(click here to read Part One)

Billy sat, legs inside his sleeping bag, working to shove his lighter back into his front jeans pocket. He was smoking a cigarette.

“Put that out, idiot!” Matt said. “Dad’ll kill me if you burn a hole in this tent.”

“See, that’s your problem, Matthew. You care what your dad thinks,” Billy said around the cigarette as it wagged up and down.

Matt reached up and opened a small fabric flap to reveal a mesh window. He worked to scoop the smoke toward the window. “Seriously, even if you don’t burn something, this tent’s gonna fuckin’ stink, and then we’ll never get to do this again,” Matt said.

“Puss,” Billy said. He unzipped his side of the tent and flipped the cigarette into the damp darkness.

“Hey! The gas can’s over there!” Ronnie yelled.

“I know, Big Ron. Ease up. It’s raining like a sumbitch out there.”

“That doesn’t stop gas fumes from igniting,” Ronnie said.

“We’re not a massive fireball, so simmer. Man, somebody really needed that huff he passed up.”

Ronnie sat, thinking of how warm and dry his bedroom was at that moment. He had a TV, a computer, his stereo. With all that only a five-minute walk away, what the hell was he doing out in the cold woods with a couple of bickering gas huffers?

Trena’s departure now more than a year behind him, he did anything to spend time away from those apartments. His mind relentlessly recalled fleeting images of her crippling tumble down the stairs. Only a completely foreign scene had any hope of distracting him, so instead of the warm confines of home, a more remote location was the only thing that could improve the night. He felt guilty every time he sat inside on his ass while remembering that Trena probably still had no choice.

He recalled his last vision of her, lying broken in the hospital bed, barely able to write a few sentences on a notepad. Ronnie had stepped outside to give her some private time with her mother. A friend who was an orderly saw him standing there watching the waiting room television and invited him to lunch. When he returned, Trena was gone, and nobody on staff would give him any details. Despite his pleas, her school wouldn’t tell him anything, either. He hadn’t heard from her since.

I wish I could just talk to her.

——-

Susan sat at Ronnie’s computer to download pictures from her camera. She had been on a date at a country dance club, and her feet throbbed from hours of two-stepping. The relaxed 20-minute drive was never enough to slow her racing heart. Dancing gave her energy, made her feel like she was living again.

Since the divorce from Ronnie’s dad, she had dated a few men. The latest was a humble blue-collar worker with meager living arrangements. When she showed Ronnie a picture of her and Wit, she could tell that he was embarrassed by the mobile home behind them. Wit treated her well, though, and always showed her a good time. She didn’t care where he lived, and wished that Ronnie held the same opinion.

Her pictures successfully copied to the computer, she opened up a Web browser and hit Ronnie’s blog. She liked to check up and see who had commented lately. Whether strangers or friends, his blog readers often turned his comments into a discussion forum. She liked that he had an interest in writing, and sometimes she liked to throw in mock motherly advice, without revealing her identity, just to have some fun.

When one commenter posted a picture of a model and said he’d like to “hit it,” Susan commented, “You better wrap that rascal. We don’t want anyone getting anybody pregnant on this blog.”

Now, a short comment about seven levels down caught Susan’s attention. Signed by “anonymous,” it read, “Please send me an e-mail.” She knew that leaving a comment required entering an e-mail address, which gave Ronnie the opportunity to clarify any confusing replies or start a private conversation. It did not, however, display the commenter’s address for anyone else to see. She found the latest comment a little strange, based on her assumption that most people who bother to type anything aren’t trying to start a one-on-one exchange.

She left her camera on the docking station and stood slowly. Her body told her to groan, but she didn’t want to sound like her ex-husband, who made a spectacle every time he sat down, squatted, or otherwise bent a major joint. She walked downstairs gingerly, using the rail to take some of the weight off her feet. I’ve got to start wearing some decent dancing shoes.

Needing something for her feet, she got the foot massage tub from the coat closet and the Epsom salts from under the kitchen sink. The old-fashioned treatment she learned from her mother worked every time — with a little help from the 800 milligrams ibuprofen she took. She pulled the hand towel from the downstairs bathroom and set it on the end of the couch on her way to the kitchen sink.

“Son, you really knew what you were doing with this detachable faucet thingy,” she said to nobody. Ronnie installed as a Mother’s Day gift earlier that year.

The water to the fill line, she poured in the Epsom salts and then lugged the small tub to the couch. As she set it down, it bumped the coffee table and sloshed water onto the carpet. “Shit!” She tossed the hand towel on the wet spot and set her left foot on top of it with all her weight. “I need a drink. I need a cigarette. Calgon, take me away.”

As she sat on the couch, the massage tub soaking and vibrating away the pain, she heard the sound of wind chimes coming from upstairs. She looked out the bay window at the trees under the parking lot lights. There’s no wind right now.

Then she remembered that sound.

It was the messaging software’s sound effect indicating an incoming message. Ronnie must have left the computer speakers turned up loud after listening to music. She ignored it and kept soaking.

After the bath produced two large, oblong prunes on the end of her legs, she lifted them out and rested them on the hand towel. She thought again of the instant message and the anonymous blog comment. Her lifelong habit of reading mystery novels, and Ronnie’s listing of his instant message ID, had her connecting the two. Her curiosity outweighing her respect for her son’s privacy, she negotiated a fair pace with her feet and headed upstairs.

There was one incoming message. Bright blue, in a typeface imitating handwriting, it was something her son needed now more than anything.

“It’s T.O. If this is Ronnie, then I can’t believe I found u.”

Forgetting her feet, she rushed downstairs, flung open the front door, and dashed out into the darkness to find Ronnie.

(to be continued)