“We don’t know where she went,” Conlan said.
Anita crumpled into a chair, saying, “Oh, God,” and covering her mouth with her hand.
David frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“She left with her son,” Angie said.
“Left? But …” David’s voice broke.
Angie handed him the envelope. “She left this for you.”
His hands were unsteady as he opened the letter.
They all stood there in silence, watching him.
Finally, he looked up. Standing there, crying, he looked so young. “She’s not coming back.”
It took all of Angie’s strength not to cry with him. “I don’t think she can.” It was the first time she’d dared to say it, even to herself. Conlan squeezed her hand. “She thinks we’d all be better off not knowing where she is.”
David reached for his mother’s hand. “What do we do, Mom? She’s all alone. It’s my fault. I should have stayed with her.”
They stood there, looking at one another. No one knew what to say.
Finally, Anita said, “You’ll call us if she comes back.”
“Of course,” Conlan answered.
Angie watched them leave, mother and son, holding hands. She wondered what they’d say to each other now. What words could be found on a day like this.
At last, she turned to Conlan, gazed up at him.
Their whole life was in his eyes, all the good, the bad, the in-between times. For a while there, it had seemed that love had moved on, left them behind. They’d lost their way because they’d thought their love wasn’t enough. Now they knew better. Sometimes your heart got broken, but you just held on. That was all there was.
“Let’s go home,” she said, almost managing to smile.
“Yeah,” he said. “Home.”
Lauren stepped off the bus and into her old world. She tightened her hold on Johnny, who was sleeping peacefully in the front pack; she rubbed his tiny back. She didn’t want him to wake up in this part of town.
“You don’t belong here, John-John. You remember that.”
Night was falling now, and in the darkening shadows the apartment buildings looked less shabby and more sinister.
She realized suddenly that she was nervous, almost afraid. This wasn’t her neighborhood anymore.
She paused, looked back at the bus stop with a longing. If only she could turn around, walk to the corner, and take the bus out to Miracle Mile Road.
But there was no going back. She’d known that when she’d left the hospital. Lauren had betrayed Angie and Conlan’s trust; she’d done exactly what she’d vowed not to. Whatever love they’d shown her would be gone now. She knew a thing or two about abandonment.
Lauren didn’t belong across town anymore, in that cottage perched above the sea or in the restaurant that smelled of thyme and garlic and simmering tomatoes. Her choices in life had led her here again, inexorably, to where she belonged.
At last she came to her old apartment building. Looking up at it, she felt a shudder of loss.
She’d worked so hard to get out of here. But what else could she afford? She had a newborn son who couldn’t be put in child care for months. The five-thousand-dollar check in her wallet wasn’t nearly enough. She wouldn’t stay long, anyway, not in this town that would always make her think of Angie. Only until she felt better. Then she’d go in search of a new place.
She set down her small suitcase and straightened, arching her aching back. Everything hurt. The Advil she’d taken earlier had begun to wear off and her abdomen ached. There was a sharp, pinching pain between her legs. It made her walk like a drunken sailor. With a sigh, she grabbed her suitcase again and trudged up the weed-infested path, past the black trash bags filled with garbage and the soggy cardboard boxes.
The door creaked open easily. Still broken.
It took her eyes a second to adjust to the gloom. She’d forgotten how dark it was in here, how it smelled of stale cigarettes and despair. She went to apartment 1-A and knocked.
There was a shuffling of feet, a muffled, “Just a sec,” then the door opened.
Mrs. Mauk stood there, wearing a floral housedress and fuzzy pink slippers. Her gray hair was hidden by a red bandana that she wore in an old-fashioned style. “Lauren,” she said, frowning.
“Did … my mom ever call for me?” She heard the pathetic neediness in her voice and it shamed her.
“No. You didn’t really think she would, did you?”
“No.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I thought you got out.”
Lauren tried not to react to the word—out—but it wasn’t easy. “Maybe there is no out for people like us, Mrs. Mauk.”
The heavy lines on Mrs. Mauk’s face seemed to deepen at that. “Who’s that?”
“My son.” She smiled, but it felt sad. “Johnny.”
Mrs. Mauk reached out and touched his head. Then she sighed and leaned against the doorframe.
Lauren recognized the sound. It was defeat. Her mother had sighed like that all the time. “I guess I’m here to see if you have an apartment for rent. I have some money.”