Sorrow Road (9 page)

It was just after three p.m. Bell had heard the Kia grinding its way up the street—an hour ago the plow had whittled a path up Shelton Avenue roughly the width of a single car—and she leapt up from her chair and raced over to open the door. By the time she got there, Carla was already crossing the porch.

The moment Bell touched her, it was all over. Carla's stoicism crumbled. She wept, just as she had done in the little roadside store. Her body trembled, caught as it was in accelerating waves of an emotion too intense to be held inside a second longer.

“Mom,” Carla whispered. She was about to say the thing she did not want to say, because her mother was the bravest, strongest, steadiest, steeliest person she knew, and to admit this to such a person—even if the person loved her, as Bell unquestionably did, and did unconditionally—was shameful, ridiculous, unthinkable.

But also necessary. If, that is, Carla wanted to be able to take another breath. If, that is, she wanted to live past this moment and on into the next one, and then the one after that.

“Carla, sweetie—what is it? Is there anything I can—”

“I'm scared, Mom. I'm just really, really scared.”

*   *   *

And so they talked. Naturally, that's what they did: They assumed their familiar positions in the living room as if no time at all had passed, as if this were four years ago and Carla was still a junior in high school and Bell still a fledgling prosecutor, both of them feeling their way through new roles in a new place that was also an old place. A known place. Bell automatically went for her favorite spot, the dilapidated armchair with the coffee-stain tattoos on all visible surfaces, and Carla's straight-line path took her to the green couch, in the middle of which she plopped down and yanked off her boots and settled back against the nubby, pilled, all-but-worn-out fabric.

Carla closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, and only let the air out in staggered stages.

Bell looked at her daughter.

Home,
Carla's expression said, more eloquently than any words.
I'm home now. Nothing else matters.

But the truth was, of course, that plenty else mattered. Time had passed. Too much time, really, for the illusion to last that being home could fix everything. Carla was a young adult now, not a teenager. The brief moment at the door—when Carla had dissolved in Bell's arms, amid a frantic avalanche of tears and babbled, incoherent talk about having ruined everything,
everything
—was over. It had passed now. They were different people than they had been when Carla moved out, and even Bell's furious love for her daughter was not enough to win the fight against all those years, all those changes.

So as Bell sat and waited for Carla to tell her the reason for her tears, she realized that no matter what Carla said, most likely it would not be the real story.

It would not be a lie, but it also would not be the real story. Carla would be vague, and she would give her the short summary version. The real story would be a while in coming—days, maybe, or even weeks. Carla, she knew, would understand that she owed her mother
some
explanation for having kicked over the barn of her current life and winding up in Acker's Gap on a cold winter afternoon—but the long story, the thorough one, the one with all the loops and turnings, was not going to be forthcoming. Not today, anyway.

Carla opened her eyes. She offered Bell a tiny smile, a sheepish one, one that seemed to say:
Can you even
believe
what a ridiculous baby I was just a few minutes ago? Crying like that? I mean—Jesus.
Her cheeks were still shiny-wet with the ghost trails of the tears.

“God, Mom—sorry I lost it there for a minute.”

“It's okay.” Bell let her eyes rove over Carla's thin face. Her eyes seemed slightly sunken, ringed by smudges of fatigue. “You're exhausted.”

“Yeah.”

Bell waited. With Carla, you could not come on too strong. You did not push. Pushing was counterproductive. It irritated Bell sometimes, having to be patient until Carla finally decided to open up, but this was the only way.

“In fact,” Carla said, adopting a breezy tone out of the blue, “that's the problem. I'm, like,
really
tired. I could barely keep my eyes open on the drive over. The thing I said about being scared—that's just drama queen stuff. I'm not really scared of anything. I'm just whipped. I haven't been sleeping very well.”

“So you came all this way for a nap?”

That was a mistake. Carla shook her head. She sighed; she was annoyed. She spoke to an invisible witness in the room. “Same old Mom.”

