Night Road (38 page)

*

“She doesn’t even know I can’t read,” Grace said, her voice heavy with disappointment. She slithered out of Jude’s grasp and got to her feet. “When does my daddy get home?”

Jude couldn’t take her eyes away from the battered shoe box on her sofa. It looked absurdly small and out of place against the expensive fabric.

“Nana?” Grace said, stomping her foot for emphasis. “I want to go home.”

Jude looked up, seeing Grace standing by the fireplace with a mutinous look in her eyes. Her granddaughter was scared, and so she lashed out. It was exactly what Zach would have done at that age. “Okay. But I don’t know when your daddy will be home.”

“I don’t care,” Grace said, but her voice wobbled a little.

“You want a hug?”

“I just wanna see my daddy.”

Jude sighed. It was hardly surprising that Grace didn’t want to be comforted by a grandmother who’d spent years ignoring her. “Get your things together and we’ll go.”

As Grace picked up her toys, Jude walked slowly into the living room. For a moment or two, she stared at the shoe box full of letters.

“I’m ready,” Grace said, holding her yellow blanket against her cheek.

Jude picked up the box and carried it out to the car. She strapped Grace into her car seat and placed the letters in the passenger seat beside her, where now they seemed to take up a lot of room.

Jude could tell how upset her granddaughter was, and she wanted to soothe the little girl, but too many separate years had left them strangers. Grace didn’t even look to her grandmother for comfort. “It’s okay to be upset, Gracie. Meeting your mom is confusing, I’ll bet.”

Grace ignored her, talking furiously to her wrist.

Jude stared down at her granddaughter for a long time, perhaps longer than ever before, and then slowly, she stepped back and closed the car door. On the way back to Zach’s, Jude tried to start a few conversations, but Grace didn’t answer. The little girl just kept saying,
come back, Ariel, I need you, really,
and the fervent whispers reminded Jude of years ago, when a little girl who looked just like Grace used to whisper to her brother constantly in a language only he could understand.

At the cabin, Jude parked and helped Grace out of her car seat.

She took hold of Grace’s small hand. “How about if I read you a story?”

Grace looked suspicious. Finally, she said, “Okay,” slowly, as if she expected Jude to rescind the offer and maybe start laughing.

They walked silently into the cabin and Grace headed straight for her bedroom. She grabbed the silvery white princess doll that was her favorite and climbed up onto the white spindle bed, wiggling under the colorful Wall-E comforter. “I’m sucking my thumb,” she said defiantly.

Jude couldn’t help smiling. “Maybe I will, too.” She popped her thumb into her mouth.

Grace smiled. “You’re too old.”

Laughing at that, Jude went to the bookcase.

A thin white-jacketed book caught her eye. Slowly, she picked it out from among the others and sat next to Grace. Opening the book, she began to read: “The day Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind or another and his mother called him ‘Wild Thing’…” The words took Jude back to a room that was full of action figures and plastic dinosaurs, to a little boy who laughed all the time and wouldn’t listen to stories unless his sister was beside him. The memories were close enough to inhale. For a second, she was a young mother again, sitting in the middle of a big king-sized bed with a baby tucked under each arm and a book open in her lap …

“It’s not sad, Nana. Why are you crying?”

“I forgot how much I loved this book. It reminds me of my … children.” It was the first time in years she’d said the tender word aloud. Children. She’d had two.

“I like it, too,” Grace said earnestly, moving closer to Jude, almost snuggling up against her. For a long time, they sat there, connected as Jude read the story. When she closed the book and looked down, Grace was asleep.

She kissed Grace’s soft pink cheek and left the room, closing the door behind her.

In the living room, she found the letters waiting for her, sitting on the coffee table where she’d left them.

They weren’t hers to open.

Still, she stared down at the accordionlike array of letters. The envelopes were unsealed; she could see that. Maybe Lexi had wanted to reread what she’d written over the years.

She finally picked up the whole box and sat down with them in her lap. She stared at them a long time, knowing it was wrong to read them.

