They created their own maps, secret itineraries across the northern and southern parts of the city. Vera’s house was never an option, her parents too adept at tracking them, sniffing their urgent spoor on the lace doilies and the bent blades of grass in the garden. Betty’s house was easier. She blueprinted her schedule so Lester and Simon could help with the girls. Her hours at the hospital switched from day to night, split time and staggered, all of which she wrote on a note card taped next to the fridge. The girls were at school from eight until two, so they were easy to avoid. Simon’s shifts, however, were unpredictable. A two-day gig might only take an afternoon, or he might skip it altogether. Sometimes he didn’t come home for days at a time. After he got paid there were drinks to buy, rounds for everyone. The women perched on bar stools, who knew all the rotating pay schedules of construction workers around the city, wouldn’t let him out to see the light of day until the money was gone. Other times he didn’t leave the house, usually in opposition to Betty’s schedule. He didn’t want to be there when she was. This was more than simple avoidance and Lester knew it, so he steered clear at these times.

Betty’s house was easier, but unpredictable, so they were led to the train while it lasted, to one-dollar matinees, to the far-flung parks and bridges checkering the city. Their love was urgent. They were hasty, partly because of their age—they wanted it, they needed it—but also because, as the train began to disappear, they knew they didn’t have much time.

16

On the lip of a new decade that promised everything, Betty loaded up the old Chevy station wagon that on the reservation also served as a hearse, taxi, ambulance, and tow truck, and left for the city.

There was so little room. The back was packed with garbage bags filled with clothes and quilts, with boxes that promised Sunkist oranges but instead held pots and pans and a few extra shoes that walked down from oldest to youngest. The girls lay on top of the bags, nested in overwashed quilts and winter jackets. They were so small that they could stretch out all the way and watch the faster, better-tuned traffic sweep up behind them and pass in a burst of exhaust and weary loose-knuckled tourist driving, until the swamp-bordered road resumed the metered ticking of tamarack and balsam.