They
Authors: J. F. Gonzalez
THEY
June 17, 1974,
Fountain Valley, California
“ANDY WAKE UP.”
Her son slept calmly, brown curls lying on the pillow. His breathing was deep and even.
She reached down and shook him gently by the shoulders. “Andy! Wake up!”
“Wha…” He groaned. He didn’t even open his eyes. He went back to sleep almost immediately.
“
Andy
!” Maggie Swanson shook her son’s shoulders harder, more roughly, but not hard enough to hurt him. “
Wake up
!”
This brought him up. Andy opened his eyes, the deep rhythm of sleep broken. “What!” He sputtered. “What happened? What?”
“Get up and put some clothes on.” She was already pushing the covers off, ushering him out of bed. “Come on.”
“Why?” He yawned, sitting up. He looked at his mother, his eyes still heavy with sleep.
“Because we have to go,” she said. She moved to his dresser and opened the top drawer. She pulled out a pair of blue Levis and a striped polo shirt. She laid these items on the foot of the bed, went back to the same dresser and from another drawer brought out a clean pair of underwear and socks. She dropped these at the foot of the bed. “Get dressed. Come on! Let’s go!”
Andy yawned again. Maggie was so into the moment of flight that she almost breezed out of his room right then to begin the rounds of making sure she had everything necessary: papers, money, driver’s license. But Andy was obviously tired; his eyelids fluttered, and his head drooped forward as if it were weighted. He was drifting into sleep again.
“Andy,” Maggie muttered under her breath. She went to him and gently pulled him out of bed. He moaned, already falling back into a light sleep, and she ended up taking his PJ’s off. She dressed him as fast as she could. When she had him in his jeans and polo shirt, she took his PJ’s into her room where she had a small bag already packed. They were his favorites. They were his Dr. Denton’s.
She checked the bag to make sure she had everything: two changes of clothes for the both of them—she had packed his earlier in the day when he’d been out playing with Jimmy Smitts and Neil Lacher. She also had her make-up, her brushes and hair dryer. She’d looted through Andy’s comic book stash when he’d been out playing yesterday and looted a
Superman
and a
Swamp Thing
and stuck those in. Aside from those items and her wallet, which contained her driver’s license and credit cards, she didn’t have anything.
Except for the briefcase.
She rested her hand on it. She’d set it on her dresser top a few hours ago when she started packing. She looked down at it, her reflection in the mirror creating a double image. She opened the clasps and lifted the lid.
When she’d withdrawn her and Tom’s savings account, she asked the bank clerk to give her the fifty thousand dollars in twenties. They now lay in the briefcase in neat bundles.
She looked at them, their very presence seeming to bring her confidence back up. Fifty thousand dollars. It wasn’t a lot—surely not enough to keep her and Andy away from
them
for a very long time. But with what she had in mind, she was sure it would be more than enough to float them for a while. Maybe a year, possibly more if they settled in a place where the cost of living was cheap. Hopefully there would be a substantial amount left over for her to invest if her plan worked out right. Either way, this money was their only chance in making the escape go as smooth as possible.
She closed the briefcase and locked it. She put it on the bed next to the small duffel bag with their belongings and checked her purse. Everything was in order. She turned to the mirror and gave herself one last look before she set the wheels in motion. Her reflection stared back at her; thirty years old, chestnut brown hair that fell straight to her shoulders, small but ample breasts that hadn’t lost an inch of their firmness. Her figure was now hourglass shaped; no matter how loose fitting her jeans were, they hugged every inch of her hips. She’d gained some weight within the last year, but she was by no means overweight. She’d been skinny two years ago; very unhealthy. She’d been smoking far too much pot, dropping far too much acid, and doing God knew what else—sometimes coke, more often heroin, which she’d gotten hooked on. Thank God she’d been able to reel herself back into sanity. If it weren’t for that she wouldn’t have been able to see reality.
She wouldn’t have been able to see
them
for what they really were.
With everything in order, she slung her purse over her shoulder, picked up the duffel bag and briefcase, and headed out of the bedroom toward the garage. She had to maneuver down the hall and through the living room into the laundry room to get there, but she made it. She didn’t even turn on the garage light; she put the bag and the briefcase on the floor, fished for the keys, and opened the driver’s passenger side by feeling around for the familiar door. When she got the door open the dome light was enough to work by.
She stowed the duffel bag and briefcase on the front passenger seat. She put her purse on top of them, and then opened the back door. She went back through the house to Andy’s bedroom. He was conked out, his body lying sideways across the bed. She gently slid her right arm beneath his shoulders, her left beneath his legs behind the knees and lifted him up. He wasn’t as heavy as she thought he’d be. With continued sobriety comes strength, she thought, as she carried Andy out of the bedroom and into the garage. He stirred once, when she tried to gently slide him into the backseat. His eyes fluttered briefly. “Mommy, where are we going?” he mumbled sleepily.
“We’re just going on a little trip,” she whispered. She laid him down across the backseat, and then pulled the Afghan that Gladys Robles had knitted for her two years ago and covered him up with it. He was asleep again instantly.
