Night Road(113)

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.