The Trip Continues
Jessica Evans


Nola – Moving On
 
After visiting with Theseus during his graduation from Basic Training, Nola decided that she needed to do something with her life. Nothing as extreme as joining the military, but something that would help push her away from the life she’d always been living.
           
Back in Cincinnati, she and the rest of the group saw Amy off as her closest friend went in pursuit of her own dreams, and it left Nola feeling very much alone. Amy swore to them that she’d never be back to the city, and Nola believed her. Angela tried to convince her that Amy was just being her normal dramatic self, but Nola wasn’t so sure.
 
Fed up with having nothing to do and no one to do it with, Nola signed up for a pottery class. The cost was cheap and she figured at least it would help her get out of the house for a little bit.
           
She showed up to the Artworks Studio on Erie early to look around. It had been years since her hands touched clay; the last time had been in high school in art class. But there was always something so comforting and soothing about having cold clay between her fingers, and Nola hoped that the evening would help her feel like herself again.
           
No one was in the studio yet, which gave Nola the freedom to walk around a bit and explore. She touched the finished pieces that had been pulled from the kiln earlier in the day – bowls and plates mostly, a few ashtrays. One piece – a small figurine of a cat – caught her eye and she picked it up. The detail on the piece was exquisite. Nola could make out the individual whiskers of the animal, and even discerned a bit of mischief in the cat’s eyes.
           
“Don’t judge me by that piece,” a man says from behind her. Nola turns to see a tall man with blonde hair smiling at her.
           
“Judge you?” she asks.
           
“The cat. I know, it’s silly. Not what a serious artist would ever want to create. It’s just that my mom loves cats, and I thought it would be a nice gift for her.”
           
The man reaches for the figurine and brushes Nola’s hand in the process. She feels herself shiver way deep in her belly, but doesn’t know why.
           
“That’s touching,” Nola says.
           
“Yeah, well. She’s dying so it’s the least I can do.”
           
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
           
“Don’t be. It’s her fault. She shouldn’t have smoked her whole life.”
           
Nola nods.
           
“Anyway, hi. I’m Tom.”
           
Nola shakes his hand. “Nola.”
           
“Like New Orleans?”
           
“If I had a quarter,” Nola starts.
           
“Sorry, I bet you get that a lot.”
           
“More than you’d expect.” Nola smiles. “And no, not for New Orleans. It’s an old name meaning noble.”
           
“Are you Irish? You don’t look it,” Tom says.
           
“No, but my mother always loved Ireland.”
           
“Loved, like past tense?”
           
Nola nods. “Yeah, it’s been a few years since she’s been gone.”
           
“So you know what it’s like to randomly decide to take a pottery class and make a cat statue for your mother then, huh?”
           
“Well I never did that, but in her last days, I did plenty. Anyway,” Nola waves her hand. “Looks like class is getting ready to start. Nice to meet you Tom.” She turns to walk away.
           
“Wait,” Tom says. “Want to sit together? This is like my third class, so that means I’m kind of an expert. I could give you some tips,” he teases.
           
Nola looks at him. Tom’s smile is genuine, and his eyes are bright. She reminds herself that the whole reason for taking the class is to try new things and meet new people. A flickering image of Theseus in his dress uniform crosses in her mind. She ignores it.
 

Nola – Last Week’s Battle Lines
 
Shit.
 
Two lines appear on the pee stick, just like the one she took last week. Last week, it was easier to forget about the double lines – her double life sentence – because she had a deadline at the gallery. Throwing herself into her work was the only way to find melody in the days that used to be so bright. It has been a rough three years for everyone. Shortly after Dugan went off to jail and Amy disappeared, Nola met Tom. Not exactly her type, but she figured he would do. Six months later, they were married. They got pregnant right after the wedding, and Nola figured she’d be slowly stepping away from her other life of shows and festivals. It worked, most of the time.
 
Holding the stick between two fingers she shakes it vigorously, trying to change the outcome. It only makes the lines darker and more pronounced. Nola looks at the door of the bathroom, closed tightly. Somewhere in her apartment, Jolene is playing with blocks. She’s a good kid, but she’s a kid. And Nola can’t bear to have another. The glint of her wedding ring catches in the overhead light of the bathroom. She sinks down against the vanity and starts to cry.
 
A door slams somewhere in the apartment. Tom’s home. Another long day at the bank. Every night, he comes back from his ten hours deflated and mute. The last two months, she’s barely been able to get a word out of him, let alone find the level of intimacy they used to share. While Nola and Jolene eat at the table, Tom stands morose in the kitchen, eating over the sink. The only time she sees Tom effusive is when he’s on the phone with Steve, a guy he met at the gym. It does something to Nola, listening to her husband laugh and tell stories to some stranger while ignoring his own family.
 
“Mommy,” Jolene calls out. “Daddy’s home.” The little girl glee in her voice is enough to make Nola cry.
 
She starts to tear up and then decides Tom isn’t worth it, blames it on the hormones and wipes her face.
 
“Be right there,” she manages to call out, taking another breath and telling herself to be a fucking grown up and handle this.
 
In the kitchen, she spoons out bowls of goulash and carries two of them into the breakfast nook, leaving Tom’s on the counter. Jolene chatters, her three year old babble is just enough to make a bit of sense. Nola’s mind is elsewhere – Tom is going to flip. Neither of them want another child. They didn’t even want Jolene. Watching her daughter try to feed herself potatoes and paprika, she starts rattling on about butterflies she saw at the zoo. Tom appears in the doorway. He’s wearing his standard-issue sweats that are just threadbare enough to seem like he’s had them for a while even though they’re fairly new. He leans against the doorway and crosses his arms, still wearing the undershirt he had on for the bank. Nodding to Nola, he asks Jolene about her day. Jolene ignores the question and just shrugs.
 
