He said, "One ticket to Rough Creek, I guess."

  The guy smiled and took three twenties from Widow. He printed a ticket and returned a five-dollar bill back to him.

  Widow took the change and the bus pass and stuffed them into his pocket. He smiled and walked out of the bus station and sat on a bench, waiting for the bus.

  Widow rode the bus, got off in the small town of Rough Creek, and decided that after a nearly fifteen-hour day of riding, he needed sleep. But first, he was hungry. It was already close to midnight. He walked for a bit, stopped at a lounge playing live jazz music, and ate cheese fries and had another coffee—black. He sat at the bar and asked about the town. It turned out that there really wasn't much to it other than the Native American casinos. He wasn't a fan of casinos, nothing really against them per se, just not big on them. So he called it a night and ended up staying in a motel off the highway about a mile from the casinos. He got into the last room, probably because the spillover from the casino had booked up the rest.

  He woke up the next morning to a hot, humid day with a relentless sun. This only added to the fact that he had no desire to stay in Rough Creek any longer, or Texas. So he grabbed a quick breakfast at a McDonald's and headed to the bus station. He changed his mind about going to San Antonio. Widow’s path was like the changing wind. It went one direction and then the next. He bought a ticket to Shreveport.

  About thirty minutes after he'd sat down on a bench in a place far from the other passengers, a little old lady walked over to the benches across from him. She sat down like she had picked Widow out of everyone else as the guy she wanted to be near. He said nothing to her, but gave her a casual nod.

  Another ten minutes passed, and the sun felt like it was getting hotter. It fired hot rays down on the earth and across the Texas terrain like it had a personal grudge against the people in the Lone Star State.

  Widow sat a little uncomfortably on a black bench that was half rubber, half plastic, and completely worn out. He sat straight up with his legs out, feet planted firmly on the cement, like tree trunks that had grown up and burst through the pavement. His knees went up higher than everyone else's who sat around him because he was a big guy, six feet four inches tall. The seats weren't meant for him. The manufacturer had probably never even imagined that kind of strain on the frame or the lumbar support required for that kind of man, which wasn't exactly what you'd expect in a line of chairs designed for a one-size-fits-all situation.

  He ignored his slight discomfort on the bench because he was more concerned with the state of health of the woman who sat across from him.

  She wore a short-sleeved, button-down black shirt with an unstarched collar, like it had been pulled straight out of the laundry and put on. She had a brown skirt on and different colored socks, one brown and one pink, which made no sense. He figured maybe she was color blind. She had a tiny purse, which rested neatly on her lap: a very proper woman, minus the pink sock.

  She wore a ring, possibly a wedding ring, on her left hand. It looked ancient but well kept, polished to shine like it held memories of good times, and she wanted to preserve it as long as possible.

  She wore little makeup, but what she had on looked like it was done by a seasoned professional.

  The heat was becoming unbearable for Widow, and he was younger than she was and healthy. He could only imagine how it must've felt for her.

  She kept looking at him, but every time he returned her gaze, she looked away. Besides the look of concern on her face, she also looked like she wanted to say something, but she stayed quiet anyway.

  Widow wasn't sure if he should speak first or just wait for her. He let this go on for a good while.

  Finally, Widow looked at her. He straightened out his back and held his head high, which might've been out of the habit of seeing an older lady who looked so proper. She reminded him of Mrs. Schneider, a teacher way back in his Sunday school days. She was the ruler-wielding type who barked orders like "Sit up straight" and "Eyes forward."

  He asked, "Ma'am, are you okay? Maybe you should go sit inside where the air conditioner is blasting. Nice and cold. Get outta this heat."

  She didn't speak.

  Widow said, "I can come get you when your bus comes."

  She stayed quiet.

  "Ma'am, it's very hot. Why don't you step back inside? Let me come get you. I don't mind. Really."

