Even Now

by Karen Kingsbury

  “Maybe if our phone number was listed.” She hated the sarcasm in her voice. It made her feel ugly and jaded, like a world of distance lay between her and her mom.

  “Lauren — ” her mother sighed — “you know we can’t list our number, not with your dad’s involvement at the bank. We’ve never been listed, and neither have the Galanters.”

  It was all she needed to hear. She had to go to Shane. Whether he was in California or on the moon, she had to find him. She held Emily closer. “I love you, Mother, and I always will.” Her voice cracked. “But I can’t believe what you and Daddy have done to me.”

  Her mom came to her then and placed her arms around Lauren and Emily, holding them tight. When she drew back, she looked deep into her eyes, “I love you too, honey. I’m sorry. Really.”

  She turned and walked away. When Lauren heard the front door close behind her, she stood and set Emily down in her crib. With her heart in her throat, she added a few more items to each suitcase. All of Emily’s clothes, and more than enough for herself.

  As she left the room, a suitcase in each hand, she stopped and looked back. She scanned the room, taking in her box of short stories and photo albums, her yearbooks and souvenirs from a childhood that ended far too quickly. She could always come back for those things once she found Shane.

  The only memento she packed was a framed photograph of her and Shane, something she would set next to her bed so that wherever the next place was she called home, she would be driven every day to find him.

  Only then would she send for the rest of her things.

  She packed the car with the suitcases, then came back for Emily. She left a note in Emily’s crib that said simply, “Gone to meet Shane. I’ll call when I find him. Love, Lauren.”

  By four that afternoon they were three hundred miles out of Wheaton. Everything ahead of her looked bright and promising. The sky was clear, the map on the seat beside her had the route marked out perfectly. A woman at the local auto club had helped her with the best possible freeways and stopping points. She would get to California in six days and after that she’d find Shane and they could be together. Only one thing caused her even an inkling of doubt.

  In the backseat, Emily was still sneezing.

  EIGHT

  Something tragic had happened.

  By six o’clock that night, Angela Anderson was sure of it. She called Bill at the bank and struggled to keep the panic from her voice. “Have you seen Lauren?”

  “Lauren?” His tone told her he was busy. “Of course not. She’s home with the baby. You know that.”

  “She’s not here, Bill. I think she’s gone.”

  “If she’s not there, then of course she’s gone.” His impatience grated on her. “Honey, I’m in a meeting. She’s probably at the store, and she’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “What if . . . what if she’s gone?”

  “Gone where?”

  “Gone gone. I think she left, maybe to find Shane.” Angela’s voice was controlled, but only barely. “She didn’t leave a note, not one that I could find. I looked in her room, every where.”

  He uttered an exaggerated sigh. “She’s out shopping.”

  “I thought of that, but Bill, I’ve been home for an hour. She wouldn’t be gone this long.” She hesitated. “I have a bad feeling.”

  “All right, well listen.” There was kindness in his voice now. “Why don’t you check her room again and see what you can find. This is Lauren we’re talking about, honey. She wouldn’t do anything crazy.”

  A sense of peace washed over her. Bill was right. Lauren was grounded. Before getting pregnant, she’d been a standout student, a kid who always told them where she was; one who preferred staying home and playing Scrabble and Hearts with her parents and Shane rather than hitting a high school party.

  Of course she wouldn’t just take Emily and leave.

  Still, just to be sure, she needed to check her room one more time. She hurried up the stairs, a sick feeling in her heart. She pulled Lauren’s door open and scanned the bed. This time she saw something she hadn’t before. Lauren’s photo of herself and Shane, which always sat on her bedside table, was gone. Angela looked at the crib again. The bedding was gone too. The first time she’d checked Lauren’s room she’d assumed the baby’s sheets and blankets were being washed. Her heart beat hard in her throat. What if the bedding was missing for another reason? She moved in closer, her steps slow and fearful.

  On the mattress lay a piece of paper, something else she hadn’t seen her first time up.

