Laura’s hands floated to her lap. She kept her head bowed.
There was the usual dramatic pause and then—
Clapping. Cheering. Feet stamping the floor.
“Fantastic,” Nick shouted. He was basking in the glow of the applause, as if it was meant entirely for him. “That’s my girl, ladies and gentlemen.”
Laura stood up, shrugging off his hand. She walked past Nick, past the picnic tables and the children’s play area, but then she realized that this was truly the last time she would ever see the man who called himself Nicholas Harp again.
She turned around. She looked him in the eye. She told him, “I’m not damaged anymore.”
There was a stray clap before the room went silent.
“Darling?” Nick’s smile held a sharp warning.
“I’m not hurt,” she told him. “I healed myself. My daughter healed me—my daughter. My husband healed me. My life without you healed me.”
He chuckled. “All right, Jinxie. Run along now. You’ve got a decision to make.”
“No.” She said the word with the same determination she had expressed three decades ago in the farmhouse. “I will never choose you. No matter what the other option is. I don’t choose you.”
His teeth were clenched. She could feel his rage winding up.
She told him, “I’m magnificent.”
He chuckled again, but he was not really laughing.
“I am magnificent,” she repeated, her fists clenched at her side. “I’m magnificent because I am so uniquely me.” Laura pressed her hand to her heart. “I am talented. And I am beautiful. I am amazing. And I found my way, Nick. And it was the right way because it was the path that I set out for myself.”
Nick crossed his arms. She was embarrassing him. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“We’ll talk about it in hell.”
Laura turned around. She walked around the corner, stood at the locked gate. Her hands shook as she waited for the guard to find his key. The vibrations moved up her arms, into her torso, inside her chest. Her teeth had started to chatter by the time the gate swung open.
Laura walked through. Then there was another door. Another key.
Her teeth were clicking like marbles. She looked through the window. Mike was standing between the two locked doors. He looked worried.
He should be worried.
Laura felt a wave of nausea as she realized what had just happened. Nick had threatened Andy. He had told her to choose. Laura had made her choice. It was all happening again.
I don’t want to hurt our child, but I will.
The door opened.
She told Mike, “He threatened my daughter. If he comes after us—”
“We’ll take care of it.”
“No,” she told him. “I’ll take care of it. Do you understand me?”
“Whoa.” Mike held up his hands. “Do me a favor and call me first. Like you could’ve called me before you went to that hotel room. Or when you were in a shoot-out at the mall. Or—”
“Just keep him away from my family.” Laura got a burning sensation in her spine that told her to be careful. Mike was a cop. She had been held blameless for Paula’s death, but Laura of all people knew the government could always find a way to fuck you if they wanted.
“He’ll be in a SuperMax,” Mike said. “He won’t be writing letters or getting visitors. He’ll get one shower a week, maybe an hour of daylight, if he’s lucky.”
Laura took out the earbuds. She dropped them into Mike’s hand. The burst of adrenaline was tapering off. Her fingers were steady. Her heart wasn’t quivering like a cat’s whisker anymore. She had done what she’d come here to do. It was over. She never had to see Nick again.
Not unless she chose to.
Mike said, “I gotta admit, I thought you had a screw loose when you told me to figure out a way to get that piano moved.”
Laura knew she had to stay in his good graces. “The petition was a clever trick.”
“Marshal School 101: you can get an inmate to do anything for potato chips.” Mike was preening, his chest puffed out. He clearly loved the game. “The way you kept looking at the piano like a kid staring at a bag of candy. You really worked him.”
Laura saw Andy through the window in the door. She looked older now, more like a woman than a girl. Her brow was creased. She was worried.
Laura told Mike, “I will do whatever it takes to keep my daughter safe.”
“I can name a couple of corpses who found that out the hard way.”
She turned to look at him. “Keep that in mind if you ever consider asking her out on a date.”
The door opened.
“Mom—” Andy rushed into Laura’s arms.
“I’m fine.” Laura willed it to be true. “Just a little shaken.”
“She was great.” Mike winked at Laura, as if they were in this together. “She worked him like Tyson. The boxer, not the chicken.”
Andy grinned.
Laura looked away. She could not abide seeing pieces of Nick in her child.
She told Mike, “I need to get out of here.”
He waved for the guard. Laura almost tripped over the man’s shoes as they exited back through security. She waited for Andy to get her purse out of the locker, her phone and keys.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” Mike said, because he was incapable of being silent. “The old Nickster didn’t know you already confessed to transporting the gun to Oslo, right? That’s why you got two years in the slammer. The judge sealed that part of your immunity agreement. He didn’t want to exacerbate international tensions. If the Germans found out an American smuggled a gun from West to East for the purposes of murder, there would’ve been hell to pay.”
Laura took her purse from Andy. She checked to make sure her wallet was inside.
Mike said, “So, when you told Nick that stuff about the gun, he thought you were implicating yourself. But you weren’t.”
Laura said, “Thank you, Michael, for narrating back to me exactly what just happened.” She shook his hand. “We’ve got it from here. I know you have a lot of work to do.”
“Sure. I thought I’d scrapbook through some of my feelings, maybe open a pinot.” He winked at Laura as he held out his hand to Andy. “Always a pleasure, beautiful.”
Laura wasn’t going to watch her daughter flirt with a pig. She followed the guard to the last set of doors. Finally, blissfully, she was outside, where there were no more locks and bars.
Laura took a deep breath of fresh air, holding it in her lungs until they felt like they might burst. The bright sunlight brought tears into her eyes. She wanted to be on the beach drinking tea, reading a book and watching her daughter play in the waves.
Andy looped her hand through Laura’s arm. “Ready?”
“Will you drive?”
“You hate when I drive. It makes you nervous.”
“You can get used to anything.” Laura climbed into the car. Her leg was still sore from the shrapnel in the diner. She looked up at the prison. There were no windows on this side of the building, but part of her could not shake the feeling that Nick was watching.
In truth, she’d had that feeling for over thirty years.
Andy backed out of the parking space. She drove through the gate. Laura didn’t let herself relax until they were finally on the highway. Andy’s driving had improved on her interminable road trip. Laura only gasped every twenty minutes instead of every ten.
Laura said, “That part about loving Gordon, I meant it. He was the best thing that ever happened to me. Other than you. And I didn’t know what I had.”
Andy nodded, but the little girl who prayed for her parents to get back together was gone.
Laura asked, “Are you all right, sweetheart? Was it okay hearing his voice, or—”
“Mom.” Andy checked the mirror before passing a slow-moving truck. She leaned her elbow on the door. She pressed her fingers against the side of her head.
Laura watched the trees blur past. Pieces of her conversation with Nick kept coming into her mind, but she would not let herself dwell on what was said. If there was one thing Laura had learned, it was that she had to keep moving forward. If she ever stopped, Nick would catch up with her.