Chapter One: ELLA SUE, Part 1

Ella Sue, Part 1

"Are you warm?" Ella Sue nodded then waited for her mother to stop tightening the collar. "Alright, now you get to sleep."

Ella Sue was cocooned in her pink bathrobe, which had once been soft and fluffy. Now, it had bald patches like a mange-ridden rabbit, and wasn't as warm as it used to be. 

She laid her head, and the rear seat's leather chilled her cheek, a crack hardened with age snagging a lock of her oily blond hair. She wiggled farther beneath the blanket to free it, the way she'd gotten used to doing in her new bed...the way she'd gotten used to a lot of things. 

The car door opened and a blast of wind crawled over her. "Don't stay up, you hear?" Ella Sue nodded. "Love ya." The door slammed shut. 

Mother was off to work again. Ella Sue bade her time...One, Two, Three, Four...  Her head rose slowly, and she looked out the car window. 

Long-hauls and trailers filled the parking lot behind the nightclub. Lampposts shadowed the area with a golden hue, where the red, green, and blue neon beaming from the club's sign reminded Ella Sue of Christmases she'd seen on television. 

She could hear the subtle thumping of music she'd grown accustomed to over the past few months. Deep bass, slow rhythmic melodies, and sometimes fast-paced. It was the only lullaby she ever remembered getting in her young life, and the vision of Mother walking away in high heels was enough to signify home to her. She lowered again (that pesky rip in the seat caught her hair and she freed it) and she balled into a fetal position, gripping the corner of her blanket. 

There was laughter, the wild kind that seemed free, shrills of delight which she'd never experienced herself. She heard it in the back of her mind, not really through her ears. She was part of the fun without knowing what was going on. But the woman's chuckles sounded familiar.   

Ella Sue peeled open her eyes, and the fog on her brain gradually dissipated. She now recalled her surroundings (trucks, cars, club, parking lot) but hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep. Her awakening not only brought to realization she wasn't part of the fun outside her door, but also aroused a volcanic grumbling in her stomach. Maybe that's why she'd entered her slumber so readily--she hadn't eaten since breakfast at Mitch's gas station.  

She sat up and peered out the window. The laughing woman she thought was Mother was in fact not her. This woman accompanied a man toward a dark colored pickup. They didn't go inside though. They were entangled upside the hood, kissing, touching. Ella Sue watched with a lesser degree of curiosity than that of waiting for Mother to come out with her man. Once Mother spent time with her fella, then she'd come back home to the car. 

Sometimes Ella Sue would have to wait for Mother to entertain four or five before she'd hear the door open and shut, and the engine start.  After that, it was only a matter of a time before they'd park at the rear of Mitch's gas station, where the sunlight warmed them behind the convenience store. Ella Sue would climb over and onto the front seat, then curl up beside Mother as she nodded off. Only too soon Mitch would come out, knock on the glass, and wake them. Mother would give him money, then later she and Ella Sue could wash up inside and grab something to eat. 

This was routine, normal, the way it was for the past few months since Mother left rehab. She'd promised Ella Sue it was only temporary, until she got back on her feet.

Ella Sue noticed the laughing woman also needed to get back on her feet. The man had her propped up on the front bumper, her legs wrapped around him, and the truck rocked back and forth. Ella Sue sighed with boredom and lowered again. 

Ella Sue, Part 2