I clasped my hands behind my back to keep myself from launching myself at him. “I’ll miss you too. Would it be okay if I write to you?”
Baxter’s face broke out into a wide grin that I couldn’t help but return. “Only if you promise to send me some new quotes.”
“I think I can handle that. I actually have one for you now. But read it later, okay?”
“Okay.”
I pulled a tiny, folded piece of paper from my back pocket that I’d torn from my quote journal that morning. It read:
SOAR, EAT ETHER, SEE WHAT HAS NEVER
BEEN SEEN; DEPART, BE LOST, BUT CLIMB.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I slid it into his hand, which was warm and rough and made me wish I could hold it, but I didn’t let myself.
“I’ll see you,” Bax said, still smiling, though it had slipped a bit, and put the paper in his pocket.
“See you,” I echoed. And I watched him walk away until he disappeared up the hill. I was glad we hadn’t said goodbye. I truly hoped I’d get to see him again.
Mom and Hannah appeared a few minutes later, bottles of water in their hands. “Did you say goodbye to your friend?” Mom asked pointedly. Hannah stifled a giggle.
“Yep,” I said.
“Well, I guess that means it’s my turn,” Hannah said, nodding toward the car that was pulling in next to my mom’s. Uncle Ed and Aunt Greta.
“Celine!” my aunt exclaimed, climbing out of the car and making a beeline for my mother. “You look wonderful. Positively glowing.” I was grateful Aunt Greta knew exactly what to say to make my mom feel good.
“A good long rest will do that for you,” my mom said, returning her hug. “It’s been entirely too long, Greta. Hannah tells me you’ve been making holiday plans already.”
Greta actually clapped her hands like a little kid. “Yes! I hope you and Ashlyn will come and stay with us for Christmas. Dylan will be home, it’ll be great. A regular reunion.”
“I think we can arrange that. But only if you’ll all come to Virginia for Thanksgiving.”
Greta looked like she was about to cry. Uncle Ed rubbed her shoulders and blushed, smiling like he’d just won the lottery. “We’d love to,” he said.
“Good. It’ll be nice to have a house full of people for once.” Mom nodded, pleased with herself. I was proud of her. She may not have been voicing her opinion in family therapy just yet, but enlisting allies was a good first step. She turned to me. “Ashlyn, love, we need to get on the road if we want to get there before visiting hours are over.”
I nodded and kissed my aunt and uncle on the cheeks. “Thank you. For everything.” I knew I didn’t need to say anything more. They understood.
“Tell your dad I’ll see him next week,” Uncle Ed whispered in my ear. I pulled back a little, my eyes wide, and he smiled. “We’ve been talking.”
“That’s good,” I whispered back.
“We’ll see you soon, Ashlyn. Okay?”
“Yes, see you very soon,” I said and gave Aunt Greta another hug.
And then there was Hannah. Only a few months ago, she was as good as a stranger, someone whose ease at life I envied. And now, we were a team. Hannah had helped me shrug things off a little more often and showed me how to be brave.
“Will you text me when you get home?” I knew we were both happy to be going back to the land of cell service.
I nodded. “And will you text me when you get to college?”
“You can come visit me any time. We’ll go to a party or a concert or something.” Hannah’s voice cracked.
“You got it, cuz,” I said.
We stared at each other, neither of us wanting to separate, but my mother gently placed her hand in mine to let me know it was time to go. I put my free hand up to wave and suddenly Hannah rushed at me. She hugged me so tight I could barely breathe. And I hugged her back, just as hard, glad to have family who would miss me.
Chapter 31
It was different this time, driving up to the Williams Correctional Facility, and not just because I was with Mom instead of Uncle Ed. Mom hadn’t seen Dad since he left—they had only communicated through letters and a few brief phone calls. Neither one of them was in an emotional state, or physical place, to have deep discussions. They probably hadn’t been for some time. I knew this visit was, in some ways, going to be harder on Mom than it was on me. At least I knew what to expect when we walked in. And I was no longer facing Dad by myself. The few times I had visited, he was still in control, even in here. But things had changed. I’d changed.
Right after I’d written Bax’s quote last night, I’d written one for me. It was folded up in a tiny square in my pocket.
DO THE HARDEST THING ON EARTH FOR
YOU. ACT FOR YOURSELF. FACE THE TRUTH.
Katherine Mansfield
As we crossed the threshold and entered the building, Mom shuddered next to me. She grabbed my hand tightly. “I’m not sure I can do this.” I had no idea what it felt like to see your husband in prison, but I did know what it was like to see your father there.
“You can do it, Mom. He’s the same person he always was.” Although the statement wasn’t exactly comforting, it was enough for her to release the death grip she had on my hand.
“Okay.” She continued to cling to me as we followed the security procedures and waited to gain entrance.
When we were finally ushered into the visitation room, Mom and I took a seat at the same table I’d sat at the last time. I let her sit so she would be able to see him as he came into the room. When he did, I forced myself to stay silent. Dad was even thinner than the last time. I knew that some men lost weight in prison from all the time they were able to spend lifting weights or running in the yard. Dad just looked like he’d forgotten to eat. His cheeks had become hollow, and there were dark bruise-colored circles under his eyes. He walked slowly, pained. I covered my mouth to hide my shock. He seemed like the most exhausted person on the planet.