Just one. To see if this will break Zach’s heart …

She pulled out the first envelope in the box and opened it. The letter inside was written on cheap white paper. Gray splotches marred the surface. Tears.

This letter was dated November 2005. It had taken Lexi a long time to write this first letter.

With a tightening in her chest that felt a little like the start of a panic attack, Jude began to read. She had read only the first few paragraphs when the front door opened and Zach walked in. He looked nervous, upset.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, tossing his backpack onto the floor. It skidded across the hardwood and thunked against the wall. He shoved the hair out of his eyes impatiently. “How did it go with Lexi today?”

Had it always been that way, she wondered suddenly? Had he always had Lexi on the forefront of his mind? And if so, how hard had it been to shut those feelings off?

“Listen to this,” Jude said.

“Can I listen later? I want to know—”

“It’s a letter Lexi wrote to Grace in prison.”

“Oh, man…” Zach collapsed onto the La-Z-Boy chair by the fireplace.

Jude saw how afraid he was to hear these words, and she understood. It was easier to suppress heartache than to overcome it. At least that was the road they’d both chosen. She cleared her throat and began to read:

Dear Grace,

I was eighteen years old when I had you. It seems sort of dumb to say since I’m only nineteen now, but I figured it would be something you’d want to know about me.

I wish I could forget about you. That’s a terrible thing to say, but if you were old enough to read this letter you’d already know where I am and what I did. Why I can’t be your mother.

So, I wish I could forget you.

But I can’t.

I wake up in this place and the first thing I think of is you. I wonder if your eyes turned green like your dad’s or if they are blue like mine. I wonder if you sleep through the night yet. If I could, I’d sing you to sleep every night. Not that I know any lullabies.

I fell in love with you before I ever even saw you. How is that possible? But I did, and then I held you, and then I handed you to Zach.

What was I supposed to do? Have you visit me in this place, have you see me through bars? I know how bad that is.

I read somewhere that grief can be like breaking a bone. You have to set it right or it can ache forever. I pray that someday you’ll understand that and forgive me.

I won’t send you this letter, but maybe someday when you’re grown up, you’ll come looking for me and I’ll have this box of letters and I’ll give them to you. I’ll say
See? I loved you.
Maybe you’ll even believe me.

Until then, at least, I know you’re safe. I used to dream I was a Farraday. You’re so lucky to have the family you do. If you’re sad, go to Miles. He can always make you laugh. Or ask Jude for a hug—no one hugs better than your grandma.

And then there’s your dad. If you let him, he’ll show you all the stars in the sky and he’ll make you feel like you can fly.

So I won’t worry about you, Gracie.

I’m going to try to forget you. I’m sorry, but I have to.

It hurts so much to love you.

Jude looked up at her son, whose eyes were bright with tears. He looked like her boy again, her golden Zach, and in that moment, she remembered the young Lexi, the girl who’d worn her heart on her sleeve and been the best friend Mia had ever had. She remembered the girl from the trailer park who had never known a mother’s love and yet always had a smile on her face. “It didn’t go well today with Lexi and Grace. Lexi screwed up.”

“What do you mean?”

“She went too quickly, pushed Grace before she was ready.”

“She doesn’t know how to be a mom. How could she?”

“No one does,” Jude said quietly. “I remember how overwhelmed I felt by you and … Mia.”

“You were a great mom.”

Jude couldn’t look at him. “Once, maybe. Not anymore, though. I haven’t acted like your mom in a long time, and we both know it. I … lost that. I thought…” She paused and forced herself to look at him again. “I blamed you. I did, even though I know I shouldn’t. And I blamed Lexi. And myself.”

“It wasn’t your fault. We knew better … that night,” he said.

Jude felt a searing pain in her heart at the reminder. It was the kind of pain that had always been a barrier before, something from which to retreat. Now she pushed through it.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t have drunk that night, but Lexi shouldn’t have driven, and I shouldn’t have let you go. I knew there was going to be drinking there. What was I thinking to trust drunk eighteen-year-olds to make wise decisions? Why did I just assume that we couldn’t stop you from drinking? And … Mia should have had her seatbelt on. There’s blame enough to go around.”

