Into the old rumbly truck with, one, two, three bikes in the back, with one, then two, and finally three girls squished into the cab.
A nice evening, overall.
"Y'know, your mother disappeared a lot."
Princess and Izzy had been dropped off just moments ago at their respective homes, leaving Dollface with her grandfather in the truck with duct-taped upholstery.
"Yes Grampa." Dollface stared out the window into the darkened town after her friends had been dropped off, voice deepening to its natural, flat pitch. She didn't like being serious around outsiders.
The lights flickered, and she swore she saw someone standing in a dim streetlight.
She brushed the lone figure off as a trick of the light and her tired mind. She thought too much.
Dollface sat next to her grandfather, a weathered man in his sixties, in the passenger seat, watching as he turned onto Old Town Road, well past home and meandering through the woods that surrounded them on one side, burning hot fields of corn and beans on the other.
"Hey, where we goin'?"
Grampa always did this when he needed to talk to his grandchild in private. Dollface shifted in the seat, picking at the tape by her thigh. A little chair stuffing was stuck to the sticky side.
Was she supposed to do something today and forgot? Dollface immediately tried to remember her day and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.
"Around this age, your mother disappeared."
"So?" Dollface asked. This information was nothing new. Maymie had disappeared years ago in a far off December and came back with a near-strange's child growing inside her.
Silence.
Utter and total silence.
Dollface hated that sound. She had to stop herself from turning on the radio.
She preferred the sounds of animals and the funny little air compressors controlling their every move and the clattering, clumsy joy of being there. If not that, dancing in her room and blasting KISS or Def Leppard while Gramma got upset about 'Devil Music'.
Tipper Gore could suck it, as far as Dollface was concerned.
But Grampa, who'd found many of the prized records in the trash, was number one in Dollface's book.
Dollface watched the trees shake past, watching for eyes as the truck rumbled down Old Town Road. She could hear the big highway that had killed her town just a few ridges over and remembered seeing Michael on Halloween night, face down in the mud among beer cans and cattails.
She shifted, knowing she had to be present for this conversation.
Dollface had never really seen her mother in person, never particularly wanted to, but Gramma made her keep a little picture of Maymie Cowatch in her wallet. She'd rather just toss it out and replace it with a picture of Courage or her friends, but the one time she tried, Gramma had sobbed for hours until it was put back in.
Dollface didn't really look like her mother, Marion, the teen with long, silky blonde hair, and large, blue, borderline cartoon doe-eyes like sapphires set in a porcelain, oval face.
Blegch.
Dollface took after the mystery man that was her father.
Whoever that asshole could be.
Dollface often thought she was born with a man's face.
While she had the fair skin and blonde hair of her under-aged mother, she possessed dark, almond eyes and a square face with a little dent in her chin. She had the darkest eyes in the town, and when she was little, no one would let her forget that.
Meeting Michael had changed that.
She also was only five feet tall, and comparing the notches on the kitchen wall and the only family portrait she could find in the cottage attic, Maymie was significantly more than that.
Dollface wondered sometimes what her mother would look like if she was here now.
Maybe taller? But like, how?
Would she have cut her hair like Dollface did two years ago?
Puck would be in her thirties now, as she had been just what, like, sixteen when Dollface had been born?
Marion supposedly refused to state a father, making this whole ordeal more painful for Dollface's family. It never bothered Dollface much though. After a while, things just became your reality. The world went on, and there was no need to fuss.
"Your mother and- We just wanted t'check in, that's all."
Dollface continued to watch out of the window into the night. Grampa and Gramma sometimes forgot they weren't Dollface's parents. Hell, Dollface even forgot sometimes.
The small thought of what was happening outside of her little world passed through her head, but Dollface let this little wonder pass her by as she toyed with the hoop in her cartilage.
It rarely concerned her.
"We don't want t'take anything away, but we do just want you to start planning things out more, think of th'long term. No more gettin' up an' leavin' whenever ya please t'play with friends. And maybe take school more seriously. Yer mother had her faults, but education wasn't one until th'end."
Dollface nodded. She understood and didn't find herself worrying much. She was a good girl, and always tried to tell her grandparents where she was and keep up. But with Missy pestering her, she couldn't even pull up the grades in what she was good at. Unlike most kids, Dollface had never hit that, 'I'm running away from home' phase.
Life just goes on no matter where you are. And so far, life was already moving on.
"And we're here." Grandpa rolled into the driveway of the little home. Dollface jumped out with the click of her buckle and a snap of the door. They must've looped around when she wasn't looking.
"Once you've finished your shower, get t'bed ASAP, alright babe'gurl?"
"Yes sir!" She said vigorously. She must not have noticed the sparse streetlights appearing into her hazy view.
After her shower and a burst of minty freshness in her mouth, Dollface settled into bed for the night, dreams of flying and empty worlds filling her head to dissipate in the morning light.