by Deanna Roy
“How do you know where it is?” I asked her.
“I don’t,” she said merrily. “You’re leading.”
I realized that yes, I was setting the direction, even though it felt as though Stella was in charge. She was good at that, acting like she was doing the pushing when really you were going where you needed to go. My belly unclenched.
“I’m here a lot,” she said. “Many of my mothers end up here.”
“You still run that group after all these years?” I asked.
“I do,” she said. “Most women have their own babies and move on, but for me, my greatest accomplishment is all of you.”
We arrived at Peanut’s grave. I realized for the second time that I had brought nothing for the empty flower vase built into the stone. No matter, I was getting him out of here. He would never have to lie beneath an empty cup again.
“Are you back in Houston to stay?” Stella asked.
“I’m just here to get Peanut’s remains,” I said. I kneeled down by his stone. “I don’t like the idea of him down here in the ground.”
“Where are you taking him?” she asked, pressing her hand into the grass to balance herself as she sat beside me.
“I’m having him cremated.”
She brushed some dirt off his nameplate. “That’s a nice idea. Then you can have him with you.”
She understood. I felt calmer. It was always good to be with someone who got what you were after.
My mother caught up to us and sat down on the other side of me. “Did she tell you her crazy idea?” she said to Stella.
And just like that, I exploded.
“Are you kidding me?” I shouted. “If you had just done what I asked, I wouldn’t have to be doing this now!”
Instead of looking away, as she once would have, my mother stared me down. Her hair blew around her face, disturbing her perfect arrangement. “You said a lot of things during that time.” Her voice held a note of bitterness. “I never knew what you really meant and what you just said to upset me.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn’t remember talking to her much at all. I stayed hidden out in the garage apartment as much as possible during this period.
“We weren’t exactly close,” I said, forcing my voice down. I avoided looking over at Stella. No telling what she was thinking about this.
“No, we weren’t,” she said. “Not by then. You were a very sweet child, happy and energetic. But adolescence was hard for you. You changed completely.” She leaned forward and looked at Stella. “You know how they are.”
“Actually, all three of my babies died,” Stella said. “Never had a teenager.”
Mom sat back, looking suitably chagrined. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Stella said with a wave of her hand. “I had a niece who made a total mess of her life for a while. Ended up pregnant and deserted by the father. She lived with me for a while.”
“Kayleigh!” I said. She and I had been friends after her baby was born and she lived with Stella. Then I’d moved away for college, and we lost touch.
“She’s had two more since then,” Stella said. “They figured things out.”
“I’m so glad,” I said. Kayleigh getting jilted by her fiancé was something we had in common, although her baby had been just fine.
“Well, I didn’t know what to do with this one,” Mom said.
Stella shifted near us both. “There is only one thing to do to a child who is impossible, distant, in trouble, and pushing you away.”
We both turned to her as she took one of our hands in each of hers, forming a bridge between us.
My mother sounded wary when she asked, “And what’s that?”
But I knew what she would say before she said it. Stella had said it many times in our group, about wayward husbands and family members and friends and coworkers and all the people who were hurtful to us after our losses, whether intentionally or by accident.
But still, the words resonated as she said them one more time, the wind whipping her thinning hair.
“You forgive them.”
Chapter 17: Jenny
Chance was doing so super great.
I sat outside the radio station recording room, watching him talk to a DJ through a mike that came down from the ceiling. He had headphones on, which made him look dashing and important.
My heart surged with pride.
My phone buzzed and I glanced down. Mom had sent an image of Phoenix lying on her belly, holding her head up. Man, she was growing fast. Mom was good about sending pictures when we were apart, although I had to admit I might not be the most anxious of mothers when I was away. Mom probably took better care of her than I did.
The broadcast version of the interview was piped into the waiting area through speakers. The delay was more than I expected, a lot longer than on live TV. Everything I was hearing was stuff he had said thirty seconds ago. It was particularly noticeable when he made a broad gesture with an exclamation in the room but the words over the air were calm and measured. I felt like we were in some weird time warp.
But it was exciting.
I took a quick picture of him through the window and sent out my millionth Tweet, watching for interaction. I was a hotshot at social media already, and I was milking this moment for Chance for all it was worth. Dylan Wolf’s camp had already retweeted it, as I had asked, and so it was rapidly spreading. I posted links to the unreleased demo and set up an account for amateur concert footage for people who wanted to feel like they were getting in on his discovery.
Over four hundred new followers since the broadcast began.
I suppressed a little squee. With me on his team, we should give him the best possible launch for his upcoming album. I cared a whole lot more about his career than some overworked publicity specialist at the record label.
A couple young twentysomethings, probably college interns, based on their backpacks and animated conversation, came in and crossed in front of me. They had to be buzzed into the back room, so they weren’t regular employees. They brought with them the smell of the wet chilly outdoors, plus something else. Something light and easy. Inexpensive shampoo and strawberry lip gloss. Trappings of youth.