  The old lady looked at him, her watery eyes filled with a look like she was praying for him to help her. She said, "Oh, dear. No, I'm not worried about the heat."

  Widow said, "Tell me. What's going on?"

  She shook her head and said, "I shouldn't involve you."

  "Maybe I can help you."

  "I need it."

  "So tell me what's going on."

  The old lady clutched her purse tight and brought it up to her midsection. Her fingers strummed the strap in slow, nervous taps, like it was a musical instrument. She said, "I don't know where to start."

  Widow said, "Why don't you just breathe and start wherever?"

  The old woman took a deep breath, a deep inhale.

  "Nice and slow."

  She nodded and said, "It's my granddaughter."

  She reached for her bag. She started with the long zipper, pulled it to the end of the track, and then she plunged her hand into the bag.

  Widow expected her to pull out a cell phone to show him a photo of her granddaughter, like grandmothers do, but she didn't pull out a phone. Instead, she pulled out an actual photograph, a Polaroid. She leaned across the space between the benches.

  A normal guy would've had to stand up and walk over to her. But Widow had long arms and a long reach, mostly because the old caveman genes never evolved out of his family. Widow leaned forward and took the photograph. He hadn't seen a Polaroid photograph in probably a decade, or maybe even two. He didn't know they still existed.

  The Polaroid had a black backside and a thin, white trim around the photo on the front side.

  He looked at it.

  There were two females in the picture. The first was an older version of the other—obviously a mother and daughter.

  The mother was attractive and Hispanic, no question. She wasn't too skinny, but far from having too much meat on her bones. The mother’s hair was dyed—Widow thought the color was called platinum. She had brown eyes and a brilliant smile. There was a glow to her face. She was a naturally cheerful person. Widow could tell.

  Then there was the little girl, who was around six years old, in the photo. She also had a gigantic smile on her face and that same glow embedded deep in her face. She was laughing. It looked like she was being tickled by her mother. They both looked up and smiled at the same time. A significant moment that didn't look planned, couldn't have been. It had that look of real authenticity that people who created catalogs always wanted to capture and use as actual cover photos. Widow figured a professional photographer could've been behind it. Perhaps there were tricks of the trade that allowed him to capture such a joyously natural moment, but Widow doubted it. He believed that, more than likely, every moment with these two ladies was authentic. He doubted there were ever dull times.

  He said, "They're beautiful ladies. You must be proud."

  The old woman said, "She's seven. Almost seven."

  "What happened to her?"

  The old woman cried. She was a sweet old lady, but she didn't seem to be in a good frame of mind. She said, "I'm so sorry." And she reached up with her right hand, wiped a single tear off of her face.

  Widow stayed quiet.

  The old woman said, "My name is Claire Hood. And that's Jemma. And the older one is Lucy. Lucy's my daughter-in-law."

  He repeated, "What happened to Jemma?"

  Claire said, "It's my son."

  She paused a beat and looked around. She said, "He's not well. He makes mistakes. He's a mixed-up man. His name's James."

  "What did he do to her?"

  Claire's lip trembled and quiver. She looked like she was on the verge of more tears, and maybe she would've started gushing tears, but she also looked exhausted, like she'd been up for days.

  Claire said, "It's… it's…"

  "Go ahead, Claire. You can trust me."

  "My daughter-in-law, Lucy, has cancer. You see?"

  Widow nodded.

  "It's terminal. Right now, as we speak, she's in a hospital. In El Paso."

  She paused a long beat, and then she said, "She's not going to make it. She can hardly feed herself some days."

  Widow stood up and moved to the chair next to Claire. He put his free hand on top of hers and held the photo in his other like it was a sacred thing. He said, "Go ahead, Claire."

  Claire Hood said, "Lucy doesn't know I'm here. She doesn't know what happened. She knows nothing. Yesterday, in the morning James got out of prison."

  "What did he do to Jemma?"

