Hadley & Grace(57)
She leans her head against the window and sighs.
His son is Ben. His daughter is Shelly. She imagines the dog he and Ben will choose. She hopes they get a puppy, or at least a dog that’s young—the chaos of canine adolescence priceless.
What would it be like to be a part of it? She and Mattie with Mark and Ben and Shelly and a new dog. The idea is far fetched and outrageous, fanciful and delusional, yet also delicious in the way only outrageous ideas can be. Full of charm and possibility, it flutters in her mind like a butterfly, flittering and flickering until it glows so bright her whole mind is filled with it.
She thinks of the likelihood of ever finding that kind of magic again. She is thirty-eight, and this is the first time she’s felt it—that’s how narrow the odds: one in a hundred thousand, or maybe a million.
“You okay?” Grace asks.
“Fine,” Hadley lies, no longer happy at all.
They lunch along the Truckee River, a picnic of sandwiches and chips bought from a truck stop a few miles back. The river is beautiful, and they are the only ones on its banks. Miles lies beside her on a beach towel practicing his new talent of rolling over, his adroitness at rolling from his stomach to his back much better than the other way around.
It is Memorial Day. If she were home, she would be at the beach. Every year, the neighborhood gathers in the community’s private cove to play volleyball, boogie board, barbeque, and—Skipper’s favorite—play Wiffle ball. Frank and Skipper love it. She and Mattie hate it.
This year would have been better than last. The economy is looking up, so her wealthy neighbors would have been slightly less stressed. The wine would be more expensive, the upcoming elections the topic of choice. She sighs thinking about it, glad not to be a part of it, to not be nodding and smiling and making small talk while sucking in her stomach and counting the minutes until they can leave.
She glances at her watch. Frank might be there now. She hopes he is. She hasn’t called him since after their dinner at Denny’s in Baker two days ago, which means that, even if he is not aware of the trouble she’s in or that she stole the money, he knows she is not following the plan. Her brain goes white thinking about it, uncertain what scares her more—being caught by the FBI or being tracked down by Frank.
She pushes the thought away and instead focuses on the moment. She is lying on the edge of a river in Nevada watching Miles entertain himself while Mattie and Skipper sit with their feet in the river playing on their PlayStations as they pop blueberries in their mouths.
Mattie sticks out her purple tongue, and Skipper cracks up laughing. It makes Hadley smile all the way to her spine. It’s been a long time since she’s seen such joy between them.
Grace lies on a large boulder, napping. She was feeling a bit under the weather this morning but seems to be doing better now. Hadley finds herself worrying over Grace a lot today. She looks very tired and, despite her stoicism, seems a bit lost.
The plan is for Grace to drive them to Salt Lake City; then, in the morning, Hadley will buy a car and give driving a go. Her ankle is slightly better, and by tomorrow, she should be able to bear enough weight on it to press a gas pedal.
The thought of Grace and Miles leaving makes Hadley horribly sad. In the past three days, she has grown incredibly attached. She looks at Miles on the blanket, his legs kicking in the air and his little fists waving in front of him. She is going to miss him . . . miss both of them.
Skipper lets out a whoop of victory, and Hadley looks up and gives Mattie a smile, knowing she let him win, a generosity and kindness Mattie would not have shown a week ago—the moping, angry girl of before replaced with a girl remarkably like her daughter from a year ago.
This morning, at breakfast, she even initiated a conversation, asking Hadley about cars and about the first one she ever owned. They all had a good laugh when Hadley told her it was her dad’s old Bentley, a beast of ostentation the size of a semi with a red leather interior and chrome rims. She totaled it a month after he gave it to her, and she swears that was his plan all along.
After Mattie asked about the car, she brought up the preposterous idea of Grace teaching her to drive so Mattie can help out once they’re left on their own. Hadley smiles thinking about it, the idea ludicrous. Mattie is only fourteen.
She flexes her ankle again and conceals the wince, concern shadowing her tranquil mood. The drive from Salt Lake City to Denver is nearly eight hours. That’s a lot of driving on an ankle that still refuses to bend.
Mattie walks up and plops on the blanket beside Miles, her cheeks flush from the cool air and her hair windblown. Hadley smiles at her. Even her makeup is lighter today, the faint freckles on her nose showing through the brush of foundation.
She lies on her stomach so her face is even with Miles’s, who is flailing like an upside-down turtle, trying to unlock the mystery of getting back to his tummy. Mattie gives him a nudge to help him out, and he lets out a squeal of delight, pushes up on his arms proud as a peacock, then promptly rolls himself back to his back and starts flailing again.
Mattie giggles, a light sound like wind chimes, and suddenly her baby is a little girl again—wide eyed and holding her Pooh Bear as she climbs into Hadley’s lap to snuggle against her. Time is a thief, she thinks. You believe you have an infinite amount of it, but then you blink and everything that was has been replaced with something else entirely.
“How you doing, baby?” she says.