A Question of Mercy by Elizabeth Cox

run.”
    The sun was hot and Adam’s father came to first base to pat him on the back and say “Good hit.” The bright sun and shadows, as well as the fun of running, kept a place in Adam’s memory. At the right time Adam ran to second base, but he kept on going, straight out into the back field, running while the other boys kept waving him toward third. They finally laughed, so Adam laughed too. Adam’s father was not laughing as he walked Adam back to the bench. “Sit here,” he said. “This’ll be over in a little while.” And the dark shape of his father’s back got smaller and smaller as he moved further away. And it walked away more times after that day .
    His father was gone one winter day and Adam caught the chicken pox. Spots popped out on his body. His Mama dotted him with pink lotion. “Don’t scratch. Don’t,” so he scratched when she wasn’t looking. His stomach and feet and toesand arms all had splotches. His face in the mirror had them too, and his ears. He laughed in the mirror. He thought his daddy would come home when the red spots were gone, but it was a long time .
    When his father came back home, time had gone away. Adam was twelve and had a chicken pox scar still visible on his arm. His mother made a yellow cake with chocolate icing. His father bought him a bicycle. Now he could ride like the other boys on the sidewalk. But he wobbled and fell and kept falling until he could hold the handlebars straight and pedal very fast. Then his daddy said he had to leave again. Adam knew it was over, but didn’t know why. He straddled his bike rubbing the long curved handlebars, and tried to think of ways that he could be good enough to make his father stay .
    A few days later, before light, his daddy said goodbye again. Adam got up in his pajama bottoms and followed him to the door. “Don’t get up,” his father told him. “Go back to bed.” But Adam followed him to the door. The house was still full of night. When his father opened the door, a cool air hit Adam’s chest. He curled forward with the chill. “Go back to bed,” his father said. The air was wrong and his father’s voice sounded off-pitch, and throaty. Wrong. Then the door closed with a soft sound, and the black air inside the house smelled like pennies .
    As Adam climbed into bed, the door kept closing and closing before his eyes, and the dark air seemed like a door itself, until he was asleep. He dreamed, remembering the shape of his father’s back and head—walking away. Leaving always felt cold .
    He woke to hear his mother crying .

— 8 —
    D uring those first weeks Jess caught a few rides, and though they never took her far, she was aware of easy miles going by, and grateful for the relief in her legs and feet. Some old boots found in a box by the side of the road—waterproof, with no holes in the sole—were too large for her feet and rubbed blisters, so she used soft rags to pad the empty spaces. At least they kept her dry. She had seen signs for Chattanooga, and the map she found in the garbage showed that Chattanooga was close to the Georgia line. She was headed toward Lula, Alabama. She felt lucky when she crossed into Georgia.
    She had seen the car again today. A muddy brown and white two-tone Chevrolet with a dent in one door and a sticker on the back bumper that said: I Like Ike, though part of the sticker had been torn off and it read instead ike Ike. She had seen a similar car on the day she left home. It had been parked in front of her house, but not in the driveway. People hardly ever parked on the street, so she noticed.
    Then, a few days ago outside Albertson’s Grocery Store, near Ringgold, Georgia, a man driving that same car had pulled up beside Jess and stopped, but she kept walking. She thought she saw the car again this morning, same man, wearing a hat with the brim pulled down over his eyes.