Night Road(114)

I fell in love with you before I ever even saw you. How is that possible? But I did, and then I held you, and then I handed you to Zach.

What was I supposed to do? Have you visit me in this place, have you see me through bars? I know how bad that is.

I read somewhere that grief can be like breaking a bone. You have to set it right or it can ache forever. I pray that someday you’ll understand that and forgive me.

I won’t send you this letter, but maybe someday when you’re grown up, you’ll come looking for me and I’ll have this box of letters and I’ll give them to you. I’ll say See? I loved you. Maybe you’ll even believe me.

Until then, at least, I know you’re safe. I used to dream I was a Farraday. You’re so lucky to have the family you do. If you’re sad, go to Miles. He can always make you laugh. Or ask Jude for a hug—no one hugs better than your grandma.

And then there’s your dad. If you let him, he’ll show you all the stars in the sky and he’ll make you feel like you can fly.

So I won’t worry about you, Gracie.

I’m going to try to forget you. I’m sorry, but I have to.

It hurts so much to love you.

Jude looked up at her son, whose eyes were bright with tears. He looked like her boy again, her golden Zach, and in that moment, she remembered the young Lexi, the girl who’d worn her heart on her sleeve and been the best friend Mia had ever had. She remembered the girl from the trailer park who had never known a mother’s love and yet always had a smile on her face. “It didn’t go well today with Lexi and Grace. Lexi screwed up.”

“What do you mean?”

“She went too quickly, pushed Grace before she was ready.”

“She doesn’t know how to be a mom. How could she?”

“No one does,” Jude said quietly. “I remember how overwhelmed I felt by you and … Mia.”

“You were a great mom.”

Jude couldn’t look at him. “Once, maybe. Not anymore, though. I haven’t acted like your mom in a long time, and we both know it. I … lost that. I thought…” She paused and forced herself to look at him again. “I blamed you. I did, even though I know I shouldn’t. And I blamed Lexi. And myself.”

“It wasn’t your fault. We knew better … that night,” he said.

Jude felt a searing pain in her heart at the reminder. It was the kind of pain that had always been a barrier before, something from which to retreat. Now she pushed through it.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t have drunk that night, but Lexi shouldn’t have driven, and I shouldn’t have let you go. I knew there was going to be drinking there. What was I thinking to trust drunk eighteen-year-olds to make wise decisions? Why did I just assume that we couldn’t stop you from drinking? And … Mia should have had her seatbelt on. There’s blame enough to go around.”

“It’s my fault,” he said, and although Jude had heard him say it before, she felt the weight of his burden for the first time. It shamed her that she’d been so focused on her own grief that she’d let her son carry his alone.

She went to him, took him by the hand, and pulled him to his feet. “We all carry this, Zach. We’ve carried it for so long it’s reshaped our spines, bent us. We have to stand up again. We have to forgive ourselves.”

“How?” he asked simply. In his green eyes, she saw Mia, too. She’d forgotten that somehow, in her grief; her babies were twins, and Mia would always be alive in Zach. And now there was Grace, too.

She put a hand on his face, seeing the faint scar along his jawline. “She’s there … in you,” she said gently. “How did I forget that?”





Twenty-six





“Come on,” Lexi-Mommy says, holding out her hand. “You want to live with me, don’t you?”

The hand turns black and long yellow nails grow out from the fingers like hooks, and Grace screams—

“I’m right here, Princess.”

She heard her daddy’s voice and threw her arms around him. He smelled like he was supposed to, and the nightmare faded away until she remembered that she was in her own bed, in her own room, just where she belonged. There were no wild things here.

Her dad held her close and stroked her hair. “You okay?”

She felt like a baby. “Sorry, Daddy,” she mumbled.

“Everyone has bad dreams sometimes.”

She knew that was true, because when she was little, she used to hear him screaming in his sleep, and she’d go to him and climb into his bed. He never woke up, but he stopped yelling when she was with him. In the morning, he’d smile tiredly at her and say something about how she really should be a big girl and learn to sleep in her own bed.

“Don’t make me go away, Daddy. I won’t lie anymore. I promise. And I won’t sock Jacob in the nose, ever. I’ll be good.”

“Ah, Princess,” he said, sighing. “I should have known your mom would come back for you. I should have prepared us both. It’s just … I tried not to think about her.”

“Cuz she’s mean?”

“No,” Daddy said, and it scared her, how sad he sounded. “She’s the opposite of mean.”