Night Road (34 page)

She looked up. “I
trusted
them, Scot,” she said, anger surging up. “All of them. Miles. Jude. Zach. I trusted them to give her the childhood I never had. And you know what I found? A lonely little girl whose daddy is too busy to be with her … a girl who gets yelled at for nothing … who plays all alone. A girl with no friends…”

“What do you want to do?”

She got up again and began pacing. “I’m a felon. An ex-con. I’m twenty-four years old with almost no job experience. Gee, I worked in the prison library and an ice cream shop, and I picked raspberries in the summer. I’m broke. What
can
I do?”

“Did your Aunt Eva have money when she took you in?”

Lexi stopped moving and stared out of the office window. Outside, a young mother was helping her red-haired daughter up to a silver drinking fountain. “She had a job and a place to live.”

“You have a college degree and you’re a hard worker. On top of that, you’re one of the most honorable people I know. You know more about love—and its lack—than most people. So I’ll ask you again: what do you want to do? It’s a simple question. Either you stay or you go.”

“And if I choose to stay?”

“We would petition the court to modify the parenting plan. We’d seek joint custody. Or, failing that, visitation rights.”

“Supervised, I suppose. Me being an ex-con.”

“You aren’t a violent offender, Lexi,” he said. “You aren’t your mother. But yes, they might impose supervision at the start. I didn’t say it would be easy, but you
will
get visitation rights at least, and you’ll quite possibly get joint custody. We wouldn’t get full custody, but you’re her
mother,
Lexi. The court knows how important you are to her. And you’re welcome to stay at my office until you find someplace else.”

You’re her mother
.

For years, even before Gracie was born, Lexi barred that thought from her consciousness. The words were simply too painful to consider, but now, hearing them spoken aloud, she heard their sweetness, and longing swelled inside of her.

She could hold Gracie, hug her and kiss her and take her to the park …

“It won’t be easy,” Scot said into the building silence. “I imagine the Farradays will fight you.”

It was too late to worry about that now. She’d loosened the idea of motherhood, and it had uprooted her, swept her skyward. “Let’s file the papers,” Lexi said.

“You’re sure?”

She finally turned to face him. “I’m sure.”

*

Jude gave up trying to sleep at about four o’clock. She left the warmth of her bedroom and made her way into the dark living room. There, standing in front of the tall black windows, she stared at her own tarnished reflection.

She knew what the doctors wanted her to believe: that panic had caused her delusion rather than the other way around.

She wanted to believe it, too.

But she didn’t believe it and that was that. Sometime during the night, she’d become convinced. So much so that hours later, when Miles shuffled through the great room in search of coffee, she said. “I saw her. Lexi. I saw her.”

Miles looked confused. “Wait.” Walking past her, he went into the kitchen and came out with a cup of coffee. “None for you. You look ready to blast off as it is. Now, say it again.”

“I saw her. I wasn’t mistaken.” She tapped her foot nervously, stared up at him.

“I always wanted to keep track of her.”

She nodded curtly. “I know. I didn’t. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Yeah. That’s how it works.” He stood there, naked except for his blue boxers, staring out the window. “Okay,” he finally said and handed her his coffee. “Let’s find out.”

He went to his laptop, pulled up a phone number, and then made a call.

“Hey, Bill, sorry to call so early, but we have a situation here. Can you find out when Alexa Baill was released?… yes, I’m aware we asked not to know. Something has changed. Yes. Thank you. I’ll be right here.”

He hung up and took his coffee back. “Are you okay?” he asked gently, touching her hair.

“I’ve been better.”

They stood there together, staring out at the backyard, saying nothing as the sky turned bright and blue. Time passed like the beats of their hearts, quiet and steady. The phone startled Jude so much she let out a little scream.

Miles answered. “Hello?”

Jude tapped her foot again and crossed her arms, digging her fingernails into her own arms so tightly she almost drew blood.

“Really?” Miles said, frowning. “Why is that? Oh. Okay, thanks. Again, sorry to bother you.” He hung up.