“It’s
my
fault,” he said, and although Jude had heard him say it before, she felt the weight of his burden for the first time. It shamed her that she’d been so focused on her own grief that she’d let her son carry his alone.

She went to him, took him by the hand, and pulled him to his feet. “We
all
carry this, Zach. We’ve carried it for so long it’s reshaped our spines, bent us. We have to stand up again. We have to forgive ourselves.”

“How?” he asked simply. In his green eyes, she saw Mia, too. She’d forgotten that somehow, in her grief; her babies were twins, and Mia would always be alive in Zach. And now there was Grace, too.

She put a hand on his face, seeing the faint scar along his jawline. “She’s there … in you,” she said gently. “How did I forget that?”

Twenty-six

“Come on,” Lexi-Mommy says, holding out her hand. “You want to live with me, don’t you?”

The hand turns black and long yellow nails grow out from the fingers like hooks, and Grace screams—

“I’m right here, Princess.”

She heard her daddy’s voice and threw her arms around him. He smelled like he was supposed to, and the nightmare faded away until she remembered that she was in her own bed, in her own room, just where she belonged. There were no wild things here.

Her dad held her close and stroked her hair. “You okay?”

She felt like a baby. “Sorry, Daddy,” she mumbled.

“Everyone has bad dreams sometimes.”

She knew that was true, because when she was little, she used to hear him screaming in his sleep, and she’d go to him and climb into his bed. He never woke up, but he stopped yelling when she was with him. In the morning, he’d smile tiredly at her and say something about how she really should be a big girl and learn to sleep in her own bed.

“Don’t make me go away, Daddy. I won’t lie anymore. I promise. And I won’t sock Jacob in the nose,
ever
. I’ll be good.”

“Ah, Princess,” he said, sighing. “I should have known your mom would come back for you. I should have prepared us both. It’s just … I tried not to think about her.”

“Cuz she’s mean?”

“No,” Daddy said, and it scared her, how sad he sounded. “She’s the opposite of mean.”

“Maybe she got mean when she was a spy.”

“She’s not a spy, Princess.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

Grace bit her lower lip nervously. “What’s she like?”

Daddy shook his head. For a long time, he was quiet. Grace was about to ask something else when he said, “I met your mom in high school.” His voice was weird; it sounded like he had something stuck in his throat. “I would have asked her out on that first day, but she was already Mia’s friend. So … I tried not to love her … until one night … she almost kissed me. That changed everything. I couldn’t stay away from her after that.”

“Girls aren’t supposed to do that,” Grace mumbled around her thumb.

“Your grandmother would tell you that girls can do anything. That’s what she told my sister, anyway.”

Grace frowned. Daddy seemed all … gooey, and his eyes were shiny. He was acting like he loved Mommy, but that was stupid because he said she didn’t like him. None of this made sense. “But she didn’t want me,” Grace said. “She left me.”

“Sometimes people don’t have a choice about what they do.”

“Is she gonna visit me again?”

Dad looked down at Grace. “Your mom is really special, Princess, and I know she loves you. That’s what matters now. The reason she’s been gone is … well, really it was my fault, too. I let her be the one who was wrong. But I was wrong, too.”

“Wrong about what?”

He acted like he was going to say something, then he must have changed his mind. He kissed her forehead instead.

“Daddy?”

“You go to sleep, baby. This is all going to work out. You’ll see. We’re going to work all this out.”

“But you’ll stay with me, right, Daddy?”

“Of course, but she’s your mom, Gracie, and you need her, no matter what you think.”

*

“I screwed up, Scot,” Lexi said again. She was in his office, pacing back and forth in front of the window, chewing on her thumbnail.

“Lexi.
Lexi
.”

She stopped, faced him. “Did you say something?”

“Sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”

She went to his desk and stood there, looking down at Scot, who looked a little tired today. His hair was a mess and his tie was askew. “Are you okay?”

“Danny has colic. Jenny and I aren’t sleeping much. But I’m fine.”

Lexi reached down for the framed photograph on Scot’s desk. In it, a pudgy bald baby boy held a plastic key. It made her sad, seeing this baby, thinking of Grace, wondering if she’d had colic or if she’d slept through the night like an angel. “I don’t know anything about being a mom,” she said quietly, feeling defeated again.

“No one does at the start,” Scot said. “I kept looking for a manual with Danny, but all he came with was a blanket. And I’m pretty sure his grandma gave it to him. Sit down, Lexi.”

She collapsed more than anything, realizing all of a sudden how exhausted she was. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Scot handed her a newspaper. “It won’t do any good to dwell on your mistake. Now is the time for action, Lexi. We need to show the court, and the Farradays, that you’re here to stay and that you’re ready to parent Grace. The best way to do that is to find a job.”

“A job. Of course.”

“I’ve circled a few possibilities. I wish I had enough business to employ you here—”

“You’ve done enough. Thank you, Scot.”

“Jenny has a navy blue suit that she thought you might want to borrow. It’s hanging off the door in the conference room.”

Lexi was once again filled by gratitude to this man, and his wife. She got slowly to her feet. “Danny is a lucky kid. You know that, right?”

He looked up. “So is Grace.”

“I hope so,” Lexi said quietly, feeling a thin resurgence of hope. Saying good-bye to Scot, she went into the conference room and put on Jenny’s navy blue summer-weight suit. It didn’t look great with Lexi’s ice blue T-shirt and flip-flops, but it was the best she had.

In less than forty minutes, she was on her bike, heading to the local drugstore, which had advertised for a sales clerk. Full time, minimum wage.

Inside the bright store, with its array of colorful shelving, she paused and looked around. At the nearest cash register, a heavyset woman with a beehive-like gray pile of hair stood, talking on her cell phone.

Lexi went to the checkout line and stood there.

“You buying something, hon?” the woman said, lowering the phone just a little.

“I’m here for the job.”

“Oh.” The woman bent forward, pressed one scythelike red fingernail to the store intercom, and said, “Manager to register one, please.” Then she smiled at Lexi, straightened, and went back to her phone conversation.

“Thank you,” Lexi said, although the woman wasn’t listening.

Lexi saw the manager approach register one. He was a tall, thin man, very Ichabod Crane–y, with a nose like an eagle’s beak and spiny eyebrows that grew wild as blackberry bushes.

She moved toward him confidently, extended her hand. “Hello, sir. I’m Alexa Baill. I’ve come to apply for the clerk position.”

He shook her hand. “Follow me.”

She followed him back into a small, windowless office that was stacked high with cardboard boxes. He sat behind the metal desk and pointed to a stool in the corner.

She dragged the stool over to the desk and sat down, feeling a little conspicuous on the perch.

“Do you have a résumé?”

Lexi felt her cheeks heat up. “No. It’s a sales clerk job, right? In high school, I worked at Amoré, the ice cream shop. I’m good with money and even better with people. I’m a good employee, and I can work any shift. I could get you some recommendations.”

“When did you work at Amoré?”

“From 2002 to 2004. I … quit in June, after I graduated from high school.”

He wrote something down on a piece of paper that looked like an application. “And you’re home from college now? Is this a summer job for you?”

“No. I’m looking for full-time employment.”

He looked up sharply. His thick eyebrows veed together. “You went to Pine Island High?”

“Yes.”

“Most local kids don’t work here full-time. Where have you worked since high school?”

Lexi swallowed hard. “Part-time in a library.”

“What library?”

She let out a quiet breath and lost her good posture. “Purdy.”

“You don’t mean—”

“The prison. I’ve been in prison for a few years. But now I’m out, and I’ll be a good employee. I guarantee you that.” She was speaking, but it was useless. She saw the way his face shuttered at the word
prison,
the way he wouldn’t meet her gaze now.

