Lucky got up from her chair and started to walk, fast, toward the river. Betty followed along.
“Lucky, wait up, it’s me, your old dad! They sprung me! You aren’t happy to see me? Why’re you running away? Are you crying?”
She kept walking until she was at the edge of the riverbank. Betty reached her side first, then John. “Lucky. It is you, right? I haven’t been myself lately. It is you? You’re acting like we’re strangers.”
“Do you realize where we are, John? Do you know what this place is?”
He turned in a slow circle, taking in his shabby surroundings. “Not… really?”
“Devereaux Camp. You told me about it, when I visited you in jail just a few weeks ago. Remember that?”
“Oh, ah, right, I did.” He looked startled. “Reyes said so. She was telling me, reminding me. Shit. You met Gloria. You sought her out. I told you not to, but you did.”
“I did. I met Gloria and I made a fool of myself, telling her I was her long-lost daughter when it turns out… it turns out you stole me from some fucking church steps?” She had been trying to stay calm, but her voice rose.
“Not stole,” he said, shaking his head. “You were abandoned! I saved you—”
“You lied to me my entire life! You aren’t my real father. And Gloria was never my mother.”
Reyes had started to approach, but now she backed off, gave them their space.
“So you think I’m no good? Just because I tried to hide that one thing from you? What’s wrong with you? You think you’re so perfect?”
“I’m a criminal,” she said, her voice lower now. “You raised me to be one. And the man I thought I loved was a criminal, and now he’s—” She almost sobbed, but swallowed it back. “He’s probably dead, and I’m going to be held accountable for everything we did, and then some. And my one chance, the only thing I had—Gloria has the lottery ticket now, and she’s disappeared.”
“That lottery ticket! Where is it, where is Gloria? Get it from her. I can cash it, and I won’t take a cent, not a goddamn penny, because you’re right, I did you wrong by lying to you, but I swear, if you’ll let me make it up to you, I will make things better. I’ll go cash it for you. I’ll get Reyes to take me right now. All that money, you can do anything! The police will never find you—”
“I just told you, the ticket is gone! Gloria stole it!”
“So? We’ll find her.”
Lucky just shook her head. “How? How are we going to get to her before she cashes it in?”
He looked out at the river, then back at her. “I loved you the second I saw you, you know. It isn’t what you think. I wanted to take care of you. I did take care of you. I said you were my daughter because that’s what I’ve always felt. You are.”
“No. You didn’t love me: You saw my potential. Saw a way to mold me and use me in your cons. There’s nothing you can say to make things better, so don’t even try.”
“When you were little, for the longest time you didn’t even know what a mother was,” he said. “You were four… or maybe five the first time you asked. I froze. I couldn’t think of anything to say. And so I said your mother was Gloria because she was the first woman I could think of. The lie just spiraled from there. I never thought—” He raised his hands, at a loss for words.
“You never thought I’d find her.”
“I guess not.”
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I want to be alone. Come on, Betty. Let’s go.”
She walked away from him, toward her cabin. Before going inside, she turned back and saw her father standing alone. Reyes approached him. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he bowed his head; Lucky could tell her father was weeping. No. Not her father.
Betty whined, and she led her inside. Lucky closed the curtain and sat on the bed, staring down into her empty hands.
It was too late. Nothing about her or her life was ever going to change for the better. The only thing to do now was turn herself in and pay the price for her crimes.
October 2008
NEW YORK CITY
“I still dream of finding her someday,” Valerie said. It was the first of the month. She and Sister Margaret Jean were sitting in the luncheonette they had been meeting at for almost thirty years. “It would be a miracle. Wouldn’t it?”
“A miracle,” Sister Margaret Jean replied. “Yes, it truly would.”
Over the years, Sister Margaret Jean had slowly drained the contents of that cursed bank account filled with ill-gotten gains until there was almost nothing left. Hallelujah. College for Valerie, law school, a long climb up. She had indeed become a lawyer. And now she was Manhattan’s district attorney. Sister Margaret Jean felt proud. It was the greatest joy of her life. She had done it. The world was a better place because of Valerie Mann, and therefore it was a better place because of Sister Margaret Jean. You are forgiven, she would tell herself—even though she knew this wasn’t true, not really. Only God could forgive her. And Valerie was lonely, unhappy. She had almost everything: an incredible career, money, the good kind of notoriety—and yet, she had no people. She had never married. Sister Margaret Jean didn’t know if she had any friends but suspected not really. Her secret probably loomed too large. Valerie didn’t speak to her family; she sometimes spoke of a long-dead grandmother she had been close with, but her relationship with her parents had ended long ago, when they had kicked her out for getting pregnant. And Sister Margaret Jean could see that even after almost thirty years, the weight of abandoning her child still felt heavy to Valerie. It isolated her from everyone.