SLEEPING

By Evan Morgan Williams

Originally published in The Strange Fruit (defunct)

The blue pickup was doing seventy-five and crossing from Wyoming into

Colorado when Cordelia added up the miles to go, divided them into hours, and saw they

would not make it in time. Two a.m., and they had been on the Interstate since supper at

Nana’s house back in Lodge Grass, Montana. Cordelia was too damn tired to drive

anymore. Couple times she had drifted onto the rumble strip. Laramie... she could not

remember Laramie. They must have stopped there to fill up, and maybe she remembered

the bright lights, but she wasn’t sure... Suddenly the pickup hit a bump, and Cordelia

opened her eyes with a jolt. How long had her eyes been closed? Hell, one dark stretch of

sugarbeet fields looked the same as any other. She could smell the wet dust stirred up by
the semi-trucks. Thunderstorm. To slouch in her seat, tip her head back, and close her

eyes—to coast the truck into the grass and wait for the rain to patter on the cab while the

motor cooled and creaked—nothing sounded so good.

Keep driving.

Her daughter, Aileen, slept beside her, curled into a ball. One hand covered her

face. She always slept that way. She wore new Chuck Taylor sneakers and a jean jacket

from Emporium in Billings. Cordelia had let Aileen paint her nails pink for the trip. Now

her long black hair spread across the seat and spilled onto the floor. In the morning,

Cordelia would brush out Aileen’s hair and clip it back with a yellow beaded clasp that

Aileen had stitched herself. Cordelia lifted a stray lock from Aileen’s forehead. Those

beautiful eyes were closed. Nana had argued for mascara. She had said an eleven-year old

girl ought to look special when she saw her dad for the first time. Cordelia had said no.

Keep your eyes on the road.

Danny was being released at ten a.m. Cordelia had to keep driving. She had to be

at the gate in Trinidad when Danny walked into the wide world. That’s what a good

woman did. Cordelia didn’t love him no more, but that’s what a good Crow woman did.

You didn’t let a man walk into the world alone. Cordelia would let Danny ride with them

north as far as Denver, and Danny could tell his good stories and laugh his deep-voiced

laugh, and he could sit beside his daughter for the first time in his life and feel the

warmth of her arm against his, and he could listen to her read from her Nancy Drew, but

the Denver Trailways depot would be the end of it, you bet.

Cordelia took the truck up to eighty.

 Before Danny went in, he had put Cordelia’s name on his left arm. Then Danny

had taken the needle and put his name on her arm, and it hurt more than she thought it

would, and she cried and cried. He said she was beautiful when she cried. She had taken

another swig from the bottle, and let him finish the job. When he was done, they made

love, and he said, “Wait for me,” over and over again, and she said, “I will,” because

what else did you say to a man going to be locked up for so long? But then on nights

when she curled her hair and went to The Wagon Wheel up in Hardin, she took to

covering the tattoo with a long-sleeved blouse, and to the nice cowboys who asked could

they buy a beer for a pretty Pocahontas, she didn't say nothing about waiting.

The truck drifted into the rumble strip. Cordelia jerked it back. Too hard. Aileen

slid a little toward the door and opened her blue eyes. Cordelia watched her eyes slowly

close again. Aileen's hand lay across her face. The truck kissed the rumble strip again, but

Cordelia recovered smooth this time, and they found the black cool quiet road. She

looked at Aileen again.

Aileen was so beautiful, Nana always threatened to hide the mirrors in the house.

Blue eyes invited teasing, but Aileen's were so blue and deep they left other kids lost for

unkind words. Nana knew. She kept it simple: “Eyes like those…” Cordelia just looked

away and fought back tears. Nana would say how pretty Cordelia looked, but Cordelia

always looked pretty when she was sad, and Nana had her pegged. Mornings, when Nana

braided Cordelia's hair, and Cordelia braided Aileen’s, and Aileen read her book, Nana

would say it. “Eyes like those…” Cordelia wouldn’t say nothing, and that said

everything.
 Danny did not send letters. Words on paper were like tattooing, that much pain.

He made phone calls. How’s it going? Pretty good. Is it snowing? You bet, they had to

close the highway. How’s my girl? Um, she’s doing real good, she’s reading a book, you

want to talk to her? That’s all right, but you gotta send me pictures. I did send pictures. I

didn’t get them. Well, she has the most beautiful eyes...

Around Fort Collins, Cordelia was so tired she thought about shaking Aileen

awake for conversation. Darn girl was lousy company, though. Always cuddling with a

book. Nancy Drew. How many damn books could a girl read? Cordelia used to tell

Aileen stories when she was small, the same stories Nana had told her, stories about

Cinderella and Snow White, and Aileen had frowned, her blue eyes gazing far away. She

asked too many questions and picked the stories apart. Cordelia brought home books

Aileen could read to herself. You bet she didn’t like no questions.