And yet, when he saw us, he smiled. It was possibly the most genuine smile I’d ever seen on my father’s face—like a man in a desert who’d discovered an oasis. When he reached our table, Dad hugged me first. The fabric of his uniform was scratchy, but he smelled clean, like laundry detergent and bleach. He held me close to him and kissed the top of my head, something he hadn’t done in years. When he pulled away, he smiled again.
Dad shifted to my mom and the second he touched her, she lost it. Big, fat tears rolled down her face, and her mascara went with them. Dad rubbed her back in small circles, the way you might comfort a child. He was whispering something in Mom’s ear that I couldn’t hear and she was nodding. I turned my head, not wanting to invade their moment. The reunion of my parents felt uncomfortably intimate, though I was sure this room had seen many such embraces. Mom kissed Dad’s cheek and then his lips, before a guard loudly cleared his throat and they stepped apart.
“It’s really good to see you, Celine,” Dad said, sitting down. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you, Art.” Mom couldn’t stop staring at him.
It occurred to me that in all my angry and frustrated moments, I hadn’t thought much about what this tragedy was doing to their marriage. I didn’t think much about my parents’ marriage at all, really. It was nice to see them like this. It was the most affectionate I’d seen them in a long, long time. Maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder.
“And you look so grown up, Ashlyn. Even in just the last few weeks. Have you done something different with your hair?” He was looking at me as if he’d never seen me before.
“I cut it.”
“I caught that during your first visit,” he said with a small smile. Oh. “There’s something else. Confidence maybe.” I blushed. I couldn’t help it. I was shocked that he noticed something like that. About me. “Does that mean you’ve finished out the summer at work on a high note?”
“Yes,” I said definitively. I wanted to sound as confident as I apparently looked
.
“Ashlyn turned out to be quite the hero,” Mom said proudly. She proceeded to tell my father the whole story about Deb and blowing the whistle, while I sat there feeling equal parts busting at the seams and totally embarrassed. There weren’t many instances I could remember where my parents bragged about me, so it felt weird and good and wrong and scary. But I knew I didn’t want to forget it.
Dad’s eyes grew wider as Mom talked. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, settling in, enjoying the story. When Mom finished with Mr. Allen’s praise of me that morning, Dad was shaking his head in disbelief. “Ashlyn, that is quite a story.”
“It was nothing,” I mumbled, shrinking back into old-me mode. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around positive attention from him.
“It most certainly is not nothing. You might’ve saved Mr. Allen’s business from ruin.” He uncrossed his arms and leaned closer to the edge of the table. Closer to me. “It took a lot of courage to speak up, especially about your superior. I’m not sure I could’ve done the same.”
If I’d been sitting on that wall on the ropes course at Sweetwater, I most definitely would’ve fallen over backward. It was without a doubt the most personal thing I’d ever heard my father say. He rarely admitted weakness of any kind. And he had never, ever, acknowledged I could do something he couldn’t. My head swam a little. I glanced over at Mom, who nodded at me.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and looked my dad square in the eye. “Speaking of speaking up, Dad, there’s something I wanted to tell you.” My voice shook, but I marched on.
Dad folded his hands in his lap. He looked ready to listen. It was unnerving, but also encouraging.
Another breath in. Exhale. “I’m not going back to Blue Valley. I’m going to spend senior year at home. With my friends. And with mom.” I wanted to look away from him, shrink like I always did, but I willed myself to keep talking. I reminded myself that my voice was strong and change had to start with me. “I think I’ve more than paid the price for my mistake. My grades are spotless. I’ve gained leadership roles in my activities. I’ve had a perfect discipline record. And I would imagine Mr. Allen would be happy to write me a letter of recommendation to any college I want.”
Dad didn’t say anything. Still, I held his gaze. I wasn’t going to back down, now that I’d climbed to the top of this mountain. His chest was rising and falling as if he was trying to stay calm. He picked at the cuticle on his index finger and looked down, like he was trying to formulate a response. Was he going to blow up? Was he going to put his foot down and come up with some new ridiculous plan, already in place, for me?
Before he could speak, Mom did. “Art, she deserves this. And I’m going to need support during my continued recovery. It would be nice to have Ashlyn with me.” Her voice cracked. “I want my baby at home.” She wiped her eyes. “I went to see our financial adviser yesterday.” She had? “And he will put the money earmarked for tuition into Ashlyn’s college savings account.” Wow. Go, Mom.
Part of me wanted to get up and do an end zone dance and say, “Take that, Dad!” But I also didn’t want to damage the already cracked relationship. I reminded myself that this was a choice, my choice, and I’d rather repair it than tear it down.
“So that’s the plan. Okay?” I said to him. A little piece of me died inside when I said “okay.” I knew I didn’t need his approval on this. And he knew it too. It was done. Mom had decided for both of them. But it didn’t stop me from wanting it.
After a century of silence, and who knows what racing through Dad’s head, he opened his mouth. I held my breath.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeated, not quite believing that it had been that easy.
