Eleven Hours

As if reading her mind, the man said, ‘Hang on, baby. There is no looking back. Nice try, though. But we’re in it for the long haul. For the whole haul,’ he said in his nasal drawl.

Didi put her arms around herself and stared ahead. Fear was invading her lungs from the malodorous car every time she inhaled. They made a right onto the expressway service road, and in a few seconds were on Central Expressway at seventy miles an hour, heading in the direction of downtown Dallas.

‘Please,’ she whispered.

‘I’m not even going to speed,’ the man said. ‘I’m going to take it nice and easy.’

He was a man of his word, though Didi didn’t think he’d meant to go quite this slowly. They were stuck in traffic. What had been a three-lane highway was now a single lane. The diamond orange signs warned of no quick resolutions to the traffic jam.

SLOW MEN WORKING

Didi’s cool driver turned red in the face. His hands became jittery. He was past one exit, some indeterminate distance away from the next, and trapped with cars all around him. Pulling the cars in the left lane to the right, the orange cones were lined up alongside his station wagon. Up ahead, the yellow arrow blinked insistently. Move over there, the arrow seemed to say. Now.

The man turned on the radio and began humming to country music. Didi was about to try to engage him in some superficial conversation when suddenly her senses returned to life.

She thought there might be a way out of his car.

They were in the right lane. Next to her side of the car a low concrete divider ran as far as her eyes could take her. The car was stopped. Zero miles per hour. He was drumming his fingers on the wheel and singing softly along to the radio.

At zero miles an hour Didi could easily open the door and get out. However, the station wagon seemed so perilously close to the divider that Didi feared the door might not open. She was alive right now. What if she pulled a stunt like that and he killed her?

She placed her hands on her belly and then on her heart. It was beating too fast. He won’t kill me, Didi thought. I have to believe that. He seems…almost decent.

2.20 PM (#ulink_9a0b5a6e-500f-57c7-b1ee-aa3170a04aa0)

Rich called the office again and told Donna that he was expecting an urgent call from his wife. ‘Has she called?’ he asked. Donna said no and asked if everything was all right. Rich didn’t know how to answer that and didn’t.

Then he called home again. Ingrid had come home with Amanda. No, Ingrid said, she hadn’t heard from Didi. Yes, both kids were home and everything was fine.

‘Daddy, Daddy.’ His five-year-old was on the phone. ‘Are you coming home early for dinner?’

‘I don’t know yet, honey. Maybe.’

‘Where’s Mommy?’ Amanda asked.

‘I’m meeting Mommy for lunch. She’ll see you soon, okay? How was school?’

‘Good,’ said Amanda. ‘Mom has to see how much homework I have. I have to cut and paste a whole dinosaur.’

‘Mommy will be home soon, okay?’

‘Okay. Love you.’ Her conversation finished, Amanda hung up.

Rich smiled, returning the receiver to the headset.

Yet the empty ache inside Rich would not subside. Where was his wife? Where was his ready-to-give-birth wife? He felt ridiculous, standing at a Mobil station on 15th Street in the broiling heat. He was going through the motions of his day without having the motion of a wife.

Realizing he was dying of thirst, he went into the Mobil minimart and bought himself a six-pack of Coke and some bottled water. The drink made him feel marginally better for a few seconds.

Then Rich drove to the Valley View Mall.

Up and down, up and down, up and down the rows of cars. If she was at this mall, he’d find her. And when he found her, lost at the hair salon and having forgotten to call him, he’d yell at her till her hair turned blue.

2.30 PM (#ulink_4ed48bb2-fabd-5357-aefc-2c572fbfcb7c)

Didi and the man sat in the car for ten minutes, moving a few feet a minute. The man seemed increasingly anxious. He kept turning on his right blinker and then turning it off again. Didi suspected he would get off the highway as soon as he could. She thought she heard her phone ringing, but the radio played too loudly to be sure. The phone was buried deep inside her bag. She listened carefully again but heard only the radio. Must have been my imagination, Didi thought.

Now the car wasn’t moving.

It was time.

She grabbed the handle and swung open the door.

Didi had been right. The door was too close to the divider. It opened no more than a foot. The man immediately swerved to the right, scraping the divider and pushing the door shut.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled, pulling her by the neck away from the door. Didi cried out as he yanked her down on the seat, pressing his hand on her head to keep her down. She struggled to get up and bit his hand. She heard him muttering as he fiercely pressed her into the seat.

The car soon started moving, but in stops and spurts. It turned one way, then another. Didi tried to keep track of the direction, to no avail. She tried to sit up half a dozen times before the man told her to give up.

‘Stay down, please,’ he told her. ‘You’ve caused enough trouble already. Stay down.’

Did I cause trouble? Didi thought, uncomfortably scrunched up below window level on the bench seat. Have the police come? Have we been stopped? Am I with my husband? No, I don’t think I caused much trouble at all.

Her eyes, level with the radio controls, darted past the glove compartment to the floor. She thought she heard the phone ring faintly again, but she couldn’t hear above the country music.

Were they off Central Expressway? Didi thought so; she could see the tops of trees and houses. He must have got off and was driving through the side streets. Where was he taking her?

‘Can I get up?’ she asked.

He said nothing, but lifted his hand from her head, and she took that to mean yes. She got up.

‘So what were you doing back there?’ he asked. ‘What were you thinking?’

When Didi didn’t reply, he said, ‘Look, I don’t blame you. I’m not even mad.’ He smiled as if to prove that. ‘See? But you have to understand, it’s useless.’

She rubbed her head where his hand had been.

‘Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. You have to behave. We’re going for a little ride, that’s all, but you’re carrying a baby and you have to be careful. Do you understand?’

‘Please let me out,’ Didi said dully. ‘I have a husband…children.’

From the corner of her eye she saw a slight smile. He wasn’t touched. He was just bemused.

Turning down the music, he said, ‘Look, I’d prefer not to argue with you. Don’t get out of my car anymore. I want us to be friendly, but you have to show me I can trust you.’

‘Friendly?’ she repeated, thinking she’d misheard. ‘Yes, of course. Friendly. Sure.’

‘Don’t you think falling out of my car would have hurt the baby?’ he asked.