  "James was never a bad man. But he's confused. And he's been mixed up with the wrong people." She turned to Widow and looked up in his face and said, "Bad people."

  Widow asked, "How bad?"

  "Bad."

  "Where's Jemma?"

  Claire's eyes again turned watery, and she said, "Jemma didn't come home from school yesterday. The same day James got out.

  "He took her! He took my little Jemma!"

  6

  Jemma left her lunch pail back in the car. And now she was a little upset about it because the guy who looked like Daddy had ditched the car they had. He left it parked behind a busy gas station, and she'd left her pail inside it.

  He had woken her up while she was still half asleep, so she had forgotten about it. But she didn't make a big fuss.

  Her daddy took her to a car rental place.

  For the first time in hours, he spoke. They walked into the lot, and he asked, "Pip, which car do you like?"

  She covered her face in a shy way, and she smiled because she confirmed to herself it was her daddy. He had the same voice, and he called her Pip, which was short for Pipsqueak. That had been what he always called her before the police came and took him away one day.

  She remembered that was when her mommy first got sick.

  The policemen came to her house and put her daddy in handcuffs, just like she'd seen on TV.

  He said, "Pip? Which car?"

  She lunged at him and hugged him tightly.

  He put his hand on her back and pulled her close.

  "I missed you too. But, Pip, we gotta go. Which car?"

  She pulled back and looked around. She still didn't speak, but she pointed at a silver Dodge truck.

  He smiled and said, "That one?"

  She nodded, and he said, "Okay. Let's get it."

  They went inside to the rental place, and Hood rented the truck. Her daddy had to do all kinds of paperwork, and he told the guy behind the desk that his name was Jason instead of his real name, which she knew was James. He also gave a completely different last name. It sounded funny to her. It was Nikopovich, which was too big for her to spell. She thought it was strange that he didn't use his real name.

  When they were finally done, she spoke. She said, "Daddy, I'm hungry."

  "Of course, Pip. Let's get some food. You want to go to Burger King?"

  She shook her head and said, "Grandma says that it's bad for me."

  "Burger King used to be your favorite."

  "But I'm not supposed to."

  "Okay, Pip. Where you wanna go?"

  She looked out of the truck's big window and watched for something she wanted to try. After ten minutes of driving through the town toward the interstate, she pointed at a restaurant.

  She said, "Let's go there."

  He looked at a tiny, generic restaurant called: Ruth’s Place and said, "Okay, Pip. Let's do it."

  He headed toward the restaurant.

  Widow said, "Tell me about it."

  Claire Hood said, "My little granddaughter went to the bus stop yesterday, and I thought that she'd gone to school, but she never came home."

  "What did the cops say?"

  "They said they're looking into it."

  "That's it? No Amber Alert?"

  "No."

  "That seems unusual."

  Claire paused a long beat, and she said, "I didn't call them."

  Widow said, "What? Why not?"

  "I can't call them. They can't know."

  "Why the hell not?"

  Claire Hood looked around at the other people waiting. A bus came and pulled up to one of the other terminals in the distance. The voice of the guy from behind the ticket booth came over the intercom system, which was nearing the need to be replaced, and said, "The bus for Fort Worth is headed out in ten minutes."

  Several people far from Widow and Claire rose and lined up and waited for the bus driver to load the bus.

  Claire said, "I can't call them because Jemma is Mexican. Like her mother, she's an illegal. The police won't look for her, and even if they find her, she'll be deported. And her mother is undocumented. Where will she go for care? They'll send her back to Mexico. She'll be off of her treatments, and I'll lose them both."

  Widow nodded. He understood. Claire was afraid that if she told the police, they might start asking questions about her citizenship.

  Widow asked, "Claire, if her father is an American, even if he is an ex-con, then isn't Jemma automatically a citizen?"

  "It doesn't work like that."

  "I thought it did."

  "No. See…"

  She paused and let out a huff, which Widow wasn't sure was because she needed to pause or because of the heat, like she needed to take a breath.

