Night Road(89)

“Tomorrow?”

How was she supposed to keep her distance when she was here, at the scene of her crime and the only place that had ever felt like home?

“Jenny invited you to spend the night and have dinner with us if you’d like,” Scot said.

“No.” She said it too quickly and realized her mistake. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that I haven’t been around people for a long time. Two thousand one hundred forty-four and a half days.” She smiled tiredly and looked around, anxious to be on her own.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” Scot said.

Lexi wanted to shake her head, maybe even say hell, no, but she just stood there.

“She lives with her dad in the old Tamarind cabin on Cove Road. I see her every now and then in town with her dad.”

Lexi didn’t react. In prison, she’d learned to hide everything, especially pain. “Does she look happy?”

“She looks healthy.”

Lexi nodded. “That’s good. Well, Scot—”

“We could fight for her, Lexi. Partial custody or at least visitation rights.”

Lexi remembered “visitations” with her mom: the two of them in a room while a social worker looked on. What Lexi remembered about those rare days was how scared she was of the woman who’d borne her. “I’m a twenty-four-year-old ex-con whose last real job was part-time at an ice cream shop. I have no place to live, and I doubt like hell I’ll be hired at any decent job. But I should swoop in and see my daughter, wedge myself into the Farraday family again, and bring up all that pain … so that I can feel happier. Is that it?”

“Lexi—”

“I won’t be like my mother. I won’t make any decision that isn’t in my daughter’s best interest. That’s why I’m going to Florida tomorrow. Grace deserves better than me, and if I’m around she’ll love me anyway. That’s what kids do: they love loser parents, and it breaks their hearts.”

“You’re not a loser. And what’s wrong with her loving you?”

“Don’t.”

Scot pursed his lips. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a set of keys and extracted one. “This is the key to my office. There’s a sofa bed in the conference room and a bike by the front door. The combination is 1321. We closed up early today, so the place is all yours.”

She took the key and pocketed it. “Thank you, Scot.”

“No problem. I believe in you, Lexi.”

She should have walked away then, said nothing more. That was what she meant to do; instead, she found herself looking up at him, saying, “Did Zach get married?”

“No. He’s still in school, I think. No wife. He lived with his parents for a few years and then moved into that cabin on the cove.”

“Oh.”

“He never wrote?”

“A few times. I sent all the letters back unopened.”

“Oh, Lexi,” Scot said, sighing. “Why?”

She crossed her arms, trying not to remember the feel of those letters in her fingers, the sight of them on the rough gray wool of her blanket. But she’d been so angry then, so wounded. She’d acted out in all kinds of terrible ways. By the time she was past all of that, stronger, it was too late. He never wrote again, and she hadn’t had the courage to write to him.

“I should have taken your advice,” Lexi finally said, unable to look at Scot as she said it.

“Yes.”

“Well. Thanks again. I think I’ll go for a bike ride. It’s a beautiful day.”

Scot went over to the front door of his office, got the bike, and guided it back to her.

She wanted to tell him how much it had meant to her, his being there today. For years she’d prepared to be all alone when she got out of prison, and she saw now how painful that would have been.

“You’re welcome,” he said quietly.

She nodded one last time and took the bike from him and rode away.

Soon she was smiling in spite of herself. It felt so good to be free, to turn when she felt like it and go where she wanted. She would never take this for granted.

She spun by the theater—saw that they’d added on to it—and the bank and the beauty salon where Aunt Eva had gotten her hair cut. There, she saw a pay phone. After a quick signal, she turned into the parking lot and called Eva, collect.

There was no answer.

Disappointed, she climbed back onto the bike and started pedaling.

The ice cream shop was still there; beside it was a new coffee shop and a computer repair place.

When she came to the high school, she slowed down. A big new gymnasium dominated the campus. It looked nothing like she remembered, except that the flagpole was still there and that was enough.

Meet me at the flagpole, by the admin building …

She pedaled harder, down the bumpy asphalt road and up Raspberry Hill. Out here, there were occasional dirt roads and the odd mailbox, but mostly it was uninhabited. Sunset was nearing, and the sky was a deep midnight color, and before she knew it she was on Night Road. She hadn’t even meant to turn here.

But here she was, at the hairpin turn. The skid marks were long gone, but the broken tree remained, its pinkish flesh almost black now. Dying.

She came to a stop and half stumbled off the bike, hearing it clatter to the pavement behind her. On either side of her, trees blocked out the sun.