Night Road(90)

The memorial to Mia was tattered now, only visible if you knew what to look for. The small white cross had been grayed by the changing seasons and stood drunkenly to the left. Here and there empty vases lay in the bushes. An old, airless balloon hung limply on a high branch.

She released her breath in a long, shaky sigh.

In prison, she’d spent years in group therapy, talking about the pain, the remorse. Her counselor had told her often that time and hard work would heal her. That she would be whole when she could forgive herself.

As if.

Even if she could forgive herself, which was inconceivable, it wouldn’t bring Mia back. That was what all those positive thinkers didn’t get: some things could never be made right. If Lexi became Mother Teresa, Mia would still be dead and it would still be Lexi’s fault. It had been six years, and still Lexi prayed to Mia every night. Every morning she woke to a split second of joy and then the pulverizing reality. It was that sense of loss that had caused her to turn to Valium for a few years, but ultimately she’d discovered that you could run from your pain, but you couldn’t hide. It was something she should have known already, a lesson she should have learned from her mother. When she realized the ugly truth—that she was becoming her mother—she quit taking the Valium. She was so clean now she hardly even took aspirin. The only real answer lay in the courage to see a thing clearly and try to do better. Be better.

She knelt there a long time, on the cold, hard roadside, knowing it was dangerous to be stopped on this curve and not caring. If anyone saw her here …

Finally, she got back on the bike and started to ride. She almost sped right past the Farraday house, but at the last minute she stopped. Even in the falling darkness, she could see how different the place looked. The garden was untended, the planter boxes were empty.

She saw the mailbox: their name was still on it.

When a pair of headlights shone at her, she jumped on the bike and rode away. From a safe distance, she watched a silver Porsche turn into the driveway behind her.

Miles.

Sighing, she rode back into town and bought dinner at a fast-food place. At Scot’s office, she locked up the bike and went inside through the back door. In the conference room, she found a red floral sofa bed with a neat pile of white sheets set on the cushion. Beside the sheets lay a manila envelope.

She picked up the envelope. Below it, stuck to the cushion, was a pink Post-it note.

Lexi—She’s in kindergarten. Morning class.

F.Y.I.





S


She opened the manila folder and found a single photograph. There, smiling up at her, was an elfin blond-haired girl in a pink blouse.

Her daughter.

*

Man plans. God laughs.

Lexi understood that sentence for the first time.

She had planned her release from prison down to the smallest detail. She’d talked about her plans in Group and told Tamica everything. She had intended to go to Florida and move in with Eva and Barbara and start looking for a job. She’d even dreamed of graduate school. She would make a good social worker; maybe she could help girls in trouble. It hadn’t occurred to her that once she left the razor wire behind, she would be back in a world where unexpected things happened.

Who would have thought she’d end up here, on Pine Island? The only place in the world she didn’t want to be.

She made up the sofa bed and then crawled between the softest sheets she’d ever felt. Pale light from an outside street lamp fell through the window, lighting the dark room. She closed her eyes and tried to will herself to sleep, but it was so quiet, and she could have sworn that the picture of Grace was breathing.

For years, she’d ruthlessly suppressed all thoughts of her daughter. She walked away when Tamica mentioned Grace and turned away when the TV screen showed images of little girls running into their mothers’ arms. She’d told herself that Grace deserved the kind of life Lexi could never offer.

But now, in the dark, with the photograph beside her, she felt that resolve weaken.

She slept fitfully, dreaming dreams that were best forgotten. Finally, at six o’clock, she threw the covers back. Padding barefooted to the bathroom, she was surprised to find a shower. She took her first private shower in years and dried off with a soft white towel.

Her reflection afterward showed a face that was pointed and thin, like a drowned rat, framed by wispy black curls. Towel drying her hair, she dressed in the courtroom clothes that were all she had and went in search of breakfast, which she found at a local diner.

Still, the photograph in her purse kept breathing. Sometimes she heard a giggle, and, irrationally, she thought it came from the bag.

After breakfast, she walked up Main Street and found a local thrift shop that was just opening for the day. She used seven dollars to buy a pair of secondhand Bermuda shorts, a blue T-shirt that had a dragonfly stenciled on the front, and an aqua cotton hoodie. She traded her black flats for a pair of flip-flops and threw the kneesocks away.

Walking out of the store, she smiled, feeling really free for the first time. She had a bus ticket to Florida in her pocket. In no time at all—just seven and a half hours—she’d be on her way out of here …

A yellow smear moved in a gust of black exhaust. A school bus. Small faces peered out from the windows.

Lexi didn’t make a conscious decision to follow the bus; rather, she just kept walking. On Turnagin Way, she angled left and walked up the hill. By the time she reached the four-way stop, there were kids all around, laughing and talking and dragging ridiculously big backpacks on the sidewalk beside them. There were mothers everywhere, too, monitoring crosswalks and conversations and movement.