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His eyes looked atI put my hand on his shoulder in a sisterly way We went into the living roo for nearly an hour On the wall hung a calendar with a picture of Jesus leading a flock of sheep, showing the days of the month of November

Finally I said, my voice close to a whisper, "Where is everyone?" The room was unusually tidy, and the house was silent

"Dad’s at work," he said "Kids are in school Mom’s upstairs in bed"

"Why aren’t you at school?"

"I’s here" He pushed back his hair, which by noas as long as roceries I cook"

I hated the lost look in his eyes "Are you okay?"

"Did you hear about Ryan?" he said, as if I hadn’t spoken "He tried to kill hiine Ryan doing anything that serious

"They kept it out of the papers" Michael rubbed his eyes "He took pills Are you reading the blogs? People are saying he killed her"

"I can’t i Michael’s forearms, as if he’d repeatedly scratched himself

"I can’t, either But people say he did it They say he had the opportunity and the motive They say he was jealous of her I never saw that" He looked in ue "It makes you wonder how much you can ever know anyone"

There really wasn’t anything left to say I sat with him for half an hour er "I have to go," I said

He looked at me blankly

"Oh, I read On the Road" I wondered why I’d said that

"Yeah?"

"Yeah It was good" I stood up "I’ on the road ht of such a thing, except forto see America But suddenly it seemed like a fine plan, a necessary plan to counter the inertia all around me I’d do what my father and Dennis hadn’t done -- I’d follow my mother’s trail, find out what had happened to her

Michael walked o, be careful"

We exchanged one last look His eyes had no feeling left in thes

On the walk hoet away from this place for a while? Why not try to findMichael, or the need to burst out of e

My mother had a sister who lived in Savannah Why not visit her? Maybe she could tell me why my mother had left us Maybefor me to find her

For all of my education, I didn’t know much about land distances I could tell you how far Earth is fros was from Savannah I’d seen maps, of course, but I didn’t plan to look at them for the best route, or to calculate how ured I could reach Savannah in two or three days, meet my aunt, and then come back around the time of my father’s return fro Kerouac had ever done was to make sandwiches to last his journey coast to coast, and even then, most of the sandwiches went rotten The best as sio, to initiate motion and see where it led

By the time I reached home, my mind was made up In my room I packed my new backpack with my wallet, journal, an old pair of jeans, and my new shirts, underwear, and socks I packed quickly; the room felt claustrophobic to me now I hated to leave ht I threw in a toothbrush, a bar of soap, lasses, the protein bars, and Michael’s copy of On the Road

I left Dennis a note: "I’ away for a few days" was all it said

In the kitchen pantry I found a piece of cardboard and with a h I wasn’t running away, I told

On the Road South

Chapter Ten

My first stop was the ATM don My father had givenIt had a balance of 220, and I withdrew it all

I figured it wouldn’t be smart to hitchhike in the center of town, so I took a bus to the outskirts, then walked to the entrance raed briefly fron, exhilarated to be out in the world, en route to an unknown destination

My very first ride was lucky: a family in an old Chrysler New Yorker sedan stopped for me I sat with three children in the wide backseat One of the and roomy, and it smelled as if they lived in it

"Where you headed?" The woer seat turned around and looked