She saw a trooper’s car in the median, and she took it down to seventy-five.

Tonight, after dinner, Nana had packed cornbread and pop, and she sat Cordelia

down at a stool by the avocado-green fridge and sent Aileen to the living room to read.

She braided Cordelia’s hair. Nana told a story Cordelia had never heard, about her uncle

being released from the state hospital and there was no one to pick him up, and he had to

take a Trailways, and Nana wasn’t gonna tell Cordelia what he did to himself with a knife

back there in the dark, because a good person did not talk about those things. Cordelia

stood to go. They were late. Too much chili and corn bread.

Nana made Cordelia sit again. She undid the braid and started over. “What are

you gonna say when he sees them blue eyes? There’s a little French on our side. That’s
what you tell him. There's some French back there, like your auntie, Bobbysox, who died

in a car wreck when you were five? She had them blue eyes. You tell Danny about that.”

Cordelia felt Nana’s hands tugging at her hair. She wanted to flee, but it felt so

good, those hands in her hair. She would not cry, she would not budge her face, just let

the tears drip down her cheeks. She wanted Nana to braid her hair real pretty.

“Aileen’s read twenty of them Nancy Drews.”

“You tell him,” Nana said.

Cordelia found Aileen on the living room rug, a book spread open, her shiny

black hair sliding off her back and pooling around her face. Cordelia tucked Aileen’s hair

back behind her ears. Aileen kept reading through the gaps in her fingers.

The reflectors came at Cordelia faster than she could react. Suddenly, in the cone

of light from the headlamps, she saw an owl picking at a dead porcupine. The owl lifted

off, too late, and was struck by the front of the truck with a soft thud. A couple feathers

stuck in the grill for the next hour, the tips showing over the hood, and Cordelia had to

look at them feathers. She made it through Denver and Colorado Springs okay, but her

eyes were so tired she wanted to let her eyelids fall and she wanted to raise her hand to

cover her face like the beautiful girl sleeping beside her.

Let the pickup fly down the road on its iron-hearted own.

Aileen always covered her face. The habit started at age seven, maybe after she

was tall enough to see herself in Nana’s mirror. In the daytime she hid her face in a book

or let her hair fall around it. Cordelia used to go to The Wagon Wheel, and she would

leave Aileen in a booth in the dining section with a book and enough change to buy a

pop. Cordelia, sitting at the bar in the dark, kept an eye on Aileen through the doorway.
Aileen’s head was always tipped forward, book spread open on her lap, her long black

hair around her face. The waitress always cooked up a hamburger and French fries for

her. Cordelia did not remember if she had to pay for that food. She did not remember a

lot of stuff, but she never got shit-faced drunk. She was a better mom than that. When she

started going to A.A. meetings, she brought Aileen. Girl could finish a Nancy Drew at a

sitting. The flip flip flip of pages. Cordelia would braid Aileen’s hair and listen to pages

flip while the people told their god-damned sleepy stories. Aileen sat in her folding chair

and read, leaned against her mama’s arm when it got late, then slept, her hair braided

back, her hand across her face. At the end of the meetings, Cordelia would be approached

by men. Even with a sleeping girl in her lap, they would ask her out for coffee. She hated

those men, and sometimes she glared. Sometimes she said yes, and it was never just

coffee.

Colorado lay flat and straight and simple. It was cruel, and she blamed Danny for

it.

Aileen awoke around Canyon City, the eastern sky leaking blue. She sat up,

leaned against the window and watched the prairie fly past. In the summer, when

Cordelia pointed out horses on the hills, they were specks of dust in golden grass, but

Aileen could count those horses and tell them apart. Looking down towards the river,

where the trains went through, she could read the letters on the sides of the boxcars.

Cordelia had taught her to bead, and Aileen made barrettes, wallets, and belt buckles. Her

beadwork was tight as pebbles in a road. Now Aileen watched the Colorado night and

described what she saw, owls in the lamplight, bats feeding on mosquitoes, shuddering

nighthawks, killdeer, wood snipe in the frontage ditch. Cordelia said that when she was
Aileen’s age they used to see snipe in the irrigation canal. She didn’t say she was out

there smoking, that her body looked gorgeous ripe, you betcha, that she and her cousin

Lala were swimming naked, and later they heard that the boys were watching. Danny was

watching. They saw a snipe hiding in the reeds.

Aileen shifted in her seat. “What time is it?”

Aileen twisted her hair into a coil and let it unspool over her right shoulder. It

tumbled into her lap. Someday soon, Cordelia and Aileen would need to have the talk.