“Jolene, go give your dad a hug hello,” Nola says.
 
“Why? He never hugs you.”
 
Nola doesn’t know if she should laugh or cry.
 
“Go give him a hug,” she repeats.
 
Jolene makes a show of sliding off the chair and gives Tom a half-hearted hug.
 
“Hi pumpkin,” Tom pats her head and then walks into the kitchen.
 
A cupboard slams in the kitchen. The image of the two lined pregnancy test is burned into Nola’s eyes. She imagines what she’s going to say to Tom. The wedding seemed like such a good idea when it was happening. Most days, she finds a way to pretend like the last almost three decades of her life hadn’t existed, which makes it easier to pretend that the life she’s living with Tom is fulfilling and worthwhile. She had no idea where it all when so wrong, so fast. A chime from her phone pulls her from her reverie. A text from an unknown number on her screen.
 
“Home-girl, it’s T. I’m coming home soon. Get ready.”
 
Without meaning to, Nola smiles and then sighs.
 
“All done Mommy,” Jolene holds up her hands smeared red from the goulash.
 
“Come on peanut,” Nola smiles at her daughter. “Time for a bath and then a story. Which one do you want to read?”
 
“The queen who rules the world,” Jolene responds.
 
“Which one is that,” Nola pretends not to remember.
 
“The pretty queen. The one who’s strong,” Jolene tells her as Nola carries her to the bath.
 
After she’s put Jolene to bed, Nola heads back to the kitchen to clean up the dinner mess. She and Tom still haven’t spoken. The roar from the television seems like a pointed non-verbal message. Nola feels the urge to be just as childish and makes as much noise as she can with the dishes.
 
“Will you try to keep it down? The game’s on,” Tom says.
 
“Maybe you should turn it down since your daughter is sleeping upstairs,” Nola fires back from the kitchen.
 
The volume seems to lower just a bit. Nola unleashes the fury she feels for Tom and another unwanted pregnancy on the kitchen. After, it’s sparkling and she’s spent. She walks into the living room and sees tom staring at the curio that holds their wedding china and his mother’s silver. Nola narrows her eyes and tries to really look at her husband.
 
“We should talk,” she says.
 
“Yes. We should,” Tom replies.
 
“I’m leaving you,” Tom says as Nola blurts that she’s pregnant. Their words collide, overlap and tangle into the same kind of confusion that their marriage has always represented.
 

Dugan – End of a Beginning on a Tuesday
 
“Nine thousand, five hundred and twenty.”
       
“Nine thousand, five hundred twenty one.”
            
“Twenty two.”
            
“Twenty three.”
            
“Twenty –“
            
“Will you shut the fuck up over there? God damn kid, enough already.”
            
The voice is muffled but still comes through sternly. Every night for the last six months, Dugan has been counting the cracks in the floor of his cell. Sometimes he makes up his starting point; other nights, he actually remembers where he left off. It doesn’t really matter, either way. It’s just something to do to pass the night. Nights are long in prison, and they never get any shorter.
            
The first two years were rough – rough enough that he had to find a way to block out the sounds. Everything is louder at night – it’s as if the prison quiets down enough to let the truth and weight of what’s happened to all of them come to the surface. The first year in, Dugan tried to read, to enrich himself, thinking that when he got out, he’d be able to find a job or do something with the rst of his life. The momentum and inertia faded quickly when he realized that constantly pining for something he wasn’t going to get for years was only making him more stir crazy to get out. Amy’s letters in the beginning were so consistent. Once a week, he’d receive a thick, five or eight paged sprawl of her thoughts. It was the only connection that made him feel like there was anything left. Amy’s letters started to slow though, and when the trickle rested at once a month, Dugan knew it was over between the two of them. Not that they ever talked about it; it was just one of those things that stopped. He missed her worse that he missed anyone or anything, but there was nothing he could do. So he quit that with relish.
 
The second year, Dugan tried making friends, as much as a person locked up in a federal prison can do. He joined clubs, chess and arts and crafts and started going to the weekly ministry meetings. It was at there, listening to the God-fearing words of Pastor Mike that he started to realize how futile everything really was going to be for the rest of his life. Dugan realized that the mark of being a felon was going to stretch far beyond having a parole officer. He was going to forever be marked – not that he had any major plans for his life, but still.
 
Pastor Mike would have said something about the guy I the next cell using the Lord’s name in vain, but Dugan didn’t really care.
 
“It’s just I’m trying to find out how many there are. Besides, what else do you have to do?”
 
 “I’m trying to sleep, asshole. That’s what I have to do.”
 
 The man in the cell next to his is a lifer, and has already served fifteen years of his sentence.
 
Surprisingly, Dugan had found in him a kindness, even though it was heavily buried under an exterior of gang tattoos and the perception of being disengaged all of the time.
“Sorry Viktor,” Dugan mutters.
 
“It’s okay kid. Just shut the fuck up, okay?”

Dugan nods, like Viktor can see him. He goes back to counting, this time more quietly. Somewhere between when night is strongest and morning hasn’t come, Dugan realizes what he needs to do. The prospect of serving another seven years is enough to make him scrunch his eyes and want to weep. He knows he can’t go the Count of Monte Cristo route and plan some elaborate revenge against Mason; there’s no point, it’s a waste of time, and eventually it’ll lead to nothing good. If he keeps his head tucked for the next almost three thousand days, he’ll come out even more bat shit crazy than when he went in.
 
His choice might be cowardly, but at least it’s a choice that will leave him and the rest of the group, with some peace. If only he could see Amy one more time.

About the Author:
Jessica Evans is a Cincinnati native currently living at the base of the Wichita Mountain Range. Always an urbanite, she's learning to appreciate wide open spaces.  

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