“Well?” Jude said, wishing she’d downed a Xanax.

“She was released two days ago. Time was added onto her sentence for bad behavior.”

Jude’s foot tapped so fast she was practically dancing. “She came straight here.”

“You don’t know that.”

“We have to
do
something. Get an injunction or something. Maybe we should move.”

“We are not going to move.” Miles took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. “Calm down, Jude.”

“Are you
insane
?” Jude felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside of her. She knew it was inappropriate to laugh now, but her emotions were all cross-wired these days. Sometimes she cried when she was happy and laughed when she was scared and screamed when she was tired. She pulled free of Miles and ran to her bedroom, where she found her Xanax and fumbled to open the bottle. “Damn childproof caps.”

Miles took it from her and opened it, handing her a pill, which she downed with his hot coffee. “You better get me an appointment with Dr. Bloom.”

She survived the next two hours in a medicated haze. She washed and dried her hair and dressed in a pale beige summer-weight sheath. It wasn’t until she was in Dr. Bloom’s chair, squirming under the psychiatrist’s sharp gaze, that she realized she was still in her slippers. “Thank you for making time for me,” Jude said, trying to hide her slippered feet.

“A panic attack. You haven’t had one in more than eighteen months. What happened?”

She couldn’t meet Harriet’s penetrating gaze. It made her feel weak and delusional. So she glanced to her left. “I was at Zach’s house on Saturday morning, making breakfast for everyone. Zach is studying for finals. School is going late this year. All those damn snow days add up.”

“And?” Harriet prompted.

“I saw Gracie outside … talking to … Lexi.”

“Lexi is the girl who was driving the car that night.”

“Yes.”

“We haven’t talked much about her. In fact, I believe you said you’d never come back if I mentioned her again.”

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Jude answered by rote, tapping her foot again.

“So you saw her again, after all these years, and you had a panic attack.”

“She was talking to Gracie!”

“Her daughter,” Dr. Bloom said.

Jude snapped to her feet and started pacing. She was having trouble breathing. “She gave up that right when she went to prison. She signed documents.”

“Is that when you think she gave up the right to be a mother? When she went to prison? Or when she killed your daughter?”

“Both,” Jude said, breathing hard now. Her chest hurt. “What’s the difference? She can’t waltz back in and act as if it never happened. Zach finally has his life back on track. I won’t let him see her again.”

“Sit down, Jude,” Dr. Bloom said in a reasonable voice.

“What if she wants … what if—oh, God.” Jude drew in a great gulping breath and started to panic. Dr. Bloom was beside her almost instantly, touching her back, rubbing it in a soothing way.

“You’re all right, Jude. Just breathe. Here, sit down.”

Jude got her breathing under control and the pain in her chest receded. With a shaking hand, she pushed the sweat-dampened hair out of her face and tried to smile. “I’m falling apart.”

“Would that really be so terrible?”

Jude wrenched away from the doctor. “Are you sure you went to med school?”

“Jude. You can’t control this situation.”

“Thanks for that pearl.” She looked longingly at the door. This wasn’t helping. “I should have swallowed a handful of pills when…” She couldn’t say the words out loud. She’d never been able to.

“You thought about it,” Dr. Bloom reminded her. “But even in the darkest times, you had hope.”

“You think hope is what stopped me?”

“What stopped you?”

She was not going to answer that. She hated the answer, anyway. “I’m worried about Zach, damn it. He’s fragile, like me. He’s never gotten over his guilt … or his grief. To see Lexi again … and what if she wants to be Grace’s mother? I won’t let her be a part of our family again. Oh, God…”

“She’s already a part of your family,” Harriet said.

“Shut up.”

“Excellent retort. By the way, you don’t sound like a woman who feels nothing for her granddaughter.”

Jude reached for her purse, snagged it. “I need to see a lawyer, not a shrink.”

“What makes you think you need a lawyer?”

