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[continued from page 3]
* * * * *
In the kitchen, we sat at the table, each with a bowl of mashed potatoes. My parents looked at each other, then at me. We smiled.
“Isn’t this just lovely,” my mother said.
“Delightful,” my father agreed.
My mother turned and, using her napkin, wiped the ashes from his cheeks.
“May I ask a question?” I said, when she was finished and his face was clear.
“Of course.”
“Anything you like.”
“Well,” I said, “I don’t mean to sound rude . . .”
“Heaven’s no.”
“Of course not.”
“. . . but why don’t I know who you are?”
They looked at each other. My mother reached across the table and touched my arm. “I’m not sure we know what you mean.”
“Well,” I said, self-consciously stirring my mashed potatoes,” if you were to leave, what would I have left?”
Again, they looked at each other.
“Bumblebee, are you talking about an inheritance?” my father asked.
“No,” I said, “no.” Then I said, “What’s the happiest moment of your life?”
“The day you were born,” my mother replied without missing a beat.
“Apart from that.”
“There is no apart,” my father said. “Just together. Just you.”
“We love you so much. If something were ever to happen to you . . .” my mother began.
“Don’t even say it,” my father said.
I stood up. “Wait right here.”
“Where would we go?”
“Promise,” I said. “Promise that you won’t leave.”
“I promise,” my father said solemnly and gave me his hand.
“Promise,” my mother echoed. I took her hand in my other.
“OK,” I said, squeezing their fingers. “I’ll be right back.”
I went to the door that led to the basement.
“Goodbye,” my father called.
I turned around.
My mother winked.
Downstairs, the walls were covered in soot. I left dark footprints on the carpet. It was difficult to breathe. I opened the door to the garage and found the white Cadillac.
Still running.
I covered my mouth to block the exhaust. The car’s body was splotched with soot. On the driver’s side door was a single black handprint. I touched my index finger to the center of the palm.
Then I got in the car and opened the garage door. Slowly, I backed up and out, into the light. I pulled to the top of the driveway and looked back at the house. And then I pulled onto the street.
I drove and I drove and I drove. Till homes became gas stations and two lanes turned into four. Till the sun peaked and declined, then traded places with the moon. Till the air changed from warm to cool. Till the stars blinked out and the ocean filled the sky. Till the earth stopped spinning and the whole world sat motionless, without a voice.
I drove and I drove and I drove.
In a white Cadillac marked with the black hand of death.
Not even when I ran out of gas did I stop.
Katherin Nolte's fiction has appeared in a number of places, including Glimmer Train Stories, the Beloit Fiction Journal, Blue Mesa Review, and the anthologies A Best of Fence and New Sudden Fiction. She received an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was awarded a Truman Capote Fellowship.
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