Three Thousand Miles

Here's Chapter 12. I tried to keep it short.

Sorry there's no sex in this chapter, couldn't really make it fit.

​Chapter 12

​Krampus

​Wind off the Atlantic. Khadija leans into my shoulder, the silver cuff cold on my forearm. I keep a hand on the stone and watch the water like I used to watch the fence line at dusk.

​"You're going to like it out there," I say. "House sits back a dirt road in Osteen. Live oaks, four acres. Quiet enough at night you can hear the palms."

​She turns her face into the breeze, her fingers slipping into my shirt pocket to find the brass compass, letting them rest there a second.

​"And the people?" she asks softly. "Will they look at me the way Tarik looks at you?"

​"Some might. Most won't give a damn. Florida's full of people who ran away from somewhere else just to go to work. I'll make sure of it."

​She nods. We stay up on the ramparts until the sun drops below the horizon and the first scattered lights blink on down the coast.

​The evening rush dies down by the time we cut back through the medina. She holds my hand tight the whole walk back.

​Adil sits on the step with one of those thin cigarettes he only lights when the house is quiet. He flicks the ash into the gutter and stands aside without a word, giving me that same slow, measuring look he gave me on the platform back in Salé.

​Inside, the salon is cool. The manila folder sits where we left it on the brass table. Adil follows us in and stops beside it.

​"Tonight," he says. "I drive you to the airport myself."

​"Appreciate it."

​He looks at Khadija, then back at me. "She stays under this roof until the papers are finished."

​"I know how it works, Adil."

​He gives a sharp, single nod and disappears down the corridor.

​Mama Fatima steps out from the courtyard shade. She looks at the folder, then at me, gesturing toward the kitchen.

​Hyatt brings out bowls of dark harira soup, olives, and hot mint tea.

​Mama pushes a small plastic bag tied in a tight knot across the table, figs, walnuts, and flatbread wrapped in foil for the flight. She touches my forearm once, then steps back.

​"Shukran, Fatima," I say.

​Khadija and I sit side by side on the low cushions, eating in silence. The harira is thick with lentils and squeezed lemon. Neither of us has much to say.

​Afterward, Khadija walks me to the guest room. She stands in the doorway, the rest of the house quiet except for the soft clink of dishes being washed.

​"I can't stay in here," she whispers.

​"I know."

​She steps in anyway, pulling the door almost shut, and comes straight into my arms. I hold her until the tightness in her shoulders finally gives out.

​"I'll call the second I land in Paris," I say. "Then again from Orlando. Keep the blue shirt. Keep the compass line in your head. The second the visa clears, I'm back on a plane and we finish this."

​She nods against my chest. "I won't fall apart."

​A soft knock sounds on the wood outside. Hyatt's voice comes through the door, "Khadija. Mama needs you."

​Khadija pulls back, her chin high. She touches the front of my shirt then turns and slips into the hall.

​At ten, I'm double-checking my duffel when she backs into the room barefoot, slipping through the crack in the door without a sound.

She doesn't say a word. She just reaches past my hip and shoves her hand deep into the bottom corner of the bag, under three layers of folded shirts.

​When she pulls her hand back out, it's empty. She just stands watching me.

​"Something to find when you're six thousand kilometers away," she whispers.

​I catch her chin in my palm, my thumb brushing the bone. "I don't forget where things are."

​I pull the heavy brass zipper shut and lock it.

​Adil waits in the courtyard at ten-thirty, the old Peugeot idling out at the curb. Khadija stands under the archway in her dark sweater, my canvas shirt folded tight against her chest. Mama Fatima puts both hands on my arms, looks up at me, and nods.

​I brush the back of my knuckles over Khadija's cheek, feeling the edge of the silver cuff under my fingers one last time, then get into the passenger seat.

​Adil keeps both hands glued to the wheeland neither of us says anything until we clear the medina.

​"She stays under this roof," he says, his voice cutting through the rattle of the exhaust. "No phone calls asking her to travel. You understand that."

