He grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t do anything stupid, Lexi.”

“Like what? Love my daughter?” Her voice broke on that and she turned away, walking fast.

Twenty-four

Lexi sat on a park bench outside Scot’s office.

She knew about giving up. Back when she’d been neglected by her mother, and, later, when one foster family after another let her go, she had tried to stop hoping for more. As a young girl, sitting in a series of crowded government offices, waiting for new parents, she’d stared at the clock on the wall, watching the minutes tick past, thinking with every tiny click that this time she wouldn’t care, this time she would give up her hope, and, without it, she would be invulnerable.

But it had never worked. For some reason she’d never quite understood, hope was hardwired into her. Even in prison, when she’d stood in lines of women who wore blank, hopeless expressions, she had been unable to become one of them. Even Valium hadn’t helped to dim that small bright part of her. The problem was that she believed. She wasn’t sure what she believed in—was it God? goodness? herself? She had no answer to the question; she knew only that she owned this belief that if she did the right thing, if she always did her best and took responsibility for her mistakes and lived a moral life, she would succeed. She would not become like her mother.

But she’d done all of that. She’d gone to prison to atone for her mistake. She’d given up her daughter because she loved Grace so, so much. She had tried to do the right things, and yet still she was being thwarted.

She had the right to see Grace, but not the money.

How could she take a whole year of living in this community, seeing her daughter, but never being able to be with her? And how could she get a job—as an ex-con with practically no work history or recommendations—that would pay her rent and living expenses and give her enough left over for legal fees and social worker bills? And if she did somehow accomplish all of that, she would spend weekends with her daughter always being judged and scrutinized. How could a real relationship bloom under such dark skies?

It would be easier to give up. She could hop on a bus to Florida, where apparently the sun always shone. Once there, she could write letters to Grace—no one could deny her that now—and she and her daughter could get to know each other the old-fashioned way. Maybe in a few years, a visit could be arranged.

All she had to do was give up. Just concede defeat and get on the next bus.

Abandon her daughter a second time.

Just the thought of it made her ill. She remembered all the hours she’d spent in solitary confinement, feeling as if she were draining away in that fetid darkness, wanting to disappear. It had been Grace that pulled her out of all that, Grace who had convinced Lexi to quit tranquilizing herself with Valium and acting out with her fists. Grace who had made her come back to herself. At least, it had been the idea of Grace.

She got up and went into Scot’s office. Waving at the receptionist, she walked into his office without knocking. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“You’re no bother, Lexi,” he said, pushing out from behind his desk.

She pulled out the one hundred dollar bill Aunt Eva had sent her. “How much time with Grace will this get me?”

“Not much,” he said sadly.

Lexi bit her lip. She knew what to say next, but she was afraid. “There’s really only one way for me to see my daughter, isn’t there?”

Scot nodded slowly.

Another minute passed. She waited for him to talk her out of it.

“Okay, then,” she said after a long silence. Resettling her purse over her shoulder, she left the office. Outside, she unlocked the bike and climbed aboard, riding out of town. Although it would have saved her three miles, she avoided Night Road and went the long way. She didn’t allow herself to think about where she was going or what she was going to do until she reached her destination.

At the top of the long gravel driveway, she got off her bike.

The house still looked beautiful against the blue Sound and even bluer sky. The garden was an absolute mess, but only someone who’d seen it before would know that. To the first-time observer, it was simply a riot of color.

Lexi held on to the handlebars and guided the bike down the bumpy road. At the garage, she laid the bike gently on its side in the shorn grass and then she walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

It was funny how that one little action—ringing the doorbell—thrust her back in time. For a split second, she was innocent again, an eighteen-year-old girl, wearing her boyfriend’s ring, coming to her best friend’s house.

The door opened and Jude stood there. In a black T-shirt and leggings, she looked dangerously thin; her pale hands and feet seemed too big, and bony, with blue veins just beneath the skin. Lavender shadows beneath her eyes aged her, and a line of gray hair ran along her part.

“You have a lot of nerve coming here,” Jude finally said. Her voice was shaking a little, and that vibration helped Lexi gain control of her own runaway nerves.

“You’ve got some nerve, yourself. She’s my daughter.”

“Grace isn’t here. And the day care won’t let you see her again.”

“I didn’t come here to see Grace,” Lexi said. “I came here to see you.”

“Me?” Jude was growing paler by the second. “Why?”

“May I come in?”

Jude hesitated, and then backed up, whether to let Lexi in or put distance between them, she wasn’t sure; still, Lexi walked inside and closed the door behind her.

The first thing she saw was Mia’s shamrock green button-up sweater hanging from the hall tree. She drew in a sharp breath and reached for it.

“Don’t touch that,” Jude said sharply.