  Angela’s heart screamed at her to leave the room, run back downstairs and convince herself that Lauren and Emily were only at the store, that they hadn’t gone farther away than that. But the note demanded her attention. She forced her feet to take her to the edge of the crib, and then without drawing another breath she lifted the note and read it.

  Gone to meet Shane. I’ll call when I find him. Love, Lauren.

  A burning sensation flooded her veins, a mix of adrenaline and fear all wrapped up in a shock that wouldn’t let her believe her own eyes. “No . . . ” Even as she spoke, she read the words again, then one more time. “No, Lauren. No!” Her hand shook so hard she could barely make out the words.

  What was Lauren thinking? She and Emily wouldn’t last on a trip across the country by themselves. Lauren had never driven more than an hour or two at any one time. She was only seventeen! How would she know which freeways to take or how to make it from Chicago to Los Angeles?

  Angela wasn’t sure whom to call first. The note clutched in her hand, she raced down the stairs. Bill. He had to know before anyone else. She had to dial his number three times before getting it right. She had him on the line in less than a minute.

  “So — ” Angela heard the nervous tension in his voice — “is she home?”

  Angela dropped to the nearest chair and grabbed a handful of her hair. Think! Say something. She squeezed the receiver and found her voice. “She’s gone. She and Emily. I found a note.”

  “A note?” She had his attention now. She heard a door shut in the background. “What did it say?”

  “She’s gone to California to find Shane. She’ll call when she gets hold of him.”

  He made a disbelieving sound. “That’s ridiculous, Angela. She’s just a child. She doesn’t have any idea how to drive across the country.”

  “Or how to care for little Emily.”

  “I’ll be right home. You call the police, and tell them what happened.” He was in a hurry now, anxious to fix the problem. “And pray, Angela. I can’t have anything happen to her.” A catch sounded in his voice. “I can’t have it.”

  She told him she’d do her best, then she hung up and called the local police office. “Our daughter ran away. We need your help.”

  “Okay, hold on.” He connected her to another officer.

  “I’m Officer Rayson. Your daughter ran away?”

  “Yes.” Angela put her hand against her chest. Her heart was racing so fast she could barely feel the beat. “Just today.”

  “Okay, let’s start with her age.” His voice held compassion, but still she had the sense this was a routine call for him.

  “She’s seventeen. She . . . she just had a baby.”

  The officer hesitated. “A baby? Is the baby with her?”

  “Yes. She’s four weeks old. My daughter packed a few suitcases, best I can tell, and the two of them set off today. Probably this morning.”

  “Ma’am, you’re asking me to make a report on a seventeen-year-old runaway with a newborn baby?”

  “Yes.” Angela clenched her fists. The man wasn’t going to help her. She forced her next words. “Is . . . is that a problem?”

  “Sort of.” The sound of rustling papers came across the phone line. “Ma’am, she’s almost an adult, and since she has a four-week-old baby, we can assume she left on her own without any foul play, is that right?”

  “Definitely. She left a note.” Ang
ela gripped the counter in front of her and stared at the piece of paper. “She said she was going to California to find the baby’s father.”

  “Okay, then.” Resignation rang in his tone. “If she doesn’t call in a few weeks, let us know. Maybe we can get someone in California on the case.”

  “What?” It was a shriek. “Sir, we need your help! She’s only seventeen. She hasn’t had a driver’s license for a full year yet!”

  “I’m afraid we look at things a little differently.” He waited a beat. “She may not be an adult, but because of the baby we see her as one. At that age, they have a pretty good idea of what they want. It’s a family issue.”

  “What about — ” She gave a series of light taps to her forehead. Think, Angela. Come on. “What about a missing person’s report. Couldn’t I file one of those even if she’s almost an adult?”

  “You can file one on a person of any age, Ma’am. But they need to be missing for twenty-four hours.” He sounded doubtful. “I have to be honest with you, though. We can’t put manpower behind every missing person’s report.”