​"I gave you my word."

​"You stood in front of the Imam. You put the Mahr down in front of the Adouls." He pauses, watching the road. "That's supposed to mean something."

​"It does."

​"Paper doesn't keep a man from disappearing once he gets back across the water. My father isn't here to handle this. So it falls on me."

​"I know."

​Five miles outside Mohammedia, taillights stack up along the two-lane stretch. A portable spotlight sits on the shoulder, cutting through the ground fog. Royal Gendarmerie.

​Adil downshifts hard, the old transmission whining as we roll to a stop behind a flatbed hauling crate wood. Two officers in dark uniforms stand under the beam, one holding a submachine gun down at his hip, the other shining a heavy flashlight into driver side windows.

​Adil reaches up, turns on the overhead light, and rests both wrists on top of the steering wheel.

​"Passport," he mutters to me, not moving a muscle. "Keep your hands where he can see them."

​The officer steps up, the bright light of his flashlight hitting my face first, then the duffel sitting between my knees. He taps hard on Adil's window with a ringed knuckle. Adil rolls it down two inches.

​They exchange a few short sentences in Arabic. The officer shines the beam into the back seat, then onto the passport I hold up against the glass. He holds his hand out. Adil takes the passport from me, hands it through the crack, and waits.

​The officer flips through the pages slowly under the spotlight. He looks at my face, looks back at the stamp from the Adoul court, then hands it back to Adil. He gives the roof of the Peugeot two flat slaps with his palm.

​"Yallah," he says.

​Adil rolls the window up, steps on the gas, and clears the light without looking in the rearview mirror.

​"They don't like foreign passports out this late," he says, shifting into fourth. "Too much paper to fill out if something goes wrong."

​He doesn't say another word for the rest of the run. When he pulls up to the departures curb at the Casablanca airport near midnight, he leaves the engine ticking over.

​"Go," he says, looking straight ahead. "Come back with everything done."

​The sound of the Peugeot fades into the night before I even make the sliding doors.

​Khadija

​The floor tiles feel cold under my bare feet as I walk back into the courtyard. The guest room door sits half-open, showing the stripped mattress where he was sitting two hours ago. Without the sound of his boots on the tile, the whole house feels too big.

​Mama brushes past me on her way to the kitchen, her hand resting on my hip for a second. She hands me a damp rag to wipe down the low brass table where the legal papers sat all afternoon.

​In my room, I sit on the edge of the narrow bed and unfold his work shirt. It is stiff, smelling of him. I fold it back up into a tight square and put it in the top drawer beside my train tickets.

​By three in the morning, the silence in the house feels heavy.

​At three-fifteen, the phone buzzes against the nightstand wood. One line:

​"In the air. Needle's locked. Call when I land."

​I press the glass against my collarbone before texting back: ​"The house is too quiet. Safe flight."

​Krampus

​Charles de Gaulle is white floor tile and cold air at five-thirty in the morning. My boots make a rhythmic sound on the moving walkway.

​I've got six hours to kill. I walk the length of Terminal 2E twice just to keep my legs from cramping up, watching the maintenance crews scrub down the glass walls with long squeegees.

​Near Gate L24, a small espresso bar pulls up its metal security gate. I buy a double shot in a paper cup that costs eight euros and sit at a high wooden bench facing the tarmac. Out on the wet asphalt, a baggage tractor hauls a train of containers through the fog.

​I pull out my phone. Her text sits there. I read it, then type out a quick reply:

​"Keep the shirt handy. At the gate in Paris. Six hours here, then the long leg home. Keep your chin up."

​I shove the phone back into my pocket and reach into the bottom of the duffel bag. My fingers brush against something soft tucked under my clean clothes. I leave it where it is and pull out the brass compass instead, flipping open the latch. The needle swings before settling North. I turn the outer ring until the South-Southeast mark sits right over the point.

​An hour before boarding, a family of four sits down across from me, a French couple with two young girls in matching coats, eating croissants out of a wax paper bag. The littlest one drops her plastic toy horse on the tile. It rolls over against the toe of my boot.

