Most of the stuff in the backpack’s larger pocket had been her mom’s, carried like talismans against the world. Her mom’s favorite mittens and warm thermal top, because Bogaloosa was too cheap to turn the store’s heat above sixty. The pair of thick dry socks that her mom had always kept in her own bag, which came in handy more often than you’d expect. But the most important thing was her mom’s old notebook with its messy handwritten poems and the many inspirational sayings she was always repeating to Helene. It had a few important phone numbers inside the back cover, and old photos were wedged between the pages, showing Helene and her mom and dad back when she was a little girl and things were still okay.

Scattered across all of it was just over eight hundred dollars in cash, which included the loose wrinkled bills she’d taken from the Gas and Grocery’s register and the crisp new hundreds Roy had given her.

She couldn’t believe that was less than eight hours ago. It seemed like a lifetime. Maybe it was.

Although she was pretty sure eight hundred dollars wasn’t enough to start a new life somewhere else, at least not by herself.

Her mom had basically run away from home at sixteen because her family didn’t think women should even have jobs, let alone go to college. Helene had never met them and didn’t want to. Her dad’s people were all back east somewhere. She had never met them, either, except for her great-aunt Willa, who lived in Minnesota. At least Helene thought she still did. She hadn’t seen the woman in years, but she’d always liked her.

Roy had taken her in the opposite direction of Aunt Willa’s, but Helene told herself it didn’t matter. She was out of Coldwater and away from Bogaloosa, that was the most important thing. As her mom liked to say, You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust your sails.

Besides, Roy had promised to buy her a bus ticket. Even if he was lying, or she got scared of him and Freaky Frank and took off on her own, she definitely had enough money for a Greyhound to Brandon, Minnesota, even if it was a million miles away. So she wasn’t going to worry. She was going to allow herself to hope. The thing with feathers, which was something else her mom used to say.

Aunt Willa could wait a few more days.

Helene’s life was changing for the better. She could feel it.

She was still afraid, but at least she wasn’t alone.

Or she wouldn’t be, when Roy came back.

—

At seven the next morning, when the black truck and trailer pulled into the parking lot, she was dressed and packed and ready to go. Determined to be helpful, she had her pink backpack over one shoulder and three large coffees in cardboard cups from the hotel’s complimentary breakfast buffet, carried in a stack. She hadn’t gotten the lids on quite right, and hot black splashes spilled onto her hands, but she was used to worse. She never even felt the scald on her skin.