“All right, then,” he said, giving her his first smile—and it was pure fiction. “I’ll contact you when we’ve made our decision.”

“That means no job,” she said, sliding off the stool.

“It means I’ll contact you if we want to hire you.”

“Yeah.” She tried to stay optimistic; it was only the first of many potential jobs. Maybe other employers would be more liberal minded. “So, do you want my phone number?”

He looked at her finally. “You can give it to me if you want.”

She wanted to tell him
no way
and walk out with some stitch of dignity, but she had Grace to consider, so she wrote down her phone number and left the drugstore’s bright interior. Outside, she opened her newspaper and found the next opening. A waitress position at Esmerelda’s Mexican Kitchen.

For the rest of the afternoon, Lexi tried to believe in herself, even as one job after another evaporated in front of her. Most of the available positions were part-time, without benefits. She lost track of the times some employer had mentioned the economy as her enemy. Apparently she’d gone to prison in good times and come out in bad. Minimum wage was less than nine dollars an hour. That gave her maybe fifteen hundred dollars a month income, before taxes; well over half would go to rent.

But apparently none of that mattered because she couldn’t get a job. She’d spoken to twelve employers today, and every conversation ended up the same way.

What have you been doing since high school?

College, really? Where?

Who was your last employer?

Oh
(and the look)—
the prison library
.

I’m sorry, the position had been filled … You’re too young … I’ll let you know …

One excuse after another. The hell of it was, she couldn’t blame them. Who wanted to hire a twenty-four-year-old ex-con?

And if that weren’t bad enough, after her useless job interviews, she’d checked out housing on the island.

There were only three apartment complexes, and one thing was sure: she couldn’t afford to live in any of them. The smallest of the available units rented for nine hundred fifty dollars per month. Plus, the landlord required first and last month’s rent and a security deposit in advance. Twenty-four hundred dollars, due on the day she signed the lease agreement.

It might as well be a million dollars.

A few phone calls confirmed that Port George was no better.

There were more rentals available on the other side of the bridge, but they were still way too expensive.

The whole day defeated Lexi. By the time she gave up, it was seven o’clock at night and she just wanted to be alone. She rode her bike through the quiet summer night and parked outside Scot’s office. Using her key, she walked inside. All she wanted to do was sleep. Or scream.

“Lexi? Is that you?”

She sighed and forced a smile. She owed Scot everything; it wasn’t his fault she was such a pathetic loser. “Hey, Scot,” she said, heading into his office. “You’re working late.”

“I was waiting for you. I have a surprise. Come here.”

He took her by the hand and led her to the conference room. On the long wooden table, a laptop was open. “Here,” he said, “sit down.”

Lexi did as she was told.

Scot left the room for a few moments and then returned. “Okay, we’re ready.” He pushed a button on the laptop and Aunt Eva’s worried face filled the screen. “I don’t know, Babs. How can you tell if it’s working?”

The sight of her aunt’s face was like a tonic. Lexi felt a loosening in her chest. For the first time in hours, she smiled. She
wasn’t
as alone as she’d thought. “Hey, Aunt Eva,” she said, scooting forward.

“She’s here, Barbara!” Eva’s face broke into a bright smile. “Come look! This is my Lexi.”

My Lexi
.

A heavyset woman with a head of steel gray curls bent at the waist and peered into the camera, smiling. “Hello, Alexa. My sister never stops talking about you.”

“Hey, Barbara,” Lexi said softly, overcome with emotion.

Barbara’s face moved out of view and Eva scooted closer to her computer. She looked different, older; her cheeks were deeply tanned and lined and her hair had gone completely white. “So, tell me everything, Lexi.”

Scot left the room and shut the door behind him.

“I met Gracie,” Lexi said. It was the first thing that came to mind.

“How is she?”

“Sad. Beautiful. Lonely.”

“Oh. That must be hard to see.”