“I need to protect Grace and Zach. Maybe we need a restraining order…”

“You think keeping Lexi away will protect them?”

“Of course. Have you even been listening to me?”

“Lexi is your granddaughter’s mother,” Dr. Bloom said gently. “You tell me you used to put a lot of store in motherhood.”

Jude reeled back. “I need to get out of here.” Without waiting for a response, she headed for the door. As she wrenched it open, she heard Dr. Bloom say, “She was eighteen years old, Jude. Think about that.”

Jude slammed the door behind her.

Twenty-two

Jude called Miles and asked him to meet her at Zach’s; then she drove straight down to the ferry dock. Her timing was impeccable. They were loading the boat when she got there.

The thirty-minute Sound crossing seemed to take forever. She tapped her fingers nervously on the steering wheel.

She wasn’t sure about anything except this: she had to get to Grace. All she wanted to do right now was gather her family together, as if her arms were the safe place they’d once been. What was left of her family, anyway, what Lexi had left of her family.

Off the ferry, she drove through town slowly, her eyes peeled for a dark-haired girl in Bermuda shorts and a drugstore T-shirt. She thought she saw Lexi a dozen times, and she stomped on the brakes so often that horns honked behind her.

She veered onto Turnagin Way and drove past the elementary school to the day care. There, she got out of the car and strode up to the pretty little A-frame house that was the Silly Bear Day Care. Inside, she found an empty playroom full of brightly colored plastic tables and bean bag chairs.

She went out to the backyard, where a dozen kids were playing on Lincoln Logs–type swing sets, in sandboxes, and in a playhouse. She took it all in at once, and then began looking for Grace, who she knew would be alone.

“Hi, Jude,” said the day care’s owner, Leigh Skitter. They had known each other for years. Leigh’s youngest son had played soccer with Zach. “You’re here early.”

“I don’t see Grace,” Jude said, realizing too late that she hadn’t said hello and that her voice was sharp.

“She’s with Lexi,” Leigh said. “She sure looks different, doesn’t she?”

Jude felt a chill go through her. “You let her see Grace?”

Leigh seemed surprised by the question, or maybe it was Jude’s raised voice. “She said you’d agreed to it. And there’s no restraining order in place, is there? I mean, I know she doesn’t have custody, but we all knew she’d come back someday…”

Why hadn’t Jude thought of this scenario? Leigh Skitter had known Zach and Lexi in their high school days. She’d said on several occasions how much she liked Lexi. No doubt she even felt a little sorry for her. So many people did—when
Dateline
did their segment on the show, plenty of people piped up to say that Lexi’s punishment had been too harsh. Yeah. Poor Lexi.

Jude felt the start of panic. Why hadn’t they gotten a restraining order against Lexi, just in case? At the very least, she should have told Leigh and the school that Lexi was not to be allowed near her daughter. Didn’t full custody give them that right?

“Jude? Is something wrong? Zach never asked me to keep Grace away from her mother.”

Jude pushed past Leigh and ran across the sawdust-strewn backyard. At the childproof gate, she manipulated the latch and kept going, racing through the trees toward the beach. There, she shuddered to a halt.

There were kids everywhere, laughing and playing. The day care’s other supervisor was over by the driftwood, watching the kids.

Calm down, Judith
.

She scanned the shoreline.

There she was—a little blond girl alongside a dark-haired young woman.

Lexi
.

Jude ran forward, almost falling in her sudden fury. She grabbed Lexi by the arm, spun her around.

Lexi paled. “J-Jude.”

“Hey, Nana,” Grace said. “This is my new friend.”

“Grace. Go over to Tami,” Jude said tightly.

“But—”

“
Now,
” Jude yelled.

Grace flinched at the harshness of the command. Her little shoulders hunched forward and she shuffled away, her head hung low.

“You have no right to be here,” Jude said.

