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  Asher drove as his boy slept on the car seat beside him.

  He held on to the steering wheel with both hands, leaning forward with determination, eyeing the highway, looking over occasionally to reassure himself that Justin was still there and not just some dream he had conjured up out of his misery.

  He was there. He was. Stolen. And Asher’s now, again. The news and the law would say Asher had kidnapped Justin, that a father couldn’t love that strongly, that a man couldn’t possibly care so much, and that the whole affair had been done simply for spite.

  No. Justin is my child. My boy.

  Only now, driving away with Zelda lying on the floor and most likely hurt, did he realize how much worse he had made things. But it was too late now, and he wasn’t giving up Justin. He shouldn’t have to.

  So they would go to Key West. They’d find Luke and he would know what to do. He always had.

  He drove south.

  Asher had never been anywhere, really, and most of his travels had been as an evangelist before he became pastor at the church in Cumberland Valley. To Gulf Shores a few times, Atlanta twice, for church conferences, lots of little bitty churches in Northern Alabama and Southern Kentucky and East Tennessee for revivals. He had grown up less than an hour from Nashville but had never relished going downtown and tried to make trips down there as seldom as possible.

  There had not been much of a way to prepare, so Asher had taken care of the basics: music and food. He had made a playlist of songs that would last eight hours, at least. Driving music. He had packed plenty of clothes and a big grocery sack full of food, a cooler crammed full of water and Mountain Dew. He had bought an oversized atlas. Had packed a suitcase full of art supplies and board games. A load of books in a canvas bag.

  The road rolled on, graying in the lifting pinks and oranges of a summer morning that was already hot. The hills were lush and striped with thin lines of mist rising up from the river. Asher coasted onto I-40 and the road sliced its way on toward all the little towns that lay between them and the vast, deep ocean. Surely Zelda had been able to reach the phone and call the police by now.

  That reminded him: he grabbed his phone, rolled down the window, and was about to let go. But then he thought how easy it would be to find, lying on the side of the road, and there might be something in there that would lead them to him.

  There was hardly any traffic out here at this time of day so he stopped on the bridge over the Cumberland River. He got out and leaned against the concrete bridge railing and looked down to the water where a few small, white, summer leaves decorated the surface of the river. A long drop down but he could smell the water.

  He let go of the phone and the river swallowed it whole.

  And then, as soon as Asher got back into the car, even though he had eased shut the door, the thing he had definitely not prepared for, because he had not even thought about how he would have to explain all of this to him:

  Justin awoke.

  2

  Where’s Granny? Where’s Mom?”

  “They’re back home, Justin,” Asher could hear how sad and tired his own voice sounded.

  “Where we going?”

  “To the ocean. We’re getting out of here for a while.”

  “We’re not supposed to, though,” Justin said, not looking at his father.

  “There’s no reason we shouldn’t. Sometimes the law gets it wrong. And this time, they did.”

  “We’re gonna get in trouble,” Justin said. “The law’ll be after us.”

  “Maybe so. But you’re my son.”

  The blacktop sang beneath them.

  “You know it’s not right, how this has all gone. Don’t you?” Asher asked, but Justin turned to the passenger window. Asher couldn’t say when he had crossed that line from being the kind of parent who avoided talking badly about Justin’s mother to outright saying this. But everything was changed now.

  Asher cupped the back of Justin’s head tenderly. “Justin,” he said, and wondered how many times he had said his son’s name aloud since his birth. Thousands, probably. A hundred thousand, at least. “Answer me, buddy.”

  Justin seemed to have lost sight of what the question even was. “What?”

  “You know that it’s not right, them taking you away from me. Don’t you?”

  The highway beneath them. The cuh-lump as they passed onto a bridge and the cad-oomph as they glided off and back onto the road.

  Justin kept his face turned to the passing land and Asher questioned himself, his own motives. Had he taken him just to get back at her? Or because he couldn’t stand to be away from him? Because he really thought being with her was unhealthy? All of that. Every damn bit of it.

