Page 6 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
“Sure. This is our price list. And I also have a legend map of the market stalls under here somewhere.” Bailey Rae tugged a smaller bin out of a larger box.
“That’s not what I meant.” The woman’s voice was louder, more insistent. Her daughter hugged a tattered blanket, rubbing an edge along her chin in comfort as she moved away from her mother’s legs.
“All right.” Bailey Rae rocked back on her heels. Given the dark circles under the woman’s eyes, maybe lack of sleep was making the young mom edgy. “What can I do for you?”
The young mother flattened a palm on the stack of cookbooks. She shook loose her other hand from her daughter’s vise grip and fished in her overstuffed hobo bag. Digging, she withdrew a wallet, sippy cup, a pack of cookies, until finally she tugged free a frayed book of some kind, a pair of socks fluttering to the ground. She eased it onto the scarred tabletop, the volume’s cover an older, tattered version of the cookbooks Aunt Winnie had sold for decades.
“I needhelp,” the woman repeated, patting the vintage binding, then extending her trembling hand toward the similar volume in Libby’s grip. “And this led me here.”
1971
“Winnie Ballard, be sure to hold on to this.”
As I stood in a back room at the Bent Oak Public Library, I took the packet of papers from Annette Davis. My point of contact. The final stop in my journey.
At first glance, Annette resembled a kindergarten teacher or grandmother sort in her teal polyester pantsuit. Not someone people would suspect. Good. She patted my hand, and I didn’t bother correcting her about needing comfort. It wasn’t surprising that she would assume I was shaking in my battered sneakers.
Excitement and terror are close kin. Outwardly they resemble each other. Anticipation and fear both flip the stomach, set the heart racing, dilate the pupils, and accelerate breathing. So it wasn’t any wonder that people would assume I was afraid. But I wasn’t. Not anymore.
Mrs. Davis and I kept our voices low in this tiny storage space. A big rolling bin was full of returned library books, with three shelved carts beside it for sorting. We both sat at a table with hard wooden chairs. The worn and faded top was cluttered with a stack of film strips and a projector.
“Thank you,” I said, for more than the stack of papers I fanned out on the Formica tabletop. A high school diploma, a driver’s license, a Social Security card, and a birth certificate. I was now a year older, with a different birthday. “Can I ask how documents like this are possible?”
“You only need to know they’ll hold up under scrutiny,” Annette said in a voice that inspired trust.
“Thank you,” I said again, such inadequate words. But the past month had been a lot to process. Sometimes I felt like I was still under the fog of drugs back in the hospital.
Stuck back under my husband’s iron-fisted control.
“You should have all you need to complete the job application.” Annette tipped her head toward the lone window that framed the viewof the paper mill in the distance. The steel beast had recently expanded, advertising dozens of jobs, which offered the perfect cover for new residents. “Check them over. Memorize every detail so you don’t pause when you’re asked tomorrow morning.”
And just that fast, Eloise was gone. Winnie was born.
Annette stepped back behind the book cart, swinging the door open. “Come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet before you go to the boardinghouse. You can practice your introduction.”
As I followed her past a row of microfiche readers and typewriters, I recited my new name in my head like a mantra. The library felt like a portal between my previous world and the one to come. The air was filled with the timeless, musty scent of old books, paper and leather seasoned by the oils of many hands. Those novels connected people who might never lay eyes on each other.
So how did I get here?
Luck. And a hefty dose of irony that when Phillip attempted to lock me away, he’d actually given me the key to my freedom in the form of a whisper from a cook in the cafeteria of the psychiatric hospital. The cook had escapedherpast life thanks to a secret network that helped women leave abusive relationships. If I was interested, we could speak later.
Then, as if the conversation never happened, the woman pivoted to spoon mashed potatoes on the next tray. The following day at breakfast, I told her I wanted to have that conversation.
I never knew for sure why I decided to trust the word of a complete stranger, but I was desperate, and something about her story rang true. She told me about a network spanning the country, connected through the library system. And while she couldn’t guarantee anything ... I said yes. Hid in a food delivery truck. Faked a suicide on the beach.
Then started a monthlong, circuitous path meant to cover my tracks to the extent that even each link didn’t know anything about the ones prior or yet to come. Sometimes, I had a companion for a single leg. But never the same person.
Now, Annette paused by the children’s books section. At first, it appeared empty. After all, school was in session. The table and chairs were all low to the ground, like for kindergarteners. Then I saw them. A mother and a little boy who looked so much like her, he must have been her son.
Not too long ago, I would have been envious of any woman with a child of her own. I wouldn’t have been able to see beyond that label of mother. And I definitely wouldn’t have seen the vulnerable light in this woman’s gray eyes or how her thin shoulders curved inward.
Or how her hands were pressed to a packet of papers on the Formica tabletop. A packet that looked suspiciously similar to mine.
In that moment I realized Annette had supplied more than a janitorial job at the paper mill and a boardinghouse room, she’d provided a friend. That simple connection nearly drove me to tears after so long in isolation, surrounded only by medical staff and people fromhisworld, indoctrinated to see me through his distorted lens.
“Winnie,” Annette said, “I would like for you to meet Libby Farrell. She’s new to town as well and will be working at the paper mill.”
“Hello, Libby. I’m Winnie Ballard.” I spoke my new name for the first time, half expecting something big to happen, such as the floor opening up and swallowing me. Or people popping out from behind shelves and shouting, “Liar. Fake. Fraud.” But it was easier than I thought. I slipped on the name like a new pair of shoes, so much more comfortable than the ones from before.