“Okay.” He nodded and pressed his lips into a line—not quite a smile but not unhappy either. “I’ve talked to a lot of other fathers in here and if there’s one common theme to those conversations, it’s that I should be grateful for what I have. When we have group, everyone talks about their kids and the stuff they miss by being in here. It’s heartbreaking.”
Hold up. My dad goes to group? As in group therapy? And did he say missing kids’ stuff breaks his heart? I wanted to clean out my ears to make sure I hadn’t misheard him.
“I think,” Dad said, and paused. He swallowed hard, struggling to speak. “I think I owe you an apology, Ashlyn.”
Was this actually happening? I just stared at him.
“When you got arrested last year, despite your lack of guilt, I behaved irrationally. You may have survived at Blue Valley, even thrived, but now I understand that I should have made a different decision. I missed out on a whole year of your life and now I’m missing another.” He hung his head a little. Did he actually feel bad about it?
I wanted to believe him. But I also didn’t want to get my hopes up. I had seventeen years of being Arthur Zanotti’s daughter to know not to do that. In a perfect world, Dad would keep talking and tell me he wanted to apologize for not only missing last year and the upcoming one, but truly, for missing out on who I was for much longer than that. I wanted him to be sorry for always telling me what to do, for knowing his way was better than mine, for not giving me the freedom to make my own choices and follow my passions. I wanted him to apologize for not seeing me, for not hearing me, or maybe he had and purposely ignored it. He didn’t say those things. Prison may have given him a new perspective, but you couldn’t undo years and years of thinking a certain way in a few months and a couple of chats around a circle. But we had time.
“I’m glad you’ll be home with your mother,” Dad continued, his voice small, not unlike mine was when he chastised me.
“We’re glad too,” Mom spoke up. “And Ashlyn and I have made another decision. When we’re all back under the same roof, we’re going to work on us.” Dad looked at her blankly. “We’re going to go to family therapy, Art. Families need maintenance, just like cars. We don’t want to end up broken down on the freeway again.” I stifled a giggle, picturing my dad trying to change a tire on his SUV on the beltway. Mom looked at me, probably having the same mental image, and laughed. “They said stuff like that at Hart Canyon. It made sense to me,” she said with a shrug.
Dad nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“Also, I’m getting a job and I’ll be taking over the running of our household. I won’t be a silent partner in this family anymore.”
I expected my dad to balk at that. Not that he should be angry my mom wanted to have a bigger role, but that she was horning in on “his” area of expertise. He’d always been in charge of money and bills. Instead, he cracked a smile. Mom smiled back.
“Your mother used to be the bill payer back when we first got married,” Dad said. “She was a champion coupon clipper and balanced the checkbook every Saturday morning.”
I couldn’t imagine that. My mom went to yoga every Saturday while my dad golfed with clients. How had they gotten so far off that path?
Mom swatted Dad playfully, and then grew contemplative. “We need to find us again, I think.”
Everything inside me shuddered with emotion. She was so right. I didn’t even know who “us” was anymore. I dared to look at my dad and this time, there were actual tears. I’d never seen him so vulnerable. Mom covered my dad’s hand with hers and mouthed to me, “Why don’t you give us a minute?”
I got up from the table, pushed my chair in, and let the guard open the door for me. I looked over my shoulder at my parents, talking in soft voices, faces close. My mother and I had just jumped down from the wall. Finally.
I went out to the car to wait for my mom. I retrieved my phone from my backpack and dialed Tatum’s number for the first time since I left home in June, my hand shaking. She answered on the third ring.
“Ash? Is that really you?”
“It’s me,” I said, my voice coming out strangled, as hot tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
“Where are you? Is work over?”
I inhaled deeply and smiled int
o the receiver. “I’m on my way home.”
Acknowledgments
I learn something new with every book I write, but the thing that is constant is this job can’t be done alone. Thank you to Jillian Manning for cultivating this vision, and to Sara Bierling, Matt Saganski, and Mary Hassinger for picking it up and running with it. I’m so grateful to the whole team at Blink for all your hard work and support. Huge thanks to Kevan Lyon for always steering the ship in the right direction.
Thank you to Amy Burns, Jill Burdick-Zupancic, Penny Slawkowski, and Susan Bruno for sharing your expertise. To the writers and readers who make this process more joyful—you’re my favorites: Katherine Locke, Rebekah Campbell, Rebecca Paula, Leigh Smith, Sarah Emery, Katy Upperman, McCall Hoyle, Alison Gervais, Amanda Summers, Olivia Hinebaugh, Lisa Maxwell, and Suzette Henry. To the friends who have stuck by me for literal decades and helped shape the friends I write about—I love you, you’re the best.
Every time a teacher, librarian, blogger, or bookseller connects a book with a reader, an angel gets their wings. I am forever in debt to those book superheroes who have read my stories, shared them with someone else, written a review, attended an event, invited me to speak, or otherwise supported me. I could not do this without you.
Thank you always to my family, especially my parents and my in-laws, who bend over backwards to love and support me. And most of all, thank you to my husband and daughter, who are my home—you make it all worth it.
No Place Like Here Page 21