  She said, "Jemma isn't his real daughter. She's unofficially adopted."

  Widow nodded, and then he thought for a second and asked, "Why didn't James just adopt her officially? Wouldn't that make her a legal citizen and protected?"

  "Yes. It would, and he was thinking about it. But then he got arrested and sent to prison for ten years."

  "Wait, if he was sent for ten years, why is he out now? Jemma's only six. The math doesn't add up. Did he get out for good behavior or something?"

  "He's not supposed to be out. I don't know why he is. He only went in two years ago."

  "Is it possible he escaped?"

  "No way. Not likely. James isn't a criminal mastermind. No way he could have escaped."

  Widow nodded.

  "If he had escaped, they'd be coming to me first. No, he was released."

  "I wonder why?"

  "I don't know. All I know is that he took Jemma."

  "Claire, how good is your relationship with him?"

  "It's okay. But not great."

  "Would he have told you he was getting out?"

  She paused another long beat and fanned her face with her palm open. "No. I haven't spoken to him in over a year."

  "I see."

  "I just thought since he was in prison for ten years that maybe it was best not to expose Jemma to him, you know? I messed up with my son, but I wasn't about to let Jemma turn out like that. And then Lucy got worse, and I ended up with a full plate." She shook her head and then said, "I guess it was also for me too. I didn't want to see James in that place anymore."

  "What did he do?"

  "As I told ya, he hung out with the wrong crowd. He was doing low-level jobs for this drug dealer from Mexico."

  Widow stayed quiet.

  "I could really use your help."

  Widow said, "Claire, I think you should tell the police. They can do a lot more than I can. They'll be interested in finding James and recovering your granddaughter. I really think they won't even check far enough into her background to figure out she's not documented."

  "I can't. But can you help me?"

  "Where are they going? You must know since you're here."

  "Romanth."

  Widow asked, "Romanth?"

  "It's a small nothing town on the border with Mexico."

  "Is James trying to cross over with her?"

  "I don't think so. I think Romanth is his destination."

  "What makes you think that?"

  "He talked about it once. He said it's a great forgotten town. The last time I spoke to him, he mentioned it. He talked about it like it was a mythical place."

  "I see."

  She repeated, "Will you help me?"

  Widow looked into her eyes. A desperate grandmother who loves her granddaughter. Nothing wrong with that. He thought for a moment, even though he already knew his answer.

  Then, right then, at that moment, Claire stood up from her seat. She wobbled a bit. Widow shot up and grabbed her arm gently to steady her. He said, "Are you okay?"

  "I feel… I feel…"

  Claire Hood never finished her sentence. Instead, she clutched her forehead with one hand and then gasped and tumbled into Widow's arms.

  He shouted, "Help! Help!"

  A security guard in her mid-thirties came running over. She asked, "What's wrong?"

  "She collapsed."

  "Oh, dear!"

  Widow laid her down on the hot concrete and lifted her wrist. He tried to feel for a pulse. There was none.

  He said, "Call 911! Now!"

  "Okay!"

  The security guard ran off, back toward the station hutch. That must've been her training by the bus company's corporate office, because surely she had a cell phone in her pocket. Widow was practically the only guy in America who didn't. But instead of pulling it out and dialing for emergency assistance, she ran back to the station, and probably back to a corporate telephone, one that the company pays for and tracks. That way, they can say they did their part to help someone in need—no disputing who called 911.

  Widow leaned down and put his head near Claire's heart. He listened hard. He could hear a heartbeat.

  He shouted back at the bystanders, "Call 911! Now!"

  He hoped that maybe one of them would be faster with their cell phone.

  He listened again. Claire's heartbeat was slow and faint. It sounded like the last drizzle of water squeezing out from a faucet before it ran empty.

  He listened. He grabbed her hand and held it tight.

  He said, "Don't you die! Jemma needs you!"