As Lexi looked up, Jude noticed several things at once: Lexi was hard looking, almost stringy, but she was still very young. And when she noticed the girl’s frizzy, curly, untamed hair, she thought of Mia saying,
she’s like me Madre, is that coolio or what?
Jude stumbled back at the memory. She shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have approached Lexi. She wasn’t strong enough. “Go,” Jude said weakly. “Please…”

“I needed to see her.”

“And you have.” Jude felt frail enough to drop to her knees. It took concentration just to keep standing.

“She’s lonely,” Lexi said, looking toward Grace, who stood apart from the other kids and stared back at them.

“What do you expect?” Jude said bitterly. “She’s grown up in a broken family.”

“I told myself I’d see that she was happy and I’d leave. But she’s not happy.”

Jude opened her purse, reached in for her wallet with shaking hands. “I’ll pay you to go. How much? Twenty thousand dollars? Fifty? Just tell me how much you want.” Lexi’s face changed at that, but Jude was shaking too hard to focus clearly. A dull thudding squeezed her chest and she had the terrible thought that she might pass out. “A hundred thousand. How about that?”

“I gave her to Zach,” Lexi said. “
Gave
her. Do you know how hard that was? Can you imagine?”

“Losing a child?” Jude said. “Yes, Lexi. I know how it feels.”

“I did it because I loved her. And because I trusted you and Zach and Miles to be her family.”

Jude saw the censure in Lexi’s eyes, and she knew it was warranted, and that only made it hurt more. “We are her family.”

“No. She’s afraid of you, did you know that? She says you never hold her or kiss her. She wonders why you don’t love her.”

Jude felt exposed suddenly; fear bled up inside her, bubbled out until she was shaking so hard she dropped her purse. “How dare you?” But the words had no bite, no venom.

“I trusted all of you.” Lexi’s voice broke. It was the first evidence of real emotion, and Jude seized it.

“Zach has given up everything for Grace. Everything.”

“You mean USC, don’t you? Your Holy Grail. You never cared that he was happy, just that he did what you wanted him to.”

“That’s not true.”

“He
loved
me. But that meant nothing to you.”

“You killed his sister,” Jude said.

“Yes,” Lexi said, her mouth trembling. “And I have to live with that every day of my life. I did everything I could to make it up to you and Zach and Grace, but there is no making it up. I gave you my freedom and my daughter—and still you want more. Well, fuck you, Jude. You don’t get any more. Grace is my daughter. My Mia. And I want her back. My lawyer filed the petition today.”

As Lexi walked away, Jude just stood there, eyes stinging, throat tight, hearing Lexi’s voice say over and over again,
my Mia
.

*

Once Lexi started walking down the beach, she couldn’t stop. She was going in the wrong direction; her bike was parked in the public area at the end of the dead-end road. But she couldn’t turn around, couldn’t watch Jude bundle Grace up and take her away, as if it were dangerous for Grace to know her own mother.

A cool summer breeze plucked at her hair. Her eyes watered in the wind. Still, she put her hands in her pockets and kept walking. She turned and looked back down the beach. Jude was still there.

Lexi wanted to be tough and hard, to feel that she was justified in coming here and wanting her daughter back, and she did feel it—justified, for all the reasons she’d given Jude. Mostly because the Farradays had had a chance to make Grace happy and they’d failed.

But Lexi’s guilt and remorse, always floating inside of her, were rising now. She had destroyed the Farradays. In the beginning, she’d hoped that her years in prison would heal them somehow, but she knew better than anyone that time and distance didn’t heal you. It had been naïve to assume that Grace could be raised as Mia and Zach had, in the bosom of love and happiness. So in a way, it was Lexi’s fault that her daughter was unhappy now.

All of that was true, and all of it weighed heavily on Lexi, but there was something else too, a lightness that she hadn’t felt in years. It was hope—a bright beam in the blackness of her guilt.

She could lift Grace up. She could be the kind of mother she’d dreamed of having. Maybe they wouldn’t have money or a big house or a new car, but Lexi knew better than most that love could be enough. Eva had proved that. She hated to hurt the Farradays—and Zach—again, hated it to her marrow, but she’d paid enough for her mistake.