  She couldn’t make sense of what was happening. The room felt like it was shaking beneath her feet, and all the colors seemed to melt together. The police couldn’t help her? What good was a police force, then? Her daughter was gone, headed one of a dozen different ways toward California. Los Angeles. But LA was a huge city, gigantic. How would Lauren find Shane?

  More important, how would she and Bill find their daughter?

  Bill came home while she was still sitting there, still poring through the yellow pages looking for someone who could help. She contacted three private investigators, but all of them said it was too soon to do anything. Lauren would be driving for the next week. If she wanted to call, she would. If not, there wasn’t much any of them could do. She would need to arrive in Los Angeles and set up residency before they could be of much help.

  Bill walked in, set his things on the kitchen counter, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Are the police on their way?”

  She looked at him, and for just a moment hatred gripped her. He had done this to them. He and the Galanters. She’d gone along with it because they were convincing. They made her believe the kids really would be better off apart. But hadn’t she doubted the decision all along? Watching the two of them say good-bye that night in the city, hadn’t she known this could happen?

  She blinked, letting the rage go. She could hate him later. Right now they had to find Lauren and Emily. “The police aren’t going to help.” She explained the situation. “I’ve tried a few private investigators, but they all say it’s too soon.”

  He hesitated, but only for a handful of seconds. “Then we have no choice.” He turned and went to the kitchen cupboard. It was his routine when he came home from work, and now he went ahead with it as if this were nothing more serious than a traffic ticket. He took a glass and filled it with ice water. “We’ll have to wait till she gets there.” He sipped the water. “I’m sure she’ll call.”

  “Bill!” She stood, slamming the chair back in against the counter. “Do you hear yourself? Your daughter has run away. She’s taken her newborn daughter, our grandchild, and you — ” she gestured at him — “calmly pour a glass of water and tell me she’ll call?” She was trembling, her voice loud and shrill. “I can’t believe who you’ve become. Sometimes I think I hate you for what you’ve done to her.”

  The water was still in his hand, but he set it down. His eyes found hers and a layer of remorse colored his expression. “Angela, calm down.” He went to her, but as he tried to touch her shoulder, she jerked away.

  “Don’t touch me.” She pushed her finger at his chest. “I didn’t want this, Bill. We pushed her out, don’t you see that?” Tears flooded her eyes and her throat felt scratchy. “All that mattered to any of you, to any of us, was how things looked. The kids needed to be apart, but why? So we could pretend this never happened, so we could pretend Lauren didn’t get pregnant and everything was perfectly normal, right?”

  “Lower your voice, please.” Though his tone was kind, Angela knew he still didn’t understand what she was feeling. “Everything will work out. You’ll see.”

  “No, it won’t. We let this happen, and now . . . now we might never see her again.”

  She spun away from him and hurried around the corner to their bedroom. How had life become so crazy? And where were Lauren and Emily? She wasn’t sure she could survive without them. Suddenly she realized her daughter held a piece of her heart, the part that understood life and the purpose and meaning of getting up in the morning. And now that Lauren was gone, that part of Angela was dead.

  The part capable of loving.

  Even loving the man she had married.

  Emily was sick. There was no denying that now. They’d been on the road for two full days, and the baby was burning up. Lauren drove aimlessly through the streets of Oklahoma City trying to decide what to do. She’d already stopped at a drugstore and bought pain reliever, something to lower Emily’s fever. That was half an hour ago, and it seemed to be working, but her baby still sounded terrible. She was sneezing and coughing and now she was wheezing every time she breathed in.

  A rush of fear and desperation worked its way through Lauren’s veins. Where should she take Emily? She had money, enough to see a doctor, but then what? Would they put the baby in the hospital? Would they find out that Lauren was a seventeen-year-old runaway? And what then? Maybe she would lose her daughter forever.

  In the backseat, Emily started to cry, and the sound of it made her wheezing worse.

  “Okay, honey, it’s okay. Mommy’s here.”

