The Four Winds

There was no marker here to commemorate the baby, nor markers to commemorate the others buried in this section of the camp.

“We’d best get back,” Elsa said at last, buttoning up her ill-fitting wool coat. “You’re shivering.”

“I’ll be along,” Jean said.

Elsa squeezed her friend’s hand. With a sigh that felt drawn from deep in her tired bones, she carried the shovel back to camp and threw it in the back of the truck, where it landed with a clang.

Thoughts of Loreda pushed their way in. Elsa should have comforted Loreda at the grave site. What kind of mother snapped at a grieving thirteen-year-old? Loreda had seen too much loss. Elsa knew that. There must be words Elsa could find that would help.

Elsa just had nothing left right now. She felt emptied by the baby’s death. The last thing she could do was face her daughter’s fury.

Better to let a little time smooth over the edges. A night, at least. Tomorrow the sun would shine and Elsa would take Loreda aside and offer what comfort she could.

Coward.

“No,” Elsa said out loud to reinforce the decision. She would not look away from this. She would hit it head-on, try to comfort Loreda as best as she could.

She lifted the tent flap and went inside.

The quilts were tangled, but it was clear that Ant was in bed alone.

Loreda wasn’t in the tent.

Elsa went to the truck, banged on the side of the bed. “Loreda? Are you in there?”

She examined the bed, saw the boxes of goods they’d brought with them, things they’d thought they’d need: candlesticks, porcelain dishes, Ant’s baseball bat and mitt, a mantel clock. “Loreda?” she said again, her voice spiking in worry when she saw that the cab was empty, too.

Elsa stepped back.

He left you. I should do the same … get out of here before we’re all dead.

Go, then. Go. Be like your father. Run away.

Maybe I will.

Good. Go.

A chill moved through Elsa. She ran back into the tent.

Loreda’s suitcase was gone. So was her sweater and the blue wool coat she’d gotten at the salon.

Elsa saw a note peeking out from beneath the coffeepot. Her hand shook as she reached for it.

Mom,

I can’t take it anymore.

I’m sorry.

I love you both.

Elsa ran out of the tent and didn’t stop running until there was a stitch in her side and her breathing was ragged.

The main road stretched north and south. Which way would Loreda go? How could Elsa even guess?

Elsa had told her thirteen-year-old daughter to go, to run away and be like a man who didn’t want to be found. To go out into a world full of bindle stiffs walking the roads and riding the trains, gangs of desperate, angry men with nothing to lose, who lurked like packs of wolves in the shadows.

She screamed her daughter’s name.