The man who picked them up in the Mercedes said his name was John—a lie, she guessed, from the way he said it, like a child telling a story about who broke the lamp, sizing her up for a second before he spoke. My name is … John. She guessed he was fifty, but she wasn’t a good judge of these things. He had a well-trimmed beard and was wearing a tight dark suit, like a funeral director. While he drove he kept glancing at Amy in the rearview mirror, adjusting himself in his seat, asking Jeanette questions about herself, where she was going, the kinds of things she liked to do, what had brought her to the Great State of Tennessee. The car reminded her of Bill Reynolds’s Grand Prix, only nicer. With the windows closed you could barely hear anything outside, and the seats were so soft she felt like she was sitting in a dish of ice cream. She felt like falling asleep. By the time they pulled into the motel she hardly cared what was going to happen. It seemed inevitable. They were near the airport; the land was flat, like Iowa, and in the twilight she could see the lights of the planes circling the field, moving in slow, sleepy arcs like targets in a shooting gallery.

Amy, honey, Mama’s going to go inside with this nice man for a minute, okay? You just look at your picture book, honey.

He was polite enough, going about his business, calling her baby and such, and before he left he put fifty dollars on the nightstand—enough for Jeanette to buy a room for the night for her and Amy.

But others weren’t as nice.

During the night, she’d lock Amy in the room with the TV on to make some noise and walk out to the highway in front of the motel and just kind of stand there, and it didn’t take long. Somebody would stop, always a man, and once they’d worked things out, she’d take him back to the motel. Before she let the man inside she’d go into the room by herself and carry Amy to the bathroom, where she’d made a bed for her in the tub out of some extra blankets and pillows.