  The words hung in the small, stuffy car and mocked her. Mommy was here? So what? She didn’t have a clue how to be a mother, otherwise her baby wouldn’t be sick. She was about to get back on the freeway, head for the next town, when she spotted a sign that read, Hospital.

  She sped up and pulled into the parking lot. The least she could do was get someone to look at Emily. That shouldn’t raise too many flags. She parked and lifted the car seat from the back. Once inside the emergency area, she stood there, shaking, mouth dry. Other people were waiting in the lobby, and most of them turned and looked at her. Could they tell she was on the run? Was it obvious? And what about the people who worked there? What would she say? How would she explain her situation, other than by telling the truth?

  A blonde woman behind the counter smiled at her. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes.” She looked at Emily and back at the woman. “My baby’s sick.”

  The woman handed Lauren a clipboard and a pen. “Fill out the information sheet, and we’ll get your baby seen as soon as we have an empty room.”

  “Okay.”

  The form asked a dozen questions, some of which she couldn’t answer. Address, for instance. And phone number. She also left blank the part about emergency contact information and next of kin. But she filled in Emily’s birth date and the fact that they didn’t have insurance. Then she signed the form and turned it in. They were called back five minutes later. The woman from the front office led her to a room. “Wait here. Dr. West will be in to see you in just a moment.”

  “Thank you.” Lauren sat on a chair in the corner and slid Emily’s car seat close to her feet. She felt her daughter’s forehead and a shudder passed through her. The baby was hotter than before. There was a knock at the door.

  “Yes?” Lauren gulped. What if they called the police or sent her back home? What if they could tell she was running?

  The door opened and a pretty black woman walked in. “I’m Dr. West.” She held her hand out to Lauren. “Let’s take a look at your baby. Why don’t you get her undressed, everything except her diaper.”

  Lauren lifted Emily from her car seat and laid her on the cold examination table. She started to cry, and as Lauren undressed her, she noticed that her baby’s face was red. “I think she has a cold.”

  When Emily’s hot body had nothing on but her d
iaper, the doctor held a stethoscope to her chest. She moved it three times before looking up, her face knit in concern. “Her lungs sound pretty full. Do you live nearby?”

  “Is it a cold?”

  “I’m not sure.” The woman gave her a slight frown. “Where did you say you lived? We might have to admit her. I’d like to see her get an X-ray.”

  Panic coursed through Lauren. She put her hand on Emily’s head and patted her hair. “I’m not from around here. I’m . . . I’m moving to California.” She looked at her daughter. “The two of us are moving there.”

  The doctor waited until Lauren looked back up at her. Then she made a thoughtful sort of sound. “I tell you what. Wait here for a minute.” She gave a last quick look at Emily and then she left the room.

  Lauren couldn’t draw a deep breath. Where was the woman going? Was she calling the police or maybe a social services department? Maybe she was doing a check on her name, and by now her parents would’ve called and reported her missing. That would bring the police for sure. Emily was crying, squirming on the table. Lauren studied her, the look in her eyes. She didn’t look that sick. And with the pain reliever and maybe a cough syrup, they should be okay until she got help. There was only one place where she could turn now, and it would feel like utter defeat. But her medical insurance, her support system, everything was in Chicago. She had no choice but to go back.

  Then, when Emily was well, they could head for California once more.

  “It’s all right, sweetie.” She cooed at Emily as she slipped the baby’s tiny arms into her little sleeper. After four weeks it no longer felt awkward dressing her, but here she felt anxious, like she was doing everything wrong. When her baby was dressed, Lauren picked her up and cradled her close, bouncing her slightly so that she would settle down.

  After a minute Emily was quieter, her crying only in small bursts. Lauren checked the clock on the wall. No wonder her baby was upset. It had been four hours since she’d eaten; she was probably starving. The idea brought a memory back to her. She’d been maybe eleven years old, home with the flu, but she came downstairs and found her mother in the kitchen.