Chapter One: The First Thing

         The first thing I throw into the suitcase is a battered old photo album. My reasoning is this: upon my arrival I will be either 1.) Incredibly nervous or 2.) Unsure about my own motivations for leaving. At some point, and this is a certainty, I'll be unpacking. The last thing I'll unpack will be that photo album, wrapped in cracked brown leather, musty and reassuring.

         It's not a particularly happy photo album, but at least it's accurate. It's not some sugar-coated illusion of a normal childhood. The album only contains eight pages of crinkled and water-stained photographs, the first two pages being entirely dedicated to what my mother had considered to be 'family photos'. I can't blame my mother or be too hard on her (because I don't know where she is), but for the first six years of my life she made me take 'family photos' with my dad's headstone every year on Father's Day. The pictures have little variation except for my age, the amount of grass on the grave and my extremely obvious growing confusion with the situation. I have to admit, it's difficult enough to be the only kid in your kindergarten class without a dad, but when your mom includes her particular brand of family photos in the Christmas letter she sends out, it's especially rough. It's worse when the Christmas letter only mentions you in the last line, almost as an afterthought, "Audrey is five. She's okay." I still don't know whether she just meant I was an okay sort of kid or if she was reassuring everyone that I was still alive.

         The photo album gets better after page two because the photographs stop all together until the age of eight, when my grandparents became my legal guardians after my mom disappeared for the first time. My grandparents live on a ranch outside of Breckenridge, Colorado. People in church and in the diner that they always breakfast in after church call them Claire and John Hawkes Lovelace, but I call them Mother Superior and Hawkeye. This has never gone over well.

         Photograph one on page three of the album is my grandmother, Mother Superior attempting to brush my hair for First Communion which I received three days after moving to Breckenridge. I'm wearing a little white slip and black Mary Janes and Mother Superior is after me in the hall of their old two-story house. She's gotten the brush stuck in my overly-permed hair and my eight-year-old self is screaming in outrage, head tilted back and eyes screwed shut, fists clenched. That was the first and only time Mother Superior ever slapped me. Photograph number two was taken three minutes later, after I was forced into my dress. Superior and I stand hand in hand by the door, our bodies rigid in our church clothes and our eyebrows furrowed identically. Hawkeye's sprawling handwriting is on the back of this one, "Family is a gift from God."

         Most of the photographs on pages three through seven are Hawkeye's handiwork. He would never like anyone to know it, but Hawkeye is an artist - and not just with photography. Hawkeye is an escape artist. He can spot Mother Superior from a mile and a half away on a good day and that has its advantages. He's been a smoker for the entirety of their marriage and Superior has never once suspected it. Not to mention that he can swipe entire pies right out from under her nose (which he always shares) without her suspecting a thing and instead always blaming, "That hound! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what a monster!"

         Hawkeye's favorite photograph is one on page five of the album. It's simply entitled 'Friends'. In it, a glossy buttermilk-colored cow stares blankly at the camera from the trailer she's been loaded into, her huge brown eyes totally vacant. I, now a nine-year-old, reach up toward the animal, placing a single hand on her neck. Also looking toward the camera, I plead with my mouth gaping open in a silent cry of, "Diane!" Snot runs out of my nose freely, as well as Diane's, who will be sent to slaughter minutes later.

         The photo album is quickly covered up in my suitcase as I throw books and jeans and hair products on top of it. When it's buried I feel better. This is the third time I've attempted to pack in the last two days, but it's also my last chance to pack. So it has to be now. Into the suitcase goes a dress, a pair of moccasins, a journal, a jar of peanut butter, another journal, my baby blanket from Superior and Hawkeye, the yoga mat, more than I can take and less than I can bear to leave behind.

. . .

         It's still dark when I get to Denver, but I'm running late for my flight. I'm already standing and getting my bag out of the overhead on the shuttle bus before it comes to a stop, and the irritable driver immediately screams at me to sit down. It takes every ounce of self-control that I have not to bolt as soon as he opens the doors. I collect my larger bag from the driver outside of the bus, and go.

         Airports are lonely in the morning, but a hurried loneliness is the worst sort of loneliness, mostly because you don't have time to feel sorry for yourself. The hurried loneliness doesn't last for long though. I'm cleared for travel much faster than I imagined I could be, and I'm the first passenger at my flight gate so I sit and twiddle my thumbs until I get bored and write to Mother Superior and Hawkeye so they don't worry overmuch.

'M.S. & H., 'Here's the thing. I've been sad for awhile, and I think you know that. Don't be mad, but I'm going to see Isabelle. You remember that she lives in Wales? Well, she does, if you don't remember. I'll try to call you soon, maybe. Don't worry about money, I still have student loan money and no one ever spends that on school stuff anyway. Yours in Christ (it's a joke Grandma, it's not blasphemous), Audrey'

         I send a letter for my mother to them too, just in case she makes an impromptu appearance to make sure I'm still dysfunctional enough.

'Rachel, I'm going to live with a friend from high school for awhile, so if you come by and demand to see me, believe Claire and John Hawkes when they tell you I'm away. I'm not hiding from you this time, I swear. Also, please remember that that Jerry Lawrence guy has a restraining order on you. He really doesn't look that much like Dad so just leave him alone. It's not worth it and Claire and John Hawkes are worried about you getting in trouble again. - A.'

         The first call to begin boarding the plane comes while I'm posting the letter. The woman behind the airport's convenience store counter (thank God they had stamps) takes my pocket change and winks at me when she sees me nervously checking my passport and ticket for what has to be the twentieth time of the morning. I drop the letter in a USPS slot near the front of the store, and the woman calls after me, "Have a nice day!"

         I nod hesitantly.