All the Little Pieces. Jilliane Hoffman

       4

      She squinted into the racing wipers, her sweaty hands clutching the steering wheel in a death grip. It was gone. Whatever it was was gone.

       It looked like …?

      She pushed the thought out of her head before her brain could finish it. It was a crazy, impossible thought. She’d only caught a look at whatever it was for a split second. It couldn’t have been a person. Her headlights stared dumbly out into the stalks.

      It must’ve been an animal. A deer. Maybe a dog. People dumped dogs in the Everglades. It was terrible, but they did. She was probably in the damn Everglades. Or even a bear. She’d read about some lady in Orlando who had walked out and found one picking through the garbage in her garage.

       What if it’s still out there, under the car?

      The thought made her want to vomit. The sky lit up. The angry cane army had indeed advanced during the blackout – its stalks hovered menacingly over the hood of the Explorer now, their razor sharp fronds clawing furiously at the metal.

      She turned off the radio and tried to listen. It was hard to hear anything over the rain and the scraping of the stalks and the furious beating of her heart pounding in her ears. Nothing. There was no barking, no whimpering. No moaning.

      She rubbed her eyes and shook the fog from her head. Had she nodded off? Had she imagined she saw something? There was only one way to really know. She turned and checked on Maggie – who was still fast asleep under her Cha-Cha – opened the door and stepped out into the downpour. She ran to the front of the car on jelly legs, holding her breath as she approached the cane field and the front end of the truck.

      Nothing. There was nothing there. Nothing splayed across her hood. Nothing stuck to her grille. Nothing lying on the ground.

      ‘Hello?’ she called out into the night.

      Nothing yelled back.

      She tried to look under the car, but she couldn’t see a thing. She stumbled back to the car, her feet sinking in the muddy ground. She climbed back in the driver’s seat and toweled off, staring out at the angry cane. She was still shaking, her head spinning. Sheets of rain whipped across the windshield as the wipers raced to keep up.

       You must have imagined it.

      She slowly backed the car onto the road, holding her breath as she did, every muscle in her body tensed. Her headlights stared at the pull-off where the truck had been. Nothing. There was still nothing there. She finally exhaled.

       You’re tired, is all. Tired and upset. You’re not thinking clearly.

      She put the car into drive, watching the stalks where she’d just been as she drove off. The plant army writhed and roiled in the expansive field, beckoning her to come back.

      She was scared now – she was physically and mentally exhausted and perhaps nodding off at the wheel. She had no cell and was somewhere in the middle of nowhere, although she was still reluctant to say ‘lost’ – that word would set off a total panic and she never thought clearly under pressure. She could feel the fear brewing in her belly, trying to force its way up into her throat, and she tried to swallow it back down, along with the icky sweetness from the hurricanes. She probably shouldn’t have had that last drink at Charity’s, damn it. It was hard to think straight. She’d felt it when she stood up. She had a quarter of a tank of gas, which should be enough to get her home, but what if she was going in the wrong direction? What if she ran out of gas? Jarrod wasn’t expecting her till tomorrow afternoon. No one knew where she was. She was sure Charity hadn’t called him to say she’d kicked her out and, ‘Oh, by the way, Faith left her cell and bag at my house when she stormed out of here crying.’ Charity probably didn’t even know that Faith had left her bag behind. She probably should have turned around and gone back, but she’d let pride force her into making a bad decision. She should’ve stopped and gotten a hotel near Sebring and driven home clear-headed in the morning, but Maggie was so upset and so out of control that Faith had just wanted to go home. That’s all it was – she’d just wanted to go home.

      A series of bad decisions had led her here; panicking would make things worse. She needed directions, was all. And a phone so she could call Jarrod so someone would know where she was. Maybe he could come find her, get her, meet her out here, take her home …

      As quickly as it came to her, Faith dismissed the romantic thought of a midnight rescue in a rainstorm by her husband. No matter how mad she was at Charity, she didn’t want Jarrod thinking less of her sister. He already didn’t like her. If he found out about tonight, he’d be beyond angry with Charity: he would hate her. Nothing would ever change that – he was German and decisive. Although Faith wasn’t sure about the future of her relationship with her sister, she didn’t want her husband forcing her into making a decision she wasn’t sure she wanted to make. If she and Charity did manage to repair things – which they had in the past after some other whopping fights (they were sisters, after all) – Jarrod would always be there to remind her how Charity had treated her tonight, even if he didn’t say a word. She would know he knew about the stares and the snickers and the humiliation. And he would be right to wonder why she had allowed her sister back into her life.

      She wiped the tears defiantly, this time before they fell. Charity had been there before when Faith had needed her … after the phone call that had changed everything. She didn’t know all the ugly details, but her sister had been supportive in her own way without knowing exactly what Faith was struggling with at the time or why she was so depressed. She hadn’t told her about Jarrod’s affair for the same reason he didn’t need to know about everything that had gone down at Charity’s tonight: Faith had never wanted her sister to hate her husband in the event she decided to forgive him. She’d never wanted Charity to think less of her for staying with a man who had strayed. After all the advice Faith had handed out over the years, she’d never wanted to be accused of being a hypocrite. Damn, her brain hurt from dredging up painful memories and betrayals. She wanted to go home and think things through before she made any more bad decisions. She was getting too good at that.

      Then she saw it – the glowing red and yellow sign off in the distance. It was a fast food, or motel sign, she couldn’t tell. It was a business of some kind, of that she was sure. She breathed an enormous sigh of relief for the third time that night.

      There was life up ahead.