This Dark Road to Mercy: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

and an empty stomach, and I swear I could hear flies buzzing in just about every windowpane in that house. I just wanted to leave it all behind.
    “You think we need quarters to call 911?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” Ruby said. “I ain’t never called it before.”
    We spent forever looking for those two quarters. I finally found one in the bottom of my book bag, and Ruby found one behind the dresser in our room. The sun had come up all the way by the time we’d gotten dressed and were walking down the street toward Garrison Boulevard. It would be hot later, but the morning felt nice, and down the hill on the right mist rose up from the creek that ran through the center of Lineberger Park. A few people slept on picnic tables under the shelters. They’d been out there all night because they didn’t have no place else to go.
    There weren’t any cars in the parking lot at Fayles’, and I took Ruby by the hand and led her through the lot to the corner where a phone booth sat by the sidewalk. The quarters were ready in my hand, but when we got closer I saw that somebody’d come along and torn the phone loose from the cord and taken it with them. They’d yanked out the phone book too. I stood there looking at that cord where the phone should’ve been, and I held Ruby’s hand and asked myself what Boston Terrier would do.
    Then I remembered that you could see a pay phone inside the pool room at Fayles’ whenever we walked past it with Mom on the way to the library. I led Ruby back across the lot to the store, but when I let go of her hand and tried to open the door I saw that it was locked. The sign said they didn’t open until 7:30 A.M. Through the glass, I could see a man inside the store messing with a coffeemaker, and when he heard me tug on the door he turned around and looked at us over his shoulder. He pointed to his watch. “We ain’t open yet,” he said. I had to read his lips because I couldn’t hear him through the glass. Me and Ruby sat down on the curb in front of the store and waited.
    “What are you going to say to 911?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll wait and see what they ask me.”
    A few minutes later we heard the lock turn on the door, and we stood up and walked inside. Smelly coffee dripped into a pot, and the man had already cranked up the hot-dog-turning machine. Hot dogs aren’t good for breakfast, but seeing them laid out and roasting on those rollers reminded me that we hadn’t eaten nothing yet.
    I took Ruby’s hand and walked through the store, past the counter, and into the pool room. The man who’d unlocked the door was standing behind the cash register, and he folded his arms and stared at us when we walked past him. I figured he was wondering what two little girls were doing alone at the store this early in the morning.
    A cigarette smell came up from the carpet in the pool room when I stepped on it. A big window looked out onto the parking lot, and I could see the phone booth that was missing its phone out on the corner by Garrison. The road was starting to get busy with traffic. In the corner of the room was the pay phone hanging on the wall. A stool was sitting under it. A jukebox sat beside it. I pushed the stool up against the wall and picked up the phone. Ruby leaned against the jukebox and watched me. A plastic Coke bottle sat on top of the phone, and an old brown cigarette was floating down inside it.
    I dialed 911 and waited. It rung once, and then the operator picked up. “911,” she said. “What’s your emergency?”
    I waited a second before I said anything because I wanted to make sure I used the right words. “I think my mom might be dead,” I finally said.
    “Okay,” the operator said. “Why do you think that?”
    “Because she won’t wake up,” I said. “And yesterday she was in bed sick and she slept all day. She’s still there, and now she won’t move. I don’t think she’s breathing.”
    “Okay,” the