Night Road(107)

But it had never worked. For some reason she’d never quite understood, hope was hardwired into her. Even in prison, when she’d stood in lines of women who wore blank, hopeless expressions, she had been unable to become one of them. Even Valium hadn’t helped to dim that small bright part of her. The problem was that she believed. She wasn’t sure what she believed in—was it God? goodness? herself? She had no answer to the question; she knew only that she owned this belief that if she did the right thing, if she always did her best and took responsibility for her mistakes and lived a moral life, she would succeed. She would not become like her mother.

But she’d done all of that. She’d gone to prison to atone for her mistake. She’d given up her daughter because she loved Grace so, so much. She had tried to do the right things, and yet still she was being thwarted.

She had the right to see Grace, but not the money.

How could she take a whole year of living in this community, seeing her daughter, but never being able to be with her? And how could she get a job—as an ex-con with practically no work history or recommendations—that would pay her rent and living expenses and give her enough left over for legal fees and social worker bills? And if she did somehow accomplish all of that, she would spend weekends with her daughter always being judged and scrutinized. How could a real relationship bloom under such dark skies?

It would be easier to give up. She could hop on a bus to Florida, where apparently the sun always shone. Once there, she could write letters to Grace—no one could deny her that now—and she and her daughter could get to know each other the old-fashioned way. Maybe in a few years, a visit could be arranged.

All she had to do was give up. Just concede defeat and get on the next bus.

Abandon her daughter a second time.

Just the thought of it made her ill. She remembered all the hours she’d spent in solitary confinement, feeling as if she were draining away in that fetid darkness, wanting to disappear. It had been Grace that pulled her out of all that, Grace who had convinced Lexi to quit tranquilizing herself with Valium and acting out with her fists. Grace who had made her come back to herself. At least, it had been the idea of Grace.

She got up and went into Scot’s office. Waving at the receptionist, she walked into his office without knocking. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“You’re no bother, Lexi,” he said, pushing out from behind his desk.

She pulled out the one hundred dollar bill Aunt Eva had sent her. “How much time with Grace will this get me?”

“Not much,” he said sadly.

Lexi bit her lip. She knew what to say next, but she was afraid. “There’s really only one way for me to see my daughter, isn’t there?”

Scot nodded slowly.

Another minute passed. She waited for him to talk her out of it.

“Okay, then,” she said after a long silence. Resettling her purse over her shoulder, she left the office. Outside, she unlocked the bike and climbed aboard, riding out of town. Although it would have saved her three miles, she avoided Night Road and went the long way. She didn’t allow herself to think about where she was going or what she was going to do until she reached her destination.

At the top of the long gravel driveway, she got off her bike.

The house still looked beautiful against the blue Sound and even bluer sky. The garden was an absolute mess, but only someone who’d seen it before would know that. To the first-time observer, it was simply a riot of color.

Lexi held on to the handlebars and guided the bike down the bumpy road. At the garage, she laid the bike gently on its side in the shorn grass and then she walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

It was funny how that one little action—ringing the doorbell—thrust her back in time. For a split second, she was innocent again, an eighteen-year-old girl, wearing her boyfriend’s ring, coming to her best friend’s house.

The door opened and Jude stood there. In a black T-shirt and leggings, she looked dangerously thin; her pale hands and feet seemed too big, and bony, with blue veins just beneath the skin. Lavender shadows beneath her eyes aged her, and a line of gray hair ran along her part.

“You have a lot of nerve coming here,” Jude finally said. Her voice was shaking a little, and that vibration helped Lexi gain control of her own runaway nerves.

“You’ve got some nerve, yourself. She’s my daughter.”

“Grace isn’t here. And the day care won’t let you see her again.”

“I didn’t come here to see Grace,” Lexi said. “I came here to see you.”

“Me?” Jude was growing paler by the second. “Why?”

“May I come in?”

Jude hesitated, and then backed up, whether to let Lexi in or put distance between them, she wasn’t sure; still, Lexi walked inside and closed the door behind her.

The first thing she saw was Mia’s shamrock green button-up sweater hanging from the hall tree. She drew in a sharp breath and reached for it.

“Don’t touch that,” Jude said sharply.

Lexi drew her hand back.

“What do you want?”

Lexi couldn’t stand here next to this sweater she could neither touch nor turn away from, so she walked past Jude and went into the glass-walled great room. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, she saw the beach. Just over there, Zach had told her he loved her … and there, they’d buried their time capsule. Their proof. Their pact.