How does he just fall asleep like that
? She managed a slight smile at her sleeping son, and headed back into the house to make sure everything was okay. She ran through everything in her mind again like clockwork, ticking everything off; she had clothes, traveling essentials, car keys, and the money. The house was securely locked. Tom wasn’t due back from Chicago until Thursday night, one week from today. She couldn’t take the chance that she and Andy would be discovered missing when he returned home. Countless other possibilities could take place; Gladys and Henry could drop by for an unexpected visit; Meg Carr could call for another one of her monotonous gossip chats; one of Tom’s bosses could call. What was more likely to happen was that Tom would call tomorrow night, and by the
following day would become alarmed when his calls were not ans
wered. He would send somebody to the house. That’s when the manhunt would begin.
That gave her and Andy thirty-six hours to get as far away as possible.
She headed back into the garage and closed the door behind her. The dome light illuminated the way to the car, and she slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door. She sat behind the wheel for a moment, a nervous flutter beginning to rise in her belly.
Come on, let’s get going! If you sit here any longer you really
are
going to lose your nerve and then you’ll
never
leave!
She inserted the key in the ignition and started the car. Then she pressed the button on the garage door opener that was clipped to the visor and winced as the mechanism groaned and stuttered. She looked out the rearview mirror at the dark silence of her neighborhood and slowly backed out of the garage. When the car was out she stopped briefly to check her surroundings; at three a.m., Puffin Avenue in Fountain Valley, California was deserted. A middle-class suburb chiseled between Huntington Beach and Garden Grove, it perched at the beginning of acres of orange groves and strawberry fields. The cul-de-sac she and Tom lived on lay on the outskirts of about a dozen similar cul-de-sacs. With the exception of the nearby San Diego freeway and the suburbs to the north, to the east was nothing but fields.
Satisfied that all was quiet, she closed the garage door. It rumbled down the track and she didn’t back down the driveway until it was closed. Only then did she feel safe enough to leave.
The Vega Hatchback was the only car out on Talbert Avenue that early morning when Maggie Swanson finally escaped from her husband Tom and the reign of terror that had been her life for the past ten years.
THEY’D BEEN ON the road for five hours when Andy finally woke up. The early morning sunlight was streaming through the windshield from the east as Maggie headed down Interstate 10. “Mom, where are we?”
She glanced into the rearview mirror at him. He’d raised himself on his elbows and was looking sleepy-eyed at her from the backseat. His hair was in disarray. He began looking around the car and out the window, as if unsure if he was really awake or still dreaming in sleep.
“We’re almost in Blythe,” Maggie said. Her hands gripped the steering wheel. She’d been mentally preparing herself for when Andy woke up and for the inevitable questions that were sure to follow.
“We’re out in the desert!” Andy’s voice was more awake sounding now.
“Yes, we’re out in the desert.”
“Where are we going?”
“On a little trip.”
“To where?”
“To wherever you want to go.”
She stole another glance at him in the rearview mirror. He was looking out at the rolling tumbleweed and cacti. “But…why?”
“Because we need to get away for awhile.”
Andy looked at her. She tried to meet his gaze. “But what about Daddy?”
“Daddy’s in Chicago, honey.”
“I know, but is he going to meet us?”
“No, he’s not.”
Andy appeared to think about this. His remarkable gray eyes were dark in concentration as his little forehead wrinkled in thought about this sudden predicament. He didn’t look at all like Tom, who wasn’t Andy’s natural father. From what Maggie remembered, Andy’s father had been tall with dark hair and equally dark, piercing eyes. She’d been blasted out of her mind the night he was conceived, in some row house on Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. Three months later, Maggie and the rest of the Children had made a pilgrimage to the Middle East for a spiritual awakening, and that’s when she’d found out she was pregnant. The commune had been incredibly supportive and loving and had nurtured her through the remaining months of her pregnancy. Andy had been born in a little village in Iraq, and the commune had returned to the US a month later.
Maggie kept her eyes on the road, but stole occasional glances at her son in the rearview mirror. She was getting hungry. Blythe was another thirty miles ahead. Perhaps a quick breakfast, and then a trip to the nearest used car trade-in dealership, and then she and Andy could be hitting the road again by ten. That would give them all day.
“How come Daddy isn’t going to meet us?”
She glanced back at Andy in the rearview mirror. He was looking at her intently, sitting up now. He’d thrown the Afghan off and sat in the backseat impassively. Waiting for an answer.
“Daddy isn’t coming on this trip because this trip is just for you and Mommy.”
“Oh.” That appeared to throw him for a loop, but it didn’t last long. He looked at her uncertainly, slow realization dawning on his features. God, but the kid was sharp. “Did you and Daddy have a fight again?”
Maggie sighed. She’d hoped this would be the questioning he would take. She felt relieved. “Yes,” she said, glancing at Andy every now and then as she talked to him. “I’m sorry about…what happened last week. You know your Daddy’s been working hard at the office and is always on those business trips. But the fact of the matter is…well…you saw how he was treating us…”
Andy nodded. His features solemn.
“And you saw how…well…it hurt me, Andy. Your father and I have talked about it over and over again, he’s always told me that he was going to get help but he never has. And he never will. He just buries himself in his work, and I know it’s important to him. I know he’s just working so hard so we can have such a nice house and live in a nice neighborhood.” She sought her son’s gaze in the rearview mirror. He looked at her. “But he’s in so deep he doesn’t know what’s real anymore. And the more I try to bring him out, the more I try to get him to…pay attention to the fact that he has a family, he gets angry. And sometimes he…blows up.” She chose her words carefully, treading softly for the full effect. “Like what he did last month.”