t want to say good-bye? You don’t want to hug me?”
    I should have embraced her, but immaturity got the best of me. “That’s the picture I have,” I said.
    Marianne’s face fell. I wished I could take the words back, but words can’t be reeled in again. Her face became transparent. Suddenly it was crystal clear to her what a total stranger I was. The breakfast, the questions, the camera—all an attempt to make an impression that despite everything we’d been through, Marianne still cared.
    I get that now, but on that day, I wasn’t even close to getting it. I tried backpedaling. “Mom, you know we’ve got to get going if we’re gonna be on time.”
    “Oh, right, Jack. I don’t want you to not be on time.” Her face pulled tight and red. Her eyes were puffy.
    “What do you want me to say, Mom? It’s been nice seeing you come in from your shift while I go out on mine? It’s not your fault, but I don’t want to do this anymore. All I want is to get in this car.”
    Tears fell from her eyes. Marianne began to slowly step backward, stiffening her backbone as the physical space between us grew to match our emotional chasm.
    “Then good-bye, Jack.” She wiped tears from the corners of her eyes.
    A distance had cropped up between us like weeds in the front yard that neither of us had skill enough to pull. She would offer no more hugs. No good-bye kisses, or any “Call me when you get there.” She walked back up the porch steps and went inside, watching us through the screen door.
    I climbed inside the car, my eyes never leaving Marianne’s, and Mitchell started up the engine. The car rolled backward, cutting into the grass, then he shifted into first gear and rolled back onto the drive. In the rearview mirror I watched the house, the porch, and Marianne get smaller and smaller, until we turned onto West Baxter Road and all was gone.
    Mitchell and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. Minutes later we were climbing the Hamilton Overpass. I looked out the window at Overton, Iowa. The first chapter of my life had ended, its hard grip already weakening. I was emerging from a two-year ache. I felt the winds of change as tangibly as the thick summer breeze whipping through my fingers outside the car window.
    There would be no more tractors to drive, no more turkey subs to microwave. No more walking past Ruthie’s empty room. My past and my future were being separated like the parting of Siamese twins.
    The Cutlass tilted suddenly sideways as we accelerated through the wide curve that merged with the highway. Mitchell pushed a cassette into the car stereo. “How ’bout a little music?”
    Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” thundered over the noise from the open windows. Every digit that turned on the odometer represented one less degree of hold the past had on me. Its grip loosened, melting like pieces of a snowman on a hot spring day. We sped onto the highway. Mitchell reached over to boost Bruce’s volume. The highway was already jammed with broken