Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [115]
Emma appeared a moment later with a brown grocery bag in each hand. She had taken off her sweater and was now wearing a simple gray T-shirt and a pair of worn jeans.
“They look good on you,” Kelly said, referencing the pants.
“Yeah. They’re a little short, but I don’t think Cassidy is gonna care.”
“Nope. She’s just going to be happy to see you.”
Kelly and Emma exchanged goodbyes, and a minute later, Milo found himself encased within his Honda Civic with the woman he had come to North Carolina to find. He could never have imagined how much trouble his success might bring.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Yup. Let’s get moving before I change my mind.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I do. And thank you, Milo. I know I never asked if you would mind taking me with you. I was afraid that if I did, you might say no. And this might be my one and only chance to go back home. Massachusetts, Connecticut, any place north of the Mason-Dixon Line, are like giant black holes in my mind. Every time I’ve tried to go back, I’ve frozen up. Chickened out. But this time I’m not going back for myself. I’m going back for Cassidy. Had I known how she felt, I might have gone back a long time ago. I don’t know. Maybe it still would’ve been impossible. But this time I’m going with you. With someone else behind the wheel, it’ll be tougher to chicken out.”
“It’s my pleasure, Emma,” Milo said, and even with his fear and uncertainty about the miles ahead, he meant it.
They had been on the road for about half an hour when Emma began asking questions about his personal life, and even though she had warned him of this predilection of hers, the frankness of her questions had still caught him off guard. Added to this was Milo’s difficulty in remembering to refer to her as Emma rather than Tess, which only elevated his level of stress. He had already made the mistake once before, as they were exiting the diner earlier that morning, and Emma’s immediate and pointed reaction had placed the fear of making the same mistake again in the forefront of his mind. She had stopped Milo in his tracks in the middle of the handicapped parking spot and warned him about making the mistake again. “I’m Emma now. Okay? Even if I could be Tess, I wouldn’t. That girl is in my past. Do you understand?”
He did, and expressed as much, but even now, the use of the new name felt awkward and clunky. In an effort to alleviate its foreign feel, he had tried to use it as often as possible during the first few miles.
“Let me know when you need to stop at a restroom, Emma.”
“Are you hungry, Emma?”
“Would you like to listen to some music, Emma?”
“Emma was the name of my Aunt Emma, Emma.”
Though he knew that he would always think of her as Tess Bryson, he was relatively certain that the calculated explosion of Emmas in the last thirty minutes had ingrained the new name in his mind.
One fear, albeit minor, alleviated.
Milo’s greatest concern was that the close quarters of the Honda and the constant fear that one of his demands, and an especially difficult one, such as karaoke or bowling or even the popping of ice cubes from a tray, would precipitate a string of demands from the U-boat captain manning the gauges. In the past, Milo had found that his demands increased in frequency and intensity in times of stress, and particularly when his stress revolved around the possible onset of a demand. In short, to fear the demands made them more likely to appear. And though he had learned to effectively postpone most of them until he was in a position to satisfy their call, a situation in which the demands began piling one atop another made it almost impossible for him to manage any of them at one time, bringing the Point of No Return in dangerous proximity. Milo thought of it as trying to hold back a flood. If it was a trickle or even a stream of water, he knew that he could dam it up or divert the flow for a short period of time, but once that trickle turned into a torrent, there was no holding any of it back. Unless he found a way to distract himself