  “I don’t want to say anything bad about your mother,” Asher said, although he wanted more than anything to do just that. He wanted to say: I bought into all of it. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go through the world judging everybody else. And I couldn’t leave you in that mess, being brainwashed that way.

  “I’m hungry,” Justin said.

  “I brought you all kinds of snacks,” Asher said. “You can take your seat belt off long enough to look through them.”

  There were chips and some granola bars, oranges and bananas, packs of Nabs, peanuts and cashews. Apparently there was nothing Justin wanted because he slid down into his seat, clicked his seat belt back into place, and fixed his eyes on the road.

  “I need a honey bun,” he said. And because the boy had always had this way of saying he “needed” things instead of that he “wanted” them, like so many other children did, because Asher would do anything in the world to please him, he said they would stop at the first store they could find.

  3

  As soon as Asher saw the Git ’n Go he wheeled in and parked beneath the bright white lights of the gas canopy, which were still burning despite the fact that morning had completely stretched out over the world by now. Asher put his hand on the door to get out, but Justin sat motionless.

  “What are you waiting for?” Asher didn’t want to be here long. Any second a cop could slide into the parking lot.

  “I don’t have no clothes on,” Justin said, and then Asher realized he was still wearing sleeping clothes: cotton shorts and a ratty Bible camp tee shirt, barefooted. But he wasn’t about to leave him in the car while he went into the store. He bit his tongue against the desire to tell him to just come on, that they didn’t have much time. Asher didn’t want to make his child feel like he was living life on the run, although that’s exactly what they were doing.

  “There’s nobody else here,” Asher said, pawing through the bag of clothes he had packed, all brand-new. He found a pair of flip-flops. “Slip these on and let’s run in right quick. You look fine.”

  “You always say people look lazy, going in stores in their sleeping clothes.”

  “It’s real early, though, Justin,” Asher said, but Justin had set his jaw in defiance. Asher dug down into the bag and plucked out a pair of khaki shorts and a tee shirt. Holding the clothes reminded Asher of how little Justin was for his age. Like a little old man.

  “Put these on, then,” Asher prodded, and glanced around the empty parking lot. “Hurry, now. Nobody’ll see you.”

  Asher stood outside the car with his back to the driver’s door to give Justin the illusion he was on the lookout for anyone who might see him changing. Justin had always been very modest.

  The day had bloomed completely. The cicadas were silent, resting up for the punishing heat the day promised, when they would sing their screaming songs, letting everyone know they were alive.

  The red of morning had paled into a worn blue. The color of Luke’s eyes. His brother had been famous around home for his eyes. Girls had always been crazy over him to no success, saying he looked like Paul Newman.

  Justin hopped out of the Jeep.

  “Now you’re looking sharp,” Asher said, and tousled his hair. “You like that new shirt?”

  Justin nodde
d, mumbled “Mmm-hmmm” in a not half-hearted way.

  A young woman was working in the rear of the store, but their arrival brought her back to the cash register. She smiled at Asher as she went behind the counter, her dangling earrings pulling her lobes long and slender when she nodded. The morning news blared from a small television.

  Justin scampered off down the aisle on the hunt for junk food.

  Even though they were already far east of Nashville there was a large display of souvenirs of the city: the skyline in a snow globe, a guitar-shaped flyswatter. Pots of coffee on a big silver machine beside green hot dogs that rolled around on metal cylinders, a silver pan of sausage and biscuits wrapped in wax paper tinged pink by the glowing heat lamps above. A whole aisle was stocked with rice, salsa, tortillas, and hominy for the migrant workers who bent over in the fields all day, plucking tomatoes.

  Over a shelf of Bunny Bread Asher watched the little television. The newscasters segued easily from the terrorist attack in Munich to news of a heat wave moving into the Eastern Seaboard. At any minute pictures of them could pop up on that television.

  Asher turned down an aisle to find Justin crouched at the end, leaning into a small cell phone. The phone was tucked inside a blinged-out case with fake diamonds and rubies studding the back and a small rainbow sticker resting beneath Justin’s finger.

  “I’m with Dad and we’re okay. He’ll take good care of me.” Justin clicked off the phone and slid it behind several packs of Pampers, then turned and saw his father.