What would Cordelia say to her girl? She was just a girl herself when she had Aileen.

Here’s how to wear your hair. Here’s how to look over your shoulder at a boy. Here’s

where to place your hands on your hips. That’s what she knew.

They were as different as a wobbling bat and a sharp-tailed hawk.

“Mom, you’re falling asleep, aren’t you.”

“Keep me awake.”

“You could tell me about my dad.”

“I told you everything.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I told you lots of things.” Cordelia did not like questions.

“Nana told me about him.”

Cordelia let the truck coast into the emergency lane, then into the slow mushy

gravel, then into the low bristly grass. The truck bounced to a stop. She turned off the

motor. The Colorado prairie was quiet. Heat lightning flickered in the sky.

“She told you what, exactly.” Cordelia’s voice was too loud for the little cab.
 “Told me to ask you.” Aileen's hand was over her face, and she was looking at

Cordelia through her fingers.

Cordelia wanted to sleep, close her eyes, sleep as easily as her daughter. She

wanted to be as pretty, as young. She wished she could read and fall asleep, a good book

dropping from her softening grip. She wanted to lie in the passenger seat, her cheek wet

against the plastic seat cushions. She was ready to cry. Please let her eyes close so Aileen

could not tell. God, please let her eyes close, let her weeping begin privately.

“Baby-love, we’re not going to make it.”

“How far is it?”

“Too far.”

Cordelia rolled down the window, stuck her hand into the hot night air. Danny

used to dangle his hand from the window when he drove, steering with one hand, just a

few fingers on the wheel. Sometimes he steered with his knees, he was so tall he could

steer with his knees as he worked his hand down the neck of her blouse. Bottle of wine

pinned between his legs. They used to park on the prairie and listen to the rain, and she

could smell the grass burning under the muffler. Cordelia reminded herself that was a

long time ago.

A truck roared past. The red taillights lasted for five full minutes as the straight

road showed its painful barren length. Even at night, the pavement was hot enough to

wriggle into waves, and the red taillights glimmered in the distance. Cordelia clenched

her dangling fingers into a strong grip around nothing.

“Trade me spots, baby-love. You’re going to drive.”

“What!”
 “Come on now. Mommy needs to sleep. I’m going to teach you to drive, and then

I’m going to take a nap.”

“Mom, hello? I’m only eleven. I’ll go to jail.”

“You want to see your dad, don't you?”

Fifteen minutes later, as the pickup lurched along in the emergency lane, Cordelia

taught her little girl to sit forward and work the pedals. The clutch was the worst, but

once they were up to third it was not so bad. Just keep the pickup going straight and fast.

She taught the little girl to look through the steering wheel and down the road. She helped

her daughter guide the little pickup onto the fat highway.

“You won’t tell anyone.”

“It will be your lie, mommy.” Aileen was crying. Cordelia thought she was

beautiful when she cried.

“The lie will be both of ours.”

“I don’t want it, and I’m telling Nana. I’m telling Nana. I’m telling Nana.”

The girl’s hands gripped the wheel tightly.

Cordelia watched the road rush toward them at sixty-five, and she wondered

whether she would be able to close her eyes. She tried. She breathed in and out.

“Nana told me what he did, Mom.” Aileen sniffled. Her face was a wet mess of

tears.

“She’s telling fibs.” Cordelia kept her eyes closed. Easier that way.

“He killed a whole family. He was driving drunk and he hit them.”

“He’s sorry for it now. He’s on the program.”

“Mom?”
 “What.”

“Nothing. Go to sleep.”

Aileen kept the pickup pegged at a dutiful sixty-five. The weave in her steering

made Cordelia a little sick. The pickup bounced along like a bird learning to fly.

Cordelia folded her daughter’s jean jacket to make a pillow, and she rested her

head against the passenger door. She wanted Aileen to sing her a lullaby. She wanted

was to sleep. That’s what it came down to, didn’t it? Just close her eyes and sleep. But

she couldn’t do it, god-damnit, and her hands felt tense. She opened her eyes.

“You know, at night we used to burn tires in the yard and drink wine, and we

ended up breathing all that smoke, you know?”

“Go to sleep, Mom.”

“You had to stand close to the fire to stay warm. You couldn’t help it.”

“Mom!”

Cordelia closed her eyes. Her daughter was right. That was an old life. Time for

sleep and something new. She didn’t know what came next, and it scared her so much she

clenched her fists. One thing consoled her, a hope that things would be different soon;

she knew they would, and she felt herself drifting off. Her fists loosened, and her final

thoughts before falling into sleep were gratitude and relief: at last her sad stumbling life

was out of her hands.