The decision anchored her. Wiping her eyes, she looked around, surprised to see how far she’d walked. Behind her, the public beach was a gray comma of sand tucked tightly against dark woods. She couldn’t tell if people were still there or not.

She started to turn back when a flash of hot pink plastic caught her eye. She paused, looked up the beach.

It was the playhouse, with its fluttery pink pennant and mock stone turret.

She didn’t really make a decision to go that way. Rather, she just found herself moving toward it, walking, walking, and suddenly she was standing there, on the sandy beach, in the shade of a giant tree, looking at a little girl’s playhouse.

But in her mind, she was on another beach, years ago, standing under a different tree, in the glow of distant house lights, with her best friend and the boy she thought she’d love forever.

We’ll bury it
.

A pact
.

We’ll never say good-bye
.

How shiny their naïveté had been, like polished silver, glinting in the darkness. She had never believed in anything as much as she’d believed in the three of them at that moment.

She bent down, peered through the small, plastic-shuttered window to the castle’s interior. Several Barbies lay in plastic beds, their clothes scattered around. An open Dr. Seuss book lay beside an empty juice box.

Here was where Grace played alone.

Lexi let her fingers trail atop the flat, mock stone roof as she moved into the yard. The grass was lush and green—summer hadn’t sapped its color yet or turned it crisp. A worn deck jutted out from the log cabin, clearly a construction afterthought. In one corner was an old picnic table with two benches; beside it a plastic-tarped barbeque. Along the split-rail fence line, roses grew wild, their leggy green branches climbing over one another like adolescent boys offering bright pink flowers to a girl.

The house—Zach’s house—was a rustic log cabin with a roof that sprouted moss along its seams. Gray stone chimneys bookended the place, seemed to hold it together. She remembered again the party they’d come to here, as juniors. That was before alcohol had taken over their class. Back then, only a few of the kids had been drinking. Mia and Lexi had spent most of the night on the beach, just the two of them, listening to music coming from behind them. Zach had been dating Emily Adamson then, and Lexi remembered how sharp her longing for him had been.

The sliding glass door rattled open, and there he was.

“Lexi.”

How many times had she dreamed of seeing him again, of hearing him say her name that way?

He stepped out of the cabin and moved closer. She had thought of him so often, pored over his senior picture until every inch of his face was imprinted on her memory, so she saw instantly how much he had changed. He was taller, and his shoulders were broader, even as he’d lost weight. He had on a ripped gray T-shirt that said USC and a pair of khaki shorts that hung low on his narrow hips. His face was sculpted and lean. He wasn’t as heart-stoppingly handsome as he’d been before; he had a hard, tired look to him, and his eyes were sad.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he said.

“I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“I didn’t think
you’d
be here.”

Was there accusation in his voice? She reminded herself that he’d let her down, that their daughter was unhappy living with him, but it couldn’t quite grab hold, that emotion. As always, when she saw him, a part of her melted. It was her great weakness—
he
was her weakness and had been from the moment she’d first seen him. But she knew better now. He’d let her go to prison and let her give up custody of their daughter. “I needed to see Grace … needed to know that she was happy.”

The gravity that had always connected them exerted its force, and before she knew it, she was moving toward him. It wasn’t until she was close enough to be held by him that she realized he hadn’t moved toward her. He had stayed where he was and let her come to him. Of course.

“Why are you here?” he said.

“I had to see my daughter.”

“Our daughter.”

“Yes.” Lexi swallowed hard. She’d imagined this reunion a thousand times, a million, and never had it been so awkward, so seething with loss and distance. She wanted to ask him about Grace, ask if her daughter was like her at all, but she couldn’t do it, couldn’t hand him her heart in those few words. It was a mistake she’d made before.

He stared down at her. She could feel the heat from his body, and the soft exhalations of his every breath. “She makes a little whistling noise when she sleeps—just like you do. Used to, I mean.”