  “Justin,” Asher said. “What have you done?”

  “I had to call her.” Justin was clutching snack cakes and cookies to his chest as if caught with stolen goods. “Please don’t be mad at me. Maybe since I called her she won’t send the police.”

  “She will, Justin. She will, and now they’ll know where we are.” Asher tried to keep his voice calm. But now they had to hurry and get out of here. He didn’t know whether he should feel betrayed or assisted. There was no time to study on this. “Where’d you get that phone?” His whisper was harsh.

  “That lady must have left it laying back here.”

  “Come on,” Asher said.

  Justin struggled to unload his bounty on the high counter: two honey buns (one frosted), two packs of pecan twirls, a bag of Bugles, and a plastic cup of Nutter Butters.

  “Got everything, now?” Asher tried to think what was normal conversation for the cashier’s ears. He felt sick from the knowledge that Justin had called his mother. “We won’t be stopping for a while.”

  The cashier peeked over the large cash register at Justin. “Oh Lordy, he got all the good stuff,” she said, giggling, her accent like a little song. A red rectangle of plastic pinned to her orange smock was printed with her name: adalia.

  Asher studied a square of foam outfitted with several cheap rings with adjustable bands, each with a different picture captured under a raised slice of resin: the Virgin Mary holding Christ, the Virgin of Guadalupe, Day of the Dead scenes, and several of Frida Kahlo. Luke had always loved Frida and liked to check out a thick book of her paintings from the library.

  “Sometimes people say I look like Frida, but it’s only because we’re both from Mexico.” Adalia rolled her dark eyes and smiled. She took one item at a time and ran it over the scanner, moving so slowly. Behind her the news anchors were in deep conversation about the presidential election. “Some folks think all brown people look just alike.”

  He wanted to tell her that he had to get out of there, now. But he had to remain calm. Only now did he notice the security camera in the corner of the store. So eventually they would know he and Justin had been here. No matter, really. They were still close to home. This wouldn’t give much away besides the fact that they were east of Nashville. They could go anywhere from here.

  She was now openly studying his face. “I know you from somewhere.”

  “I’ve got one of those faces,” he said, willing himself to smile.

  “Where you all headed this early on this pretty morning?” Adalia asked.

  “The ocean,” Asher blurted out, regretting it instantly. He was giving away everything.

  “Gulf Shores, I bet.”

  “Yep.” How easily the lie came. He had always been honest. Now he wouldn’t have that anymore, either. He would have to lie every single day.

  Adalia tapped the “total” button like a pianist hitting the last note on an amazing performance. “Nine dollars and eighteen cents, darlin.” She shook her head. “All this stuff is overpriced in these gas stations. Terrible.”

  Through the plate-glass window behind Adalia: a state trooper pulling into the parking lot.

  Asher’s breath came out ragged. Adalia noticed; she brought her eyes up to meet his as she counted out the change.

  She glanced out the window. “Rodney stops here every morning to get his coffee and a Krispy Kreme.” She shook out a brown paper bag for the groceries.

  Some part of Asher thought that maybe she had pushed a button under the counter to alert the cops. He fancied she had most likely seen news of the kidnapping on the morning show—the news happened instantly nowadays, after all—just before they had come in and she’d played it cool long enough to stall them.

  He could feel the pulse throbbing in his neck.

  Asher’s mind raced with what he could do once the trooper came in: Fight back? Run? Surrender? None of these seemed an option.

  “I tell him don’t he know he’s a walking what-do-you-call-it,” Adalia said, pausing before putting the cup of cookies in the bag.

  Hurry up hurry up hurry up.

  “You know, the word for when somebody is expected to be a certain way.”

  The cop was out of his car and fishing back into the cab now, digging for something between the seats.

  “A stereotype?” Justin offered.

  Asher looked down at his son as if in slow motion. He wished for the noise of the blaring television, anything to distract him from the feeling of nausea and the cold sweat that ran down the backs of his arms.

  “Yeah, that’s it!” Adalia said. She was taking ages to put everything in the bag.