I envied them for just a second, then reeled it back in. I was in the position to be envied. Married to an up-and-coming musician, a new mother, watching my man be interviewed on the radio. So much ahead of us. This was just the start.
The show went into commercial. A woman entered the back of the sound studio. The DJ waved her into a seat. He had his headset cocked off one ear.
My anxiety prickled. This woman was gorgeous. Tall, stacked, skinny, dressed in skintight glossy black pants and a shimmery top that showed tons of cleavage.
I pressed my hands against my boobs self-consciously, aware of their uneven shape since Phoenix had been favoring one over the other. If I tried pressing them together enough for cleavage like that, I’d be a milk fountain.
The woman reached to shake Chance’s hand, then leaned in to kiss his cheek. My face flamed. Who was this person?
She sat down and everybody put their headsets back on. The DJ pointed at the sound engineer in the corner, and their conversation resumed. The broadcast was still in commercial, but quickly, the station’s call letters came back and the jingle for the show returned.
I had a hard time listening to their past conversation while winnowing out what was happening in real time due to the delay. The woman could not keep her hands to herself, reaching over to touch Chance every time she spoke or laughed.
I wanted to rake my fingernails down the glass.
Chance pointed out the window at me and the woman turned. I gave a little friendly wave, but my eyes bored into her. She got it. Her fake smile froze. Whatever her angle was, it wouldn’t happen today.
Thank God I had come. No telling what this chick would be up to if I wasn’t here.
We weren’t far from home, just a quick flight to Portland. At first we
weren’t sure we could scrape together enough money to get me a plane ticket too, but then Mom had chipped in. So, here we were, on a short two-night getaway. Chance was paid for, and so was our hotel room, so we could kick back a little.
My phone buzzed with an update. Another twenty followers for Chance.
Finally, the broadcast caught up, and the DJ introduced the woman as Amity Garrett, a music producer at some record company local to Portland. Apparently she was here to give Chance career advice as he got started.
“I hear you got a little press coverage while you were hitchhiking across the country,” Amity said. “In LA?”
“I did,” Chance said, his voice deep and smooth. “I met one heck of a woman my first night in Cali.”
My interest perked up. He was going the sweet southern charmer route.
“As I recall, it even made the television tabloids,” the DJ said.
“Yeah, that was something,” Chance said. “Not my favorite brush with fame. But I might have to get used to it.”
“But you got a wife out of it, didn’t you?” the DJ asked.
“I sure did,” Chance said. “She’s here today.”
I guessed that was the point when Amity had turned to me.
I glanced up at him again, but of course they were already on some other topic in real life. Chance seemed to be concentrating and serious.
“But you’re a family man now, I hear,” the DJ said. “Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.”
“Thanks,” Chance said. “It’s been a whole ’nother experience, going from alone on the road to a home.”
They went on to talk about some of Chance’s songs and Amity gave him demographic information about his potential audience. In the sound booth, she had stopped reaching for him constantly.
I relaxed a little. Everything seemed back on track.
I scrolled through my contacts and paused on Tina. A week had passed with no word to anybody. I took a moment to send my daily message to her, something light and chipper.
Then I thought to check on a website she had asked me to set up for Albert’s art fellowship program. She wanted to get the basics up for when they started accepting applications, and I had agreed to help her.
Only a few people were finding the page, but we hadn’t done anything major to attract web traffic. I didn’t care about that at the moment. I logged in as admin. I had a hunch about something.
And sure enough, when the back-end page loaded, I saw it.
Last user log-in, yesterday at 11:56 p.m.
I hadn’t logged in last night. That meant Tina had.
She was okay.
I highlighted the IP address of the log-in and popped it into a search box. This would tell me where she was. It came up instantly.
Houston, Texas.
I had her.
Chapter 18: Corabelle
I held the ice pack uncertainly over Gavin’s crotch. “You sure this is going to help?” I asked.
He peeked out from under his arm, which was crossed over his face. “At least until the drugs kick in.”
I laid the sleeve of chilled gel on his boxers.
He sucked in a quick breath, then relaxed back onto the sofa cushions. “Yeah, that’s better.”
I sat on the floor next to him. He’d gone back to work today at the garage, a week earlier than he was supposed to after his surgery. And he’d thrown tires, when he should have waited several weeks for hard labor.
“We have enough money left over to make it for a while without you working,” I said. God, I was worried sick over him doing this. What if he wrecked his recovery and all this was for nothing?
“It’s Bud,” he said. “He’s short people and his son is sick.”
“Can’t Mario do more shifts?”
“He’s already there. We’re all pitching in.”
I laid my head on his thigh. “Why did you throw tires? You got promoted from that a year ago.”
“It needed doing. And I’ve been cooped up for a week. I wanted to do something hard.”