​I pick it up and hand it back. The father gives me a tight, polite nod. "Merci, monsieur."

​I nod back, pull my duffel closer to my knee, and close my eyes until they call the row.

​The Orlando heat hits the second I step out of MCO--thick, swampy Florida air.

​Luke idles at the curb in my old F-150. He pops the driver's door, steps out, and grabs my hand hard before hooking an arm around my neck.

​"Good trip, Pop?"

​"Got what I went for," I say, taking the keys off him. "Need to make a couple stops before we get back to the house."

​We take the toll road north, cutting off onto Highway 46 before turning toward Sanford. The air coming through the open truck window feels thick and heavy.

​I pull into the gravel lot at the feed store on the corner. The bell over the door rings when we step inside.

​Old man Stephen sits the counter, leaning over a ledger with a pencil behind his ear. He looks up over his glasses.

​"Heard you were out of the country, Krampus," he says, dragging a fifty-pound bag of dog food across the wood floor. "Thought you went north."

​"Went east," I say.

​​I pick up a heavy can of exterior rust-inhibitor primer off the bottom shelf and stop by the paint counter to have them mix the blue for me. I grab a box of heavy-duty brass screws, throwing them on the counter next to the kibble

​"Must be nice," Stephen says, ringing it up.

"Where'd you land?"

​"Morocco."

​Stephen stops his pencil mid-stroke, blinks once, then finishes writing down the total on his pad.

​ I hand him a hundred-dollar bill, take the change, and pick up the dog food myself before Luke can reach for it.

​It is just past two in the afternoon when I hit the dirt turnoff in Osteen. The driveway opens up under the live oaks, dry dust kicking up in a cloud behind the rear tires.

​Luke reaches into the back and looks at the paint cans wedged beside my duffel. "What's the paint for?"

​"That primer on the front door isn't holding up to the sun."

​He gives me a long look. "Right. Primer. Nothing to do with Morocco."

​"Grab the box," I say, opening the door.

​Before I even have the key out of the door, heavy paws hit the front door panels from inside. The dogs already know. I throw the front door open and drop down on one knee, letting them crowd into my chest, smelling like dogs. I rough the thick fur behind Cajun's ears while Angel licks my arm.

​Luke sets the supplies down near the jamb.

​"I'll come back Saturday morning with the belt sander. Prep the door right so it doesn't come off as a half-assed job."

​"Appreciate it, son."

​He gives me a quick nod. "Call her, Pop. She's sitting by the phone."

​Khadija

​The phone on the nightstand rings at five past seven.

​I grab it on the first ring, pulling it tight to my ear. "Krampus?"

​"Khadija." His voice sounds worn out from twenty hours of jet engine noise and stale cabin air, but hearing it makes the knot in my chest finally let go.

​"You're back," I whisper, pulling my knees up to my chin.

​"Truck's sitting in the drive," he says. Through the receiver, I can hear the faint hum of Florida cicadas. "House is right where I left it."

​"Did the paperwork go out?"

​"Mailed it straight from the post office near the airport in Orlando," he says. "Mike's got the tracking number. It's in the system."

​"My brother left with Hyatt for their room," I say softly. "Mama's finishing up in the kitchen. I'm wearing your shirt."

​"Good. Keep it on. I'll call you when I get up."

​"Go to sleep, Krampus."

​"Night, Khadija. We're almost there."

​The line goes dead in my hand.

​Krampus

​I set the phone face-down on the counter next to the compass and the post office receipt.

​Cajun stretches out across the rug by the sink with his chin on his paws, while Angel lies out on the cool tile near the hallway.

​I walk back out onto the front porch, pulling the door shut behind me.

​The heat is still hanging heavy in the trees, but the cicadas are winding up in the oaks. I look down at the primer on the door frame where the steel is showing through. Three thousand miles back, the sun is already going down over the water.

​I go back inside, pull the blinds shut against the afternoon glare, and unzip my bag.