“Look.” Bell leaned forward. She reached across the distance between them and touched Carla's knee with two fingers. “You don't have to tell me anything. Not unless you want to. You're always welcome here, no matter what. You know that. But you can't blame me for asking a few questions. And if there's anything I can help you with, anything I can do or—”

“There's not.” Carla's voice was as blunt and non-negotiable as a D
EAD
E
ND
sign. “I just want—I just want to chill. I don't know for how long. I want to move back into my old room again and just
be
here, okay?”

“Okay.”

Carla was plainly ready to change the subject. She looked around. “I kind of thought you'd have another dog by now.”

“A dog.”

“Yeah. I mean, you and Goldie hit it off so well.”

Last year Bell had kept a dog that belonged to a defendant. Initially she had been reluctant to invite a strange animal into her home, but by the time the man—now exonerated—returned to collect his companion, Bell had grown to love Goldie. Watching her leave that day had been an excruciating emotional ordeal. Many people had predicted that Bell would be haunting the Raythune County Animal Shelter the very next weekend, searching for a new pet.

But they didn't understand. She could no more have replaced Goldie than she could have gone out and found another stubborn, smart-talking teenager to replace Carla once the latter left for D.C. It didn't work that way. Loved ones weren't like interchangeable parts. Love was a singular event, and every love was different. That was what made it special.

“I go out and see her from time to time,” Bell said. She hadn't really addressed Carla's point, which was a deliberate strategy. “Royce lives way out in the middle of East Jesus, but it's worth the drive,” she added, naming Goldie's owner.

“Bet she goes crazy when she sees you, right?”

Bell nodded and smiled. “Oh, sure. Just about licks me to death.” That was true, but the reality was—a reality she did not share with Carla—that with each visit, Goldie's enthusiasm waned a bit. Goldie was letting go. Gradually, she was forgetting about the time she had spent with Bell, and at some point in the future Bell would be just another visitor, her arrival greeted with curious barks and mad sniffing and then a reassuring tail wag:
You're okay,
the wag would imply.
I've thoroughly vetted you. Feel free to advance at will.

“One of my roommates has a dog,” Carla said. “She's sort of annoying.”

“The roommate or the dog?”

“Both, come to think of it.” Carla grinned. The grin looked good on her face, and Bell hoped it would last a while longer. It didn't. “So you're okay,” Carla went on, “if I just hang out for a while? Stay in my old room?”

“Of course.”

Bell waited for more, even though she sensed there was not going to be more. Not now, anyway. And not, for the time being, about anything that really mattered. They sat silently for a brief run of seconds. They were like two cars stuck in snow.

At last Carla said, “So what's been going on around here? Other than the crazy weather?”

“Plenty,” Bell said. Briefly, she told her daughter about Darlene Strayer's death the night before. She had mentioned Darlene to Carla over the years. Tracked her success. Sitting at the kitchen table in this very house and seeing a wire story in the paper about a significant case and how instrumental Darlene had been in seeing it through, Bell would tap the headline with a finger and murmur, “Local girl.” Hoping Carla got the message:
You can be from here and go anywhere. Do anything.

“So it was the same road you'd just gone down a few hours before your friend's accident,” Carla said. She seemed a little shaken by the idea.

“Yes. But I wasn't drunk.”

Carla reacted with her eyebrows.

“Won't sugarcoat it,” Bell said brusquely. When Carla was in high school, Bell had lectured her and her friends endlessly about driving while drunk or stoned. As far as she knew, Carla had never done so. But there was a lot that mothers never found out about, unless a night ended in disaster. Bell knew that. Lecturing about dangerous things was one of those activities that mothers were hardwired to do, effective or not. “Turns out,” Bell added, “Darlene probably had an alcohol problem going way back to law school. Or maybe before. I don't know. She kept it hidden. And kept herself under control.”

“Until last night.”

“Until last night.” Bell nodded.

More silence.

“Do you see much of Aunt Shirley?” Carla asked.