And look where it got him. But I didn’t say a word. This was marriage. He would make his choices, and I would make mine. You could save people only as far as they were willing to be saved.
“Come here,” he said, and lifted me up to lie next to him on the sofa. I squeezed between his hard body and the back cushion and rested my head on his shoulder.
“I’ll be all right,” he said. “I’m just a little sore. Doc said I would be for a while.”
I nodded against his neck. I honestly didn’t know if I wanted the reversal to work or not. I wanted to try to restore his ability to have children, certainly. I wanted to reach for that possibility.
But if I didn’t have to face the results, never had to be pregnant, to go through all that fear again, that might be okay. The uncertain future was easier to manage when the power to change it was no longer in our hands. We’d done our part.
“Nothing new from the private investigator today?” I asked. We’d discovered hiring someone to find Rosa and Gavin’s son was a lot cheaper than bringing on a lawyer to work the courts.
Gavin shook his head. “We know where she is, but it’s a privately guarded compound nobody can get into. They tried to deliver flowers or something. But Mexico, it’s not like here.”
“I’m sure there are places here that no one wants to send a pizza to,” I said.
“True,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s just so wild. How people can hole up somewhere and become invisible. I can’t even talk to anyone there.”
He fell silent, and I knew he was thinking about his goal to learn Spanish and talk to his son in both languages. But he hadn’t done it. Manuelito picked up English so quickly, it hadn’t been necessary, although Gavin would stew when Rosa would talk to family in Spanish just to leave him out.
“Too bad things didn’t work out with her and Mario,” I said.
“They were never going to be a couple,” Gavin said. “Mario is still a bachelor to the core. He can barely handle himself.”
“Still, if she’d settled here, things would have been different.”
Rosa wasn’t a U.S. citizen and couldn’t stay unless she married. But the relationship between her and Gavin’s friend had blazed hot and burned up fast.
“I worry about Manuel,” Gavin said, his voice catching. “What he thinks about being away so long. If he misses us.”
I closed my eyes, a tear escaping onto his shirt. I had been so against the little boy being with us at first, hard evidence of what some other woman got with Gavin that I might never have. But the boy himself was like a miracle, tender and kind. He was the best of all of us.
“Maybe we should have used the money to fight after all,” I said.
Gavin squeezed me. “We went over this so many times. Fifteen-grand retainer just to get started. And where would we be later? All the money to lawyers and nothing done. I was there. I saw it for myself. At least the investigator found her. That’s something.”
The light outside was fading, but the days were lengthening. Winter would give way to spring soon. And Manuelito had been gone four months, the whole lifetime of Jenny’s baby, Phoenix.
That reminded me. “Jenny figured out where Tina is,” I told Gavin.
He lifted his head. “Really?”
“Houston. I remembered when Jenny said it that Tina was from there. But she never talks about it.”
“Did Jenny talk to her?”
“Not yet. She saw Tina log in to that site Jenny worked on for the artist project. I think she’s going to text her at some point and threaten to go there.”
“With the baby?”
I relaxed back against Gavin’s chest. “I’m not sure.”
Surely Jenny couldn’t go. Not with Phoenix. I still had a little money from Albert, even after the surgery and the investigator fees. I should be the one. It would be the best use of it, to help out Tina.
“It should be me,” I said. “It should be any
way. I’m the one who understands. The last thing Tina needs is a baby in her face.”
Gavin shifted, making a small grunting sound of pain.
“Except,” I said, realizing what I was missing, “I need to take care of you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I’m perfectly capable of microwaving my own 99-cent pizza.”
I had to laugh. It was true that we’d been eating pretty badly with him laid up and me stressed out.
“It’s almost spring break,” I said. “I have a week off.”
“So, go,” Gavin said. “Mario and I can be bachelors.”
I knocked my head against his collarbone. “I remember those days. Fistfights in bars?” I couldn’t bring myself to say, “And prostitutes.”
He laughed. “I might have had a little more clouded judgment then.”
“I’ll say.”
“How about if I just lie here among my pizza boxes and pine for you?” He kissed the top of my head. “You could use a little getaway, anyway. No books or papers to grade. Just pack a few things and go.”
I stared across the room at the images of Finn, and me and Gavin, and Manuelito. Tina was like family to me now. Yes, I would go fetch her.
Someone had to bring her home.
Chapter 19: Tina
It didn’t matter that people knew where I was now. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Both Jenny and Corabelle had been relentlessly messaging me the past couple days. Jenny had somehow figured out I was in Houston. Corabelle had already booked a flight here. Not that I had told her where my mother lived. She wouldn’t know where to go if I wanted to blow her off. Houston wasn’t exactly small.
The tenor of Darion’s messages had also changed. He asked if I had gone home, but I hadn’t told him. I did occasionally respond to his messages, though, so he wouldn’t worry. Or come after me. I had asked for space. Darion was good like that, willing to give it.
Not so much the girls. They seemed to need a resolution to this, now.
