“I look for her everywhere,” Valerie had said, month after month, year after year, during their regular meetings at that same café, one of the few remnants of a city that had changed, and one they doggedly returned to. Sister Margaret Jean wanted to say, I look for her everywhere, too. And I look for him. But she only smiled and nodded, sympathetic. She kept her thoughts to herself, as always.
“But the thing is, I think I saw her,” Valerie said now. “I know it’s happened before and I’ve always been wrong, but I saw this young woman on the news a month ago, and I can’t stop thinking about her. She looks so much like me.” Valerie slid her phone across the table. She seemed younger when she spoke this way, less like the accomplished woman she had become and more like the scared, sad child she had been when Sister Margaret Jean first met her in this luncheonette.
Sister Margaret Jean looked at the photo of the pretty young woman in the crisp white blouse and navy blazer, leaning toward the camera, a smile in her eyes. She had to admit, she did look like Valerie. Same color hair, same curls, same face shape, same mouth—same unusual eyes. She zoomed in on them.
“It’s uncanny.”
“She’s wanted by police,” Valerie said. “For embezzlement. I’ve tried to find out more about her, but it’s all dead ends. No parents. No family. I know I shouldn’t waste my time. But I can’t stop looking at this photo.”
Not for the first time, Sister Margaret Jean thought of the man with the shiny shoes, of the kind of life he might have given the baby she had allowed him to walk away with that night. Could the child have been led this far astray? Sure, she could have. Anything was possible. But she hoped not.
“I don’t think this could be your daughter,” she said to Valerie, sliding the phone back to her.
“Don’t you?” Valerie looked down at the image for a long moment, then put the phone away. “I guess there’s no way of knowing.”
“No,” Sister Margaret Jean said, the guilt weighing more heavily. “There isn’t.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lucky was still sitting inside her cabin. She had been in there alone for hours, unsure of what to do next. Outside, it had started to rain, and it was getting dark. Lucky rose from her bed and looked out the window again. The white SUV remained; Reyes and John were now inside it, waiting.
Betty was asleep, curled at the bottom of the bed, but she opened one eye when Lucky opened the door.
“It’s okay, girl, I’ll be right back.” Lucky ran across the wet grass toward the office, ignoring Reyes and John, who were watching her. She went inside. First she tried Gloria’s cell phone, just in case—but it was still off. It reminded her of Cary’s disappearance, that morning in the Vegas hotel room when she had tried to phone him, and the pieces of his betrayal had slowly and sickeningly fallen into place. It was that same feeling of fruitless frustration, fear, and abandonment.
She pushed those memories aside, put the phone down, and looked around the dim, empty office. All she felt were the empty spaces around her and inside her. The space her father had once occupied—now he was no longer her father. The space Gloria had once occupied—now she had no image of a mother to cling to. The space Cary had once occupied—now he was gone, possibly dead, and no longer someone she could ever hope to understand. And the space the lottery ticket had once occupied, that effervescent hope that had lived inside her and kept her going? It was a gaping hole, like a wound. Gloria had told her she was not her mother, but still, Lucky had started to feel like maybe she could come to trust her. She had even started imagining telling her about the ticket, asking her to cash it in. Instead, she had let her guard down, and Gloria had stolen the ticket from her when she was at her most vulnerable. She put her face in her hands.
The door creaked open. It was Reyes.
“Hey, how are you holding up? What’s going on?”
Lucky shook her head. “Just go. Please? It’s pointless for you to stay here.”
But Reyes pulled up a chair. “I had no idea. John never told me, either. We’ve talked about it now, a little. He has moments of clarity, and for a while there earlier, he seemed to understand what he had done, what you had found out. He really wants to help you.”
“I don’t want his help. I don’t want him here at all.”
“But, the thing is… Well, he just loves you so much. I used to be jealous of that. I thought that if I could only have someone in my life who cared about me the way he cared about you, if I could maybe have a real dad, I’d be set.”
“I didn’t have a real dad.”
“Better than the one I had. He used to beat the shit out of me. I got yanked out of my house and put in foster care. Which is how I ended up meeting Priscilla, and that nearly ruined my life, so…”
The only sound was the pelting of the rain on the roof of the trailer.
“Prison is brutal,” Reyes said. “It takes a lot away from you. All you have to do is look at the state your dad’s in now to see that. But it does help a person understand the importance of second chances.”
“I can never forgive him for lying to me about who I am.”
“He’s a good man.”
Lucky snorted. “You must not have met very many good men in your life.”
“He was kind to me when no one else was. He kept working for Priscilla because he wanted to try to keep me safe.”
“I thought it was because he was trying to pay for my tuition.”
“That was only part of it.”
More silence, more dripping rain.
“Your dad told me about the lottery ticket.”
Lucky looked up. “Ah,” she said. “Now I see why you’re being so nice to me.”