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.A few feet away she came upon a rusted car, its front smashed inward, a few fragments of glass clinging to the edge of what was once a windshield.She circled around it, found her way blocked by what looked like berry briars, and finally set down on the trunk, her thoughts confused.Had Mirabelle and Jane Sandra left Otto, left everything behind, in order to start over fresh in a place that held no memories of the past? Had it been Mirabelle who convinced Jane to leave her baby at the church? Or had Jane thought of that all by herself?The terrible bitter irony of those two hiding from the very past she was barreling straight into on purpose made her face twist with a sad smile, and she wished she could forget the happenings of the day.The thought immediately reminded her of Otto, and she recanted it.“I don’t want to forget anything, God,” she said aloud.“I only wish it all didn’t hurt so much.” Her voice sounded loud and unnatural in the empty field, but she talked out loud so she wouldn’t feel so alone.“If Otto had to be punished, you sure did a good job of it, God.Making somebody forget their day memories is a mean thing to do! Why didn’t you make him forget the past?”Once she said the words, she knew she wasn’t angry with Otto.How could she be? He wasn’t the man now that he was then.Nobody stayed the same.Besides, how could she be mad when the only memory he had was of a past that had twisted up so many lives none of them would ever be able to escape from it? How could she hate him when he remembered that time and still asked her to stay with him?She couldn’t.The smell of the car wafted up to her nostrils and she sniffed.There was a scent here of sun-heated metal, but also of something else, something unacknowledged and still strangely new.She jumped off the trunk and pulled half-heartedly at the back door handle.To her surprise the car door eased open with a tired sounding grating rumble.She stuck her head into the car hoping a mad chipmunk wouldn’t jump out and bite her in the eyes.Nothing stirred inside.She climbed into the high back seat; it was absurdly comfortable.Like a child playing hide and seek, she smooched down and lifted her feet up against the back of the front seat.For some reason, the car comforted her.Maybe it was simply the fact that it, too, had been abandoned, out here in the field.Or maybe it was the mind-lulling solitude it offered to her while she nursed her sore heart and gathered her courage to go back to the house and its bitter secret memories.*By the beginning of July, Jilly had become accustomed to Otto and she tried to forget the letter up in the attic.Right now she only wanted to go on from here for as long as she could—then, if the good Lord was willing, as Otto would say, the day would come when Otto would talk to her about Jane Sandra.But until then, she only wanted to build a new kind of life out here with Otto, a life that, despite its mysteries, still felt better than any foster home she’d ever been in.“I’m going to make you a spaghetti dinner,” she told Otto one day at the beginning of July.“Oh, pasta,” Otto said in a voice so gloomy Jilly was startled into laughter.“You don’t like pasta?” she asked.“I’d rather eat a bag of fleas,” Otto said, “but if you want pasta, we’ll go into town and get some.”“But you’ve never eaten my spaghetti!” Jilly exclaimed, as though that made a difference.“Besides, the Fourth of July is coming up in a couple days, and we can have Celebration Spaghetti!”“Celebration Spaghetti?” Otto said, doubt clear in his quizzical face.“I’m buying,” Jilly announced.“I’ve got twenty dollars, and there’s nothin’ else I want to spend it on.”Otto grunted, but Jilly thought he looked relieved.She’d discovered he received a monthly disability check each month, but the amount was a pittance.Money was not a hot commodity out here.They ate a lot of cornbread and fresh vegetables from the garden Otto had planted out beside the house.She suspected he planted it there so he’d remember to weed it, a task she helped him with and found soothing.She wasn’t sure what he did about food in the winter, but the two of them could cross that bridge when they came to it.If she was still here.“My old legs aren’t quite up to the trip.You don’t want to go alone, do you?”“Sure,” Jilly said.“Maybe I can check out the library while I’m there.I saw it when I got into town.” And while she was there, without Otto, maybe she could ask Ned a few pertinent questions, she thought smugly.“Hmmm,” Otto said.He was a hummer whenever his mind got to thinking about something else.And right now he must have been thinking because he stood up and walked outside.Jilly followed him out to one of the old shacks standing beside the barn.“Was this a chicken coop?” she asked.“Hmmm,” Otto said.“What are we doing?”Otto went inside.“I’m looking for something.Wait a minute.”He came out pulling a rusty wagon; she could barely make out the words Radio Flyer in faint white on the sides.The rest of it used to be red, but was now a sorry-looking rusty brown.“You can’t be carrying a sack a groceries and books back from town all by yourself.You’ll want to take this with you.”Jilly eyed the wagon, but she knew Otto wasn’t asking her if she wanted to pull the dilapidated red wagon all the way into town; he was offering it to her like a present.“Ahh.sure,” she said.She pulled on the handle and the wagon screeched with misery.“If I don’t go deaf, this’ll help a lot.”Otto grinned at her.“Takes more than that to make a person go deaf,” he told her smartly.“You sure you aren’t afraid to go into town alone?”Jilly shook her head.She wasn’t afraid to go into town.She was pretty sureshe could get somebody to come out and get Otto before night fell and he went to sleep and forgot her if, say, somebody from social services kidnapped her and tried to return her to Lester and Lynette’s.Otto would claim her, she was certain.And she wasn’t about to get lost.There was only the one road, straight on into town, and she set off, dragging the wagon behind her.Chapter VII.Briar Rose had been transformed.Flags fluttered from every conceivable place; they dangled from street lamps, from buildings, and from overhead wires.Someone had even hung a red, white, and blue banner, stretched from Digg’s grocery to the ALL U CAN EAT 4 LESS that proclaimed: Briar Rose Celebrates Freedom! And below that in smaller lettering: Fireworks Friday Night!!Jilly loved fireworks, but she doubted if she could talk Otto into walking to town to see them.They’d have to walk home in the dark, and even she wasn’t too crazy about that thought.The Radio Flyer tracked along behind her, swaying back and forth.The pull-handle was long enough so she didn’t have to stoop, and although the wagon was bothering her now, she knew she’d be grateful for it once she made her purchases.But before she did any shopping, she was going to go the library and check out a couple books.She parked her wagon outside of the library, hitched its handle over the edge of a bike rack standing next to an urn that held pink geraniums, and went inside.Despite the fact that the library was only a half a building wide, they had a pretty good selection.Jilly browsed the aisles scanning for interesting titles and took note of the ancient librarian sitting behind the desk
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