Someone knocked on the women’s room door. “Hey, you know,” the man said loudly. “I was just trying to help!”
Leaning over the sink, Susan took a deep breath. “Yes, thank you!” she called back. “We’re fine in here! You can go now, thank you!”
She waited for a response. But there was none. She tossed the soggy bag of food and what was left of her drink into the trash. With a paper towel, she dabbed the front of her pullover. Then she shoved Woody inside her purse. Maybe she’d overreacted with that man. But the guy had unnerved her. And she wasn’t about to entrust her son to this stranger. Her older sister, Judy, claimed she was way overprotective with Matt. Maybe that was true, but she had good reason to be—considering what had happened eighteen months ago. Susan still hadn’t completely recovered from it. She doubted that she ever would.
She paused to listen for a tinkling noise in the stall. Nothing.
“Sweetheart?” she said, eying the dirty mirror over the sink. Behind her, Susan could only see Mattie’s red Converse All Stars and the cuffs of his jeans beneath the stall’s partition. It looked like he was still standing in front of the toilet. But obviously, nothing was happening.
“Honey, can’t you tinkle?” she said. “C’mon, I know you can’t rush these things, but give it a try. We still have a long drive ahead.” She turned the water on full blast in the sink. It was a trick she’d picked up in nursing school. She always used to turn on the faucet in the bathroom when a bladder-shy patient had a problem providing a urine sample. There was something about the sound of running water that helped prod them along. In her early twenties, Susan had been on the staff at Harborview Medical Center, a very stressful job. After she’d married and had Mattie’s older brother, Michael, she’d kept up her nursing credentials part-time, consulting for an insurance company. She’d been able to work out of her home—and look after her babies. Of course, Susan hadn’t realized it then, but that was the best time of her life. She should have savored every minute.
Now Susan was a single mother with one child, and working full time again—for a dermatologist in Ballard. Fridays at Dr. Chang’s office were half days. She usually spent those free afternoons at home, grabbing a nap or just doing absolutely nothing (and loving it) for those two hours alone before picking up Mattie at Yellowbrick Road Day Care. She cherished her Friday afternoon routine and had been a bit reluctant to give it up today. But Allen had been so insistent they take this weekend getaway to Cullen.
So—instead of napping on the sofa right now with the soft Pottery Barn throw blanket over her and Joni Mitchell on the CD player, she was in an Arby’s bathroom, seventy miles from home, doused with Diet Coke and despised by her toddler son. No doubt, she’d also offended that slightly creepy wannabe Good Samaritan, too. Well, tough.
Susan stepped over to the stall and found Mattie standing in front of the toilet with his pants up and fastened. He was idly playing with the toilet paper dispenser. All this time, Susan had thought he’d had a shy bladder. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she muttered, leaning over him. “You aren’t even trying!” Susan unfastened his jeans and yanked them down; then she pulled down his underpants. “Now, tinkle, okay?”
Nothing.
Susan hovered behind him with the stall door open. “C’mon, sweetie, give it a try,” she said, more gently. “Listen to the water in the sink. I know you hate being in the ladies’ room. As soon as you go, we’ll get out of here.” But nothing was happening. At times like this, the kid really needed his dad.
Susan was about to throw in the towel and pull up his pants. That was when she heard the restroom door yawn open. A woman with her little girl had just stepped into the lavatory. Mattie saw them, too. He let out a shriek, and then so did the frightened little girl. Their screams reverberated within the tiled walls of the small bathroom. Mattie kept crying—screeching angrily—while Susan fastened his pants back up and led him toward the restroom door. All the while, she apologized to the woman and her startled daughter. Mattie continued to scream and squirm as she hustled him toward the restaurant exit. Susan figured everyone in the Arby’s probably thought she was kidnapping him.
She half expected to see her wannabe Good Samaritan among the patrons, sitting at another table—perhaps trying to hit on another woman, some young mother.
But Susan didn’t see him at all. There was no sign of him in the parking lot either.
She strapped Mattie in his booster seat on the back passenger side of her old-as-the-hills but reliable red Toyota. It had a bent antenna, and the indicator handle easily screwed off the steering column—a discovery she’d made while nervously twisting it during a traffic jam. But the old car got her around just fine. Besides, she couldn’t afford a new one.
She gave Mattie his Woody doll, and he started to calm down. He let her wipe away his tears with a Kleenex from her purse.
“Is he coming with us?” Mattie asked.
“Is
“The man we ate lunch with,” Mattie said. “Is he coming, too?”
She shook her head. “No, he’s not coming with us, sweetheart,” she said. “I don’t even know him. We won’t be seeing him again…. God willing.” The last part, she muttered underher breath. “Fingers and toes!” she announced, straightening up. Then she closed the car door.
As she walked around to the driver’s side, Susan took one last look around the parking lot. There was still no sign of the man anywhere. She ducked inside the car, started up the engine, and pulled out of the lot.
She didn’t look back.
“I have to go potty.”
Hands on the steering wheel, Susan glanced in the rearview mirror at Mattie. He’d set aside his book and now squirmed in his booster seat. The breeze through the partially open window made a mess of his hair. He impatiently tapped his feet against the back of the passenger seat.
“Do you have to go number one or number two?” Susan asked.
“Both,” he whined urgently. “I have to go bad!”
“Oh, Lord,” she muttered under her breath. Susan gazed beyond the dirty, bug-splattered windshield at the road ahead. The narrow highway weaved through a dark forest and beside a creek. At times, the road took her along the edge of a cliff with only a short guardrail to prevent her from careening into the gulch. Every once in a while, the late-afternoon sun would peek through the tall trees and momentarily blind her.
After his hissy fit in Arby’s, Mattie had turned quiet. By the time they’d reached Cullen—with its picturesque harbor, quaint shops, and galleries—he’d been mesmerized by the scenery. Checking a MapQuest printout on the passenger seat, Susan had followed the directions here to Carroll Creek Road, north of the town center. That had been a mere fifteen minutes ago, and she’d asked Mattie if he needed to go to the bathroom.
“Naw,” he’d muttered, distracted by the boats in Skagit Bay.
Now he acted as if he were about to explode.
Along the road, there were several signs with symbols that warned of FALLING ROCKS, CROSSING DEER, STEEP IN-CLINES, and HAIRPIN TURNS. Watching for all these hazards, Susan kept glancing back at Mattie. She wondered what the symbol might look like warning drivers of a toddler passenger about to poop in his pants. “Honey, try to hold on,” she urged him, tightening her grip on the wheel. “Allen said there’s a mini-mart on the way to the house. I’m sure it’s coming up soon. I’ll bet they have a bathroom. Have you—have you been looking for deer, sweetheart? The signs say a lot of Bambi’s relatives and friends live here in these woods.”
She’d never gotten ahold of Allen. Her fiance had driven up earlier that morning to open the lakeside rental house and make arrangements for a special “surprise.” So far, the only real surprise was the lack of cell phone reception, probably because of all the mountains and trees. Susan hoped he was waiting for her at the house right now, because she didn’t have the key.
Biting her lip, she glanced at the MapQuest directions again. They claimed it was 5.1 miles on Carroll Creek Road before the turnoff for the rental house on Birch Way. Susan was beginning to wonder if she’d missed it. She’d passed several turnoffs—mostly dirt roads or one-lane paved arteries. Maybe one of them had been Birch Way. For all she knew, she could be headed deeper into these godforsaken woods.
Susan had had some initial misgivings about this trip, but kept them to herself. Allen had seemed so bent on going—and quite suddenly, too. He’d only started talking about the trip a few days ago, saying they needed a break