Lexi drew her hand back.

“What do you want?”

Lexi couldn’t stand here next to this sweater she could neither touch nor turn away from, so she walked past Jude and went into the glass-walled great room. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, she saw the beach. Just over there, Zach had told her he loved her … and there, they’d buried their time capsule. Their proof. Their pact.

She turned her back on the view. Jude was standing by the massive fireplace now, with its roaring fire on this summer day, and still she looked cold.

Lexi remembered how beautiful and confident Jude used to be, how much Lexi had ached for a mother like her. “You remember the first time we met?” Lexi said quietly, not moving closer. “It was the first day of freshman year. I just went up to Mia and asked if I could sit with her. She told me it was social suicide, and I said—”

“Don’t…”

“You don’t want to remember. I get it. Do you think I do? I can feel her sitting here; I can hear her laughing, saying, ‘Madre, can you make us something to eat?’ and you laughing, saying, ‘I live to serve you, Mia.’ I was so jealous of the kind of family you were. The kind of mother you were. I used to dream that I could belong here, but you know that. It’s why you wanted Zach to go to USC. You wanted him away from me.” Lexi sighed. “Maybe you were right. What would I do if Grace fell in love at seventeen? Who knows? It’s so young. I see that now. Too young.” She moved toward Jude, who flinched at her approach. “You used to be the best mother in the world.”

“So?” Jude said dully.

“So … you should know how I feel about Grace. Why I need to see her. You, of all people, should understand.”

Jude drew in a sharp breath and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Go, Lexi. Now.”

“I can’t afford a social worker to supervise my visits with Grace. But I could see her if you would supervise me.”

“Get out of my house.”

Lexi closed the distance between them. She could feel the animosity in Jude, but there was also sadness in her, and it was to the sadness that Lexi spoke. “You love Grace. I know you do. You’re like me—you don’t know how to go forward or backward, maybe, but you remember how love feels. I’m her mother. Regardless of what I’ve done, she needs to know I love her. If she doesn’t know that…” Lexi’s voice finally broke. “I won’t hurt Grace. I swear it. And I’ll stay away from Zach. Just let me get to know my daughter. I’m begging you.”

Lexi tried to think of more to say, but nothing came to her. The silence between them grew heavy, and finally Lexi shrugged and walked to the front door, where the green sweater was a sharp reminder of her best friend. Pausing, she glanced back at the great room. Jude hadn’t moved.

“Mia would have been on my side in this,” Lexi said.

Jude finally looked at her. “Thanks to you, we’ll never know, will we?”

* * *

Jude stood there, freezing cold, staring at the closed door, at the blur of green beside it, trying not to feel anything at all. At some point, she became aware that the phone was ringing. Walking woodenly into the kitchen, she picked up the cordless handset and answered. “Hello?”

“The phone rang and rang,” her mother said.

Jude sighed. “Did it?”

“Are you having another one of your bad days? I could—”

“Lexi was just here,” she said, surprised to hear the words spoken aloud. She didn’t really want to talk about this with her mother—hell, she didn’t want to talk about anything with her mother—but right now, she couldn’t hold back. Her nerves felt as if they were poking out of her body.

“The girl who was driving the car that night?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. My. That takes some nerve.”

“That’s what I told her.” Jude sagged against the wall, feeling depleted by the whole thing. “She wants me to supervise visitations so she can see Grace.”

“You told her no, of course. That’s what I would do.”

It took a moment for her mother’s words to sink in. When they did, Jude straightened. “That’s what you would do?”

“Of course.”

Jude pulled away from the wall and walked over to the window. Looking out, she saw her mangled, untended garden. It was a heady mix of bright color and dying black leaves. That’s what I would do.

“You can’t let that girl hurt you again,” her mother said.

Mia would be on my side in this.

Her mother was still talking, saying something about grief, maybe, as if she knew what Jude were feeling right now, but Jude wasn’t really listening. She started moving toward the stairs, drifting like a woman caught in a rip current. Before she knew it, she was at Mia’s bedroom door, reaching for the knob, opening it for the first time in years. She went to the closet, opened it, and stepped inside. A light came on automatically, and there it was, just as she’d left it. The box marked Mia.

A fine layer of dust attested to how long she’d been away. It had taken her years to find the strength to pack up these belongings. And once she’d done it, there had been no strength left to remember them.

“Good-bye, Mother,” she said, and hung up the phone, dropping it to the carpeted floor. She sank to her knees and opened the flaps. The mementos of Mia’s short life lay carefully arranged within. Yearbooks. Trophies for soccer and volleyball. An old pink tutu that had once fit a six-year-old. USC sweats. Barbie dolls with no clothes and a pair of scuffed white baby shoes. Everything except the journal, which she’d never found.