“Not as much as I'd like.” Shirley was Bell's older sister. She had returned to Acker's Gap after serving a long prison sentence for an act of violence. The violence was thoroughly justified, but the law didn't see it that way. Now she lived two counties away with her boyfriend, an aspiring songwriter named Bobo Bolland. She worked as a clerk in an auto parts store. She hated it but, as she'd once told Bell and Carla when the three of them were having dinner, you were
supposed
to hate it; it's when you stopped hating that kind of job, when you settled into it without a fight, that you needed to start worrying.

“She posts a lot of funny stuff on Facebook,” Carla said. “Bobo has a fan page.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. He's got a bunch of Likes.” Carla checked out the living room with her gaze, as if she needed to make sure it was still the place she remembered: fireplace, picture window, bookshelves, coffee table. Then her eyes came back around to her mother.

“How's Clay?” Carla asked.

This was tricky, and so Bell hesitated. Carla knew all about her relationship with Clay Meckling. That wasn't the tricky part. The tricky part was that Bell could not answer Carla's question—because she had not spoken to Clay in a week and a half. Not since the moment when her lover had caught her so completely by surprise, when he had startled her so profoundly that she had been forced to wonder: Who was the real Clay Meckling? Was it the gentle good man with whom she had fallen in love four years ago—or was it the man who had stood before her in that shattering moment, having just revealed a part of himself that she had never suspected could live inside him, amidst all the decency and casual gallantry?

“He's fine,” Bell said. She would tell her the truth later—or part of the truth, anyway. As much as Carla needed to know. Too much truth could be as bad as too little.

Jesus,
Bell thought wryly.
And I wonder where Carla learned about evasiveness and the artful deployment of partial facts.

Carla's voice was apprehensive. “And he'll be okay with—with me, like, living here again? I mean, I won't be in the way or…”

“Sweetie.” Bell's eyes blazed with conviction. “This is your home. Your
home.
That's the only thing that matters, okay? So it doesn't matter who else is in my life. Doesn't matter how long you've been gone. This place will always be here—
right here
—waiting for you. This house—and me. Clear?”

“Clear.” The word sounded muddy. Carla needed to get something out of her throat. “Clear,” she repeated. Stronger this time.

“Good,” Bell said, reaching out and giving Carla's knee a light double-pat at the same time she said it, as if to seal the deal. “You remember that.”

“Mind if I take my stuff upstairs?”

“'Course not.”

They rose in unison. There was so much more Bell wanted to ask her, so many questions she had about the reason for Carla's return and the source of her daughter's emotional tumult—but she reminded herself that she could not do it all at once. She'd have to bide her time. Pick her spots.

There would have to be a few house rules. Some structure. All of that could be worked out in the days to come.

“So I'll see you later,” Carla said.

“At dinner. Chicken okay?”

“Sure.” Her daughter turned and started trudging toward the staircase. She retrieved her backpack from its spot by the door. She didn't sling it over her shoulder. She held it at her side by the thick strap, so that it dangled like a hunter's bounty.

“Hey. One more thing.” Bell had to speak. Their entire conversation had felt stilted, unnatural; just a little while ago Carla had been sobbing in her arms. Now she was nonchalant. The change was jarring. Something was wrong. Just because Carla would not tell her what it was did not mean that it wasn't important. “The offer stands, okay?” Bell said. “I mean—to talk about whatever's bothering you. Whenever you feel up to it.”

Carla had paused at the initial “Hey.” She had not turned around; she simply stopped walking.

Now she did turn. She looked as if she was about to say something, but had lost her nerve. “Can I, like, just live my life for a while, Mom? With no questions until I'm ready? Promise I won't be in your way. I'm going to get a job. Already have an interview set up for tomorrow morning.”

“Fine. But at some point, I'd really like to sit down and have a good long talk about—”

“Got it, Mom.” Carla gave her a thumbs-up sign. “Full disclosure. Soon.”