Read The Heart is Deceitful above All Things for Free Online

. .’ Her keys rattle and turn in the ignition.
    â€˜Sorry, ma’am, there’s a cheap motel up a ways . . .’
    â€˜Oh, I will check it out.’ The car rolls forward slightly. ‘Well, thank you, sir.’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am, have a safe trip.’
    The car pulls onto the road. ‘Righty-right, see ya . . .’ Her hand taps a good-bye. ‘Motherfucker,’ she mutters.
    â€˜You up?’ Her hand gropes behind the seat. ‘I’m up, you’re up,’ she says, and the blanket is pulled off me.
    I raise my head cautiously. ‘You were wise to stay down or they woulda taken you. And that woulda been that.’
    The car door opening and loud laughter wakes me.
    â€˜Can’t you all but wait till we get on to your place?’
    â€˜Pretty flower like you, ah won’t let you be wiltin’ on me.’
    I stay quiet against the backseat.
    When they settle into the seats, I raise my head slightly. A big cowboy hat with a man under it is where she should be, driving. They smell like smoke and the beers she drinks.
    â€˜I ran them boys away from you with but a fly swatter and shotgun, sugar. Claim you for my own some.’
    â€˜They did all clear away like jackrabbits when you brought me that Jack and ginger.’
    â€˜Damn straight they would.’ He snorts. The dark of the road floods the car.
    â€˜Lemme see in there, girlie.’
    â€˜That’s all you get for now.’
    Outside their laughter I fall back asleep.
    The door buzzer on the small gray house glows orange, like a lit Halloween pumpkin’s eye. A tinny, high-pitched buzz comes out of it.
    â€˜Goddamned,’ a man says from behind the door. Crickets silenced briefly by my footsteps to the house from the car have dismissed me as a danger and are singing even louder. I step closer to the door and buzz again.
    â€˜Who!’ the man’s voice shouts from inside.
    â€˜Me,’ I whisper, not sure what to say. She told me to never say my name.
    â€˜Selma?’
    â€˜Me.’ The crickets have quieted down some, to listen in or because there’s something else out there bigger than me.
    â€˜Who is it, goddamn it?!’
    I reach my hand out and scratch at the wooden door, like my dog did when he wanted back in.
    The door opens with a jerk and I look up at the man, naked except for his cowboy hat that’s not on his head but held in front of his lower self. The light inside is dim and flickers.
    â€˜Come on, Luther . . . carry yourself back home.’
    â€˜There’s a little kid here,’ he says over his shoulder. ‘You a boy or a girl?’ He taps my head. I stare at a hole in the top of the cowboy hat and say nothing.
    â€˜A kid? Oh, shit!’ I hear her say, then the sound of blankets being kicked off.
    â€˜What?’ he says, but steps aside.
    She fills the doorway, wrapped in a sheet like a ghost. My heart contracts.
    â€˜Momma,’ I start to say, but stop. ‘Sarah’ she had told me to call her: ‘I ain’t old and haggard enough to be Momma except in front of social workers––then I’m Momma. Got it?’
    But since we’ve been on the run from the law that are after me, I can’t be me and she can’t be she, and I don’t remember who we are.
    â€˜Jesus, I fuckin’ forgot!’
    â€˜What the f . . .’ He stares at her.
    â€˜Don’t go frownin’, Luther, or your face’ll stay like that.’ She walks past him, takes my arm, and pulls me inside. A bed fills the room, sheets tangled and rolled off the mattress so the blue prison-type stripes of it show.
    â€˜This is my brother . . . I’m sitting him.’
    â€˜What? He been in the car the whole time?’ The room smells sour, like sweat and farts.
    â€˜No, no, somebody dropped him off . . .’
    â€˜Who?’ He swings the door closed with a slam. The candle flickers from the draft of it. He switches