Sweet Lamb of Heaven (28)

I hung up, still trembling.

Lena could be anywhere, exposed . . . I’d go around the back, look in the picture windows . . . what if the Lindas didn’t have their cells with them? I snuck back into the kitchen looking for a back door: EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY, with a metal bar. I pressed the bar and it ka-thunked, no alarm. Then I was outside, crunching along the dead grass and snow behind the building, along the rear windows of the rooms.

But all the curtains were closed.

When I turned the corner of the building I saw Lena walking beside Big Linda, wearing her pink puffer coat—they’d just come up from the beach, because Lena was carrying her basket. And a few feet away from her, leaning relaxedly back against the hood of his parked, black SUV—there stood Ned.

He held a large, gift-wrapped box topped with an explosion of professional ribbons. The wrapping was covered in silver glitter and festooned with candy canes.

“Baby girl,” he said, and the teeth had never been whiter in his head.



I TRIED TO appear gracious after that, to the extent I could—that was my tactic, for lack of better. I pretended calm as I reintroduced Lena to her father, then introduced him to Big Linda and Main Linda when she, too, appeared huffing and puffing at the top of the staircase down the cliff. Lena did remember him from two years before, though she’d been four when we left, but she didn’t greet him with the exuberance she’d shown her grandparents. She gave him a restrained embrace, clearly struggling to understand his sudden presence in our midst.

“A surprise visit,” I said, trying to deliver a cheerful smile.

“You’re so big,” Ned said to her, and to the Lindas, his Southern drawl in full effect: “She’s like a little doll version of her beautiful mama! Isn’t she?”

An off-base gambit, since Lena’s skin is lighter than mine, her hair gold instead of brown; in fact she looks more like Ned. She didn’t preen under this particular praise either, just waited patiently.

“She does have those high cheekbones,” said Main Linda politely.

I could tell the Lindas were wary of Ned and felt a rush of gratitude for that.

“Why don’t we go inside?” said Ned, looking from me to Lena. “Chilly out here, idn’t it? And you can open your present, honeypie! I bet you’ll like it a whole lot.”

I didn’t see a choice: it was cold, and getting colder all the time. The damage was done: he already knew where we lived.

“You take this?” he asked, and handed me the unwieldy gift before I could answer. He reached down and grabbed one of Lena’s hands, forcing her to struggle with the basket and have to kneel down to pick up fallen shells. The three of us began walking, me lagging beside them, hesitant, Ned moving slowly because, I guess, he didn’t know where our room was. After a moment I turned around. The Lindas hadn’t moved much; they were watching. I couldn’t read their expressions.

“Linda, could you mention to Don that my husband is here?”

It was all I could do. Don was the only one who’d know what it meant to me that Ned had found us.

As we made our way along the walkway to the room Lena began to chatter, as she would with any new guest, telling Ned how the motel worked: how towels and clean linens were organized, that she knew how to slide the keycard into the slot herself. I was following them by then, looking at Ned’s back, Lena’s face turned sideways to him, and trying to figure out what it meant to her to be holding her father’s hand.

“I’ll show you, see?” she said, and slid her hand out of Ned’s to turn and hold it out to me. “Can I have the key, Mommy?”

Duly I handed it over, circling the gaudy gift with one arm while I rummaged in a pocket. I was too aware of Ned looming, his pheromones, or whatever the f*ck, casting over me a vibrant net.

Lena clicked the door open, proud of her competence.

“Whoa,” said Ned, when he stepped inside. “Not exactly the Ritz, is it. You can do better, can’t you, Anna?”

“Ritz like crackers?” asked Lena.

“It’s grown on us,” I said lightly.

Ned tried to shut the door after I brushed in past him, but I propped it a few inches open with the rubber wedge.

“Let’s let in some fresh air,” I said.

“Fresh freezing air,” said Ned.

“How come it’s a Christmas present?” asked Lena, as I set the box down on our small table. “It isn’t Christmas yet.”

“You know that song, baby?” said Ned, sitting himself in the armchair with magisterial ease, crossing his legs. “‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’? On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me—you know that one?”

“A partridge in a pear tree,” said Lena.

“That’s right! Smart girl. But don’t worry, this isn’t a partridge.”

Lena approached the box shyly at first, then began to rip it open chaotically as I started to pour water into the carafe for the in-room coffee. Coffee didn’t appeal to me in the least, especially not from that little plastic-wrapped packet. But ours was a small room with not many options for looking busy.

“Look, a new friend for Lucky Duck,” said Lena, pulling out a fluffy white sheep. “Is it . . . a goat, Mommy?”

She’d turned to me to ask, instead of asking Ned.