Night Road(81)

Tamica went toe-to-toe with Smack. “Back off or I’ll take you apart like cheap-ass furniture.”

Lexi pushed in between the women. “I need it,” she said to Tamica, almost pleading. “I can’t stand it anymore. I don’t want to feel anything.”

“Hold out your hand,” Smack whispered.

“No,” Tamica said. “I won’t let you do this, hermana.”

Lexi made a roaring, wailing sound of pure unadulterated pain and punched Tamica in the nose.

A whistle blew.

Smack slipped two pills into Lexi’s hand and then ran so fast it was as if she’d never been there.

“You crazy?” Tamica said, stumbling back. “I don’t know why I care about you.”

“I don’t either. I never asked you to.”

“Hermana,” Tamica said, sighing. “I know how much it hurts.”

“Do you? A year ago today I killed my best friend.”

Two guards stepped in between them and pushed Lexi away from Tamica. “Back up, Baill.”

“I fell,” Tamica said.

“Nice try, Hernandez,” one of the guards said. “I saw the whole thing. Come on, Baill.”

Lexi knew where they were taking her, knew and didn’t care. Yesterday she would have said that nothing scared her more than going to The Hole, but now, on the anniversary of Mia’s death, in a world where Lexi had had a child and lost her, it barely warranted a sigh.

They led her down one hallway after another, finally coming to a small, windowless room. When the door opened, Lexi got a whiff of urine and filth and she started to panic, to turn away.

“Too late,” the guard nearest her said, giving her a shove inside. There was a rough steel-gray blanket on a metal bed. The mattress and pillow were made of old, misshapen rubber. The only opening in the door was the size of a TV remote. Food probably came through that slot three times a day.

Lexi stood in the darkness, shivering suddenly, although it wasn’t cold. The stench of the cell was making her eyes water.

“You’re here,” one of the guards said. “Learn something.”

The door clanged shut, and she was in the dark.

Lexi stood there, freezing already. She opened her palm. It was too dark to see the pills, but she felt them. She put them in her mouth and swallowed them without water. It took a while for them to take effect, but finally a calm settled over her. She closed her eyes and forgot all about Mia’s off-key singing and Zach’s promise of love and Grace’s mewling baby sounds. She sat on the cell’s rubber mattress staring at nothing, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, just passing through time that felt interminable.





Part Two





Though nothing can bring back the hour

of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not; rather find

strength in what remains behind.

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, ODE:

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD





Eighteen





2010





From a distance, the Farraday family appeared to have healed. Miles, the renowned surgeon, was back to doing what he did best, and if he spent too many hours in the OR, it seemed right that he should save as many lives as he could. Zach had surprised everyone who knew him by blistering through both junior college and the University of Washington; he’d graduated in three years and started medical school a year early. Now he was in his second year, and his grades were stellar. He had moved into a rental house on the island, and he did two things in his life: school and fatherhood. He seemed not to care that he had no time for a social life. Islanders spoke of him with pride, saying how tragedy had shaped him, and how well he’d risen to the challenge of fatherhood.

And then there was Jude.

For years, she had tried to reclaim the woman she’d been before her daughter’s death. She’d done what was asked of her, what was expected. She’d gone to support groups and therapists. She’d taken Xanax and Zoloft and Prozac at various times. She’d slept too much and then too little. She’d lost too much weight. Mostly, she’d learned that some pain simply could neither be cured nor ignored nor healed.

Time hadn’t healed her wounds. What a crock of shit that little cliché was. The kind of thing lucky people said to those who were less fortunate. Those same lucky people thought that talking about grief helped, and they thought nothing of telling you to “try to get on with your life.”

Finally, she’d stopped expecting to feel better, and that was when she found a way to live. She couldn’t control her grief or her life or much of anything, really (that was what she knew now), but she could control her emotions.

She was careful. Deliberate.

Brittle.

That most of all. She was like an antique porcelain vase that had been broken and painstakingly repaired. Every scar was visible up close, and only the gentlest touch could be used in handling the piece, but from a distance, from across the room, in the right light, it looked whole.

She followed a rigid routine; she’d learned that a schedule could save her. A to-do list could be the framework for a life. Wake up. Shower. Make coffee. Pay bills. Go to the grocery store … the post office … the dry cleaners. Put gas in the car.