She opened the letter and read the words she’d dreamed of. “I did it,” she whispered. “I didn’t think—”
He pulled her into his arms and held her. “Remember our first date? After the Aberdeen game. We sat down at the beach, by the huge bonfire. While everyone else was running around and dancing and drinking, we talked. You told me you were going to win a Pulitzer someday, and I believed you. You’re the only one who doesn’t see how great you are.”
The Pulitzer. She couldn’t help touching her swollen belly. Give yourself a chance, her mother had said. Don’t end up like me.
“What should I do?” she whispered, looking up into David’s blue eyes.
“Take the scholarship,” he said, and though his words were harsh, there was a softness to his voice.
It was the right thing to do; she knew that. At least, she knew it in her head. Her heart was a different matter. How could she raise a baby if she had no education, no prospects? Once again she thought of her mother, on her feet, cutting hair all day and drinking all night, looking for love in dark places. She sighed heavily. The truth poked through her defenses, sharp as a tack. She wanted to go to college. It was her chance to be different from her mother. Slowly, she looked up at David again. “The lawyer found good people to take the baby?”
“The very best.”
“Can we meet them? Choose for ourselves?”
Joy transformed his face, turned him back into the boy she’d fallen in love with. He held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, and kissed her until she was dizzy. When he drew back, he was grinning. “I love you, Lauren.”
She couldn’t seem to smile. His enthusiasm chilled her somehow, made her angry. “You always get what you want, don’t you?”
His smile fell. “What do you mean?”
She didn’t even know. All she knew was that she wanted two things and couldn’t have them both. “I don’t know.”
“Damn it, Lauren. What the hell is wrong with you? How am I supposed to say the right thing when you change your mind every ten seconds?”
“Like you’ve ever said the right thing. All you’ve ever wanted is for me to get rid of it.”
“Am I supposed to lie? Do you think I want to blow off my whole future and be a dad?”
“And I do? You asshole.” She pushed him away.
He seemed to fade at that; it was almost as if he were losing weight before her eyes. “This whole thing blows.”
“Big time.”
They stood there, staring at each other. Finally, David moved toward her. “I’m sorry. Really.”
“This is ruining us,” she said.
He took her hand and led her back to the couch. They sat side by side. Still, it felt as if they were miles apart. “Let’s quit fighting and talk about it,” he said quietly. “All of it.”
Angie got out of her car and closed the door.
The storage compartment was in front of her.
C-22.
Other people’s compartments were on either side. The long, low building was one of dozens. A-1 Storage, the sign at the front gate read. Keep it safe. Keep it locked.
Angie swallowed hard. The key felt cold and foreign in her hand. She almost turned around then, almost decided she wasn’t strong enough to do this after all.
It was that, the fear that she hadn’t come far enough to be here, that finally made her move. She put one foot in front of the other, and the next thing she knew she was at the lock. She fit her key in place and clicked it open. The garage-style door clattered up and snaked into place along the ceiling.
She flicked on the light switch.
A lone bulb in the ceiling came on, illuminating a stack of boxes and furniture wrapped in blankets and bedding.
The leftovers from her marriage were all here. The bed she and Conlan had purchased in Pioneer Square and slept on for so many years. The desk he’d used in graduate school and finally given up on. The sectional sofa that had been bought because a whole family could lie on it and watch television.
But she hadn’t come here for those things, the reminders of who she’d been.
She’d come for Lauren.
She worked through the boxes, moving first one and then another as she made her way deeper into the storage unit. Finally, she found what she was looking for; it was tucked in the back corner. A trio of boxes marked Nursery.
She should simply take the boxes and put them in her car, but she couldn’t. Instead, she knelt on the cold cement floor and opened the box. The Winnie-the-Pooh lamp lay on a stack of pink flannel bedding.
She’d known how it would feel to look at these items, each so carefully chosen, none of them ever used. They were like bits and pieces of her heart, lost along the way but never forgotten.
She picked up a tiny white onesie that was rolled into a ball and held it to her nose. There was no smell except that of cardboard. No baby powder or Johnson’s shampoo.
Of course there wasn’t. No baby had ever worn this, or wakened to the light that shone from Winnie-the-Pooh’s honey bucket.