  Hurry hurry hurry.

  “A walking stereotype, a cop that eats the doughnuts. You’re a smart one!”

  Asher grabbed hold of Justin’s wrist with one hand and the bag with the other as Adalia shoved it across the counter at long last. He would will his feet to move and then he would glide right on out of there. If the trooper had come for him then this was the end, already. But if he hadn’t, they had to walk out of there right now.

  Adalia brought her eyes up to light on Asher’s. He felt as if he had known her a long while, as if their lives might forever be entangled from this moment on.

  “I’ll say a prayer for you, darlin,” she said. “For your travels to the beach.”

  “I appreciate it,” Asher said, like someone else was speaking.

  The state trooper stepped back to hold the door wide open for Asher and Justin, his face hidden beneath the shadows of his hat.

  “Hey there, little man,” the cop said, and Justin stopped.

  “Hello,” Justin said in a small voice, and skipped to the Jeep.

  Asher turned the ignition, shoved the Jeep into gear, and darted back onto the highway, fighting the urge to peel out and leave scorching black rubber behind them as they hit the open road.

  4

  As they sped down I-24 the heat was so thick they could see it from a long way off, a hazy mist striping the hillsides.

  Only seven o’clock in the morning but they were already close to the state line. Blue mountains rose in the distance, smudged behind the wooly June heat. The Smokies.

  Justin leaned on the door and let his hand float up and down on the rushing air. He had asked Asher to take the top off the Jeep but they’d be too visible. Asher wondered what all was going through Justin’s mind. He was staring out the passenger window, earbuds in his ears and his music turned up so loud Asher cou
ld hear it. Then he pulled one earbud out. “Are we going to do stuff that kidnapped people do in movies?”

  “You’re not kidnapped, Justin. You’re my son.”

  “But we’re on the run. Ain’t we?”

  “Just until I can figure out how to get the judge to listen to me.”

  “They probably sure won’t listen to you now.”

  “You’re probably right,” Asher replied.

  “Are we going to dye our hair? And wear caps and sunglasses all the time?”

  “What?” Asher laughed but he felt a troubling across his chest. He rolled his window up so they could talk without yelling. “No. No, we’re just driving down south for a few days. To figure things out.”

  “This is my fault,” Justin said.

  “No, Justin. How can you think that?”

  “If I hadn’t found them men, during the flood.”

  “No, buddy. It’s way more complicated than that.”

  “It’s why Mom got mad at you.” Justin locked his eyes on Asher’s face. “Ain’t that right?”

  “No, it’s not right. Listen to me, now. None of this is your fault.”

  Justin turned away again and the highway hummed on below them. Asher rolled his window back down, not so much to get the air as to reintroduce the noise. There was nothing else to say.

  Near Monteagle they coasted down the exit ramp and onto a state highway that climbed mountains and sliced valleys in half, wound up and down, over and around, twisty as a gray ribbon that had been dropped from the sky.

  “You’re switching back and forth from the interstate to little country roads to throw the cops off?” Justin asked.

  “You’ve been watching too many cop shows at your granny’s,” Asher said, and they laughed at the same time.

  5

  Along the road: tiger lilies growing in the ditch-lines. Flags, Asher’s mother had called them. He remembered her cupping one in her thin hand, a moment of real tenderness. Look how pretty, Asher. They’re perfect.

  If only someone had gotten Asher away from his mother. Because a strange sort of brainwashing had happened after Luke went away. She had convinced him that Luke didn’t care about them, that she had been trying to save his soul from hellfire by pulling that gun on him. Tough love, she called it. The kind of love God had shown to the world when He flooded it, when only Noah had heeded His call. The kind of love God had shown Abraham when He had convinced him to kill his own son, Isaac, before stopping him at the last minute. The kind of love Job had suffered. She had convinced Asher that an Old Testament kind of love was the best kind of all. Pray with me now, Asher, pray with me for Luke’s soul that he’ll see the error of his ways. It did no good to talk to her about how Christ had brought them the New Testament. Instead, he prayed with her.