Reyes laughed. “Really, Lucky? You think I want to help you and be your friend because of some long-shot chance we’ll actually find this Gloria woman who stole your ticket and get that ticket back from her?” She shook her head, still laughing. “Do you realize what I stand to lose if I get caught with you, a fugitive? Just being here with you is in direct violation of the terms of my release from prison. Driving you to the bus station the other day—that was a big risk for me, too. Not to mention the fact that Priscilla will probably try to kill me when she finds out. I had no clue about the ticket at that point, did I? You’re going to have to learn to just trust people at some point. It’ll save you a lot of pain.”
“Right. Consider what happened to me the last few times I decided to trust people.”
“Maybe you need to let people prove themselves to you first, with actions, not just words.”
Lucky wanted to be angry but found she no longer had the strength. She knew she was being harsh, and unfair. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You didn’t have to come and pick me up, and you did.” She sighed. “Thanks for that.”
“No problem. People deserve second chances. And third chances. All people do is make mistakes. If we never forgave, we’d all be alone.”
“I am alone.”
The rain stopped and it was silent in the small room. Lucky ran her index fingers underneath her eyes, catching all the tears that had gathered there. She wiped them off on her jeans.
“You’re not,” Reyes said.
“I think it’s time for me to just turn myself in.”
“No,” she said. “Not yet. I have a friend I met through work who’s a private investigator in New York City. She owes me a favor. We can drive there tomorrow morning.”
“What for?”
“To see if she can help you track Gloria. And that missing ticket. You can’t just give up. It’s too soon. Plus—John had the idea that he could take you to the church where you were left. That maybe that would help. Maybe someone there has answers?”
Lucky wasn’t sure anything would help. But she still agreed to Reyes’s plan.
* * *
Slowly, inevitably as they drove, the mountains gave way to rolling hills, then to houses, and big-box stores, trees that were scrubby rather than stately green.
“Mind if I turn on the radio?” John asked Reyes. Lucky hadn’t spoken to him yet that morning. She had barely been able to look him in the eye. And he was acting as if nothing had happened, which made Lucky wonder if he had forgotten the entire conversation by the river. Could you be angry with someone for something they’d forgotten they’d done? John’s decline was undeniable. He had lucid moments, but his confusion was frequent, and profound.
“Whatever you want,” Reyes said.
John dialed through the channels until he found a Yankees game.
Lucky lifted her hand and touched the cross at her neck. They were in city traffic when announcer John Sterling crowed, “Theeeeee Yankees win!” John pumped his fist and said, “Well, how about that?” Lucky found herself smiling, a reflex from another time and place.
John grinned at her in the rearview mirror. He was back in time, too.
Lucky looked out the window. They were getting close now, and Reyes was slowing down.
Reyes maneuvered into a parking spot and turned off the car. “We’re here,” she said. “I’ll wait in the car with the dog.”
St. Monica’s was a relic tucked in among apartment buildings and high-rises; its spires looked like arms raised up in a holy fervor that no one on the ground below noticed anymore. Betty was in the back seat of the car; she popped her head over the seats and licked Lucky’s hand encouragingly.
“I think I remembered her name,” John said. “The nun who was there the night I found you. Something Jean. Maybe Mary Jean? We’ll go in there and ask for Mary Jean.”
They got out of the car. They approached the steps, and John stopped. “Lucky,” he said, pointing down. “It was right here. This is where I found you. It was cold, and you were crying, and I thought you were a miracle.”
“No. I can’t.” Lucky moved quickly over the step, trying not to imagine the mother who would just leave her there, in the cold, in the dark, crying and alone.
Inside the church the air was cool. It smelled of wood and dust. Lucky craned her neck to look up at the stained glass and vaulted ceilings. John passed her and walked to the front of the church. Lucky watched as he approached a table full of candles, all lined up in translucent red glass holders. He lit one of the candles and bowed his head. How did he know what to do? It was a side of him she hadn’t seen before.
She walked up to the front, uncertain. He gave her his lighter. “Want to light one?” She took the lighter and turned away.
How did a person pray—and why did a person pray, exactly? If you prayed for something, did it come true? Was it like a wish? How long did it take to come true? Was it immediate, like rubbing a genie’s bottle? Or did it take time? In the past, Lucky would have asked these questions of John. Now she couldn’t. She lit a candle, then another, and another. She looked down at all the tiny flames, tucked down low in their red holders.
“Lucky, people light these candles to remember the people they’ve lost,” John said.
She thought of Cary, and she wished he hadn’t suffered, no matter what he had done. She lit a candle.
She thought of the mother who’d left her on the steps of this church. She lit another candle.
She thought of the fact that the man she had believed to be her father was no one to her. She lit another.
The lottery ticket. One final flame.
Then she blew them all out.
“Lucky!” her father hissed. “You can’t do that! It’s… it’s…” Movement behind them. A nun was making her way down the aisle toward them.
“Hello?” she was calling. “What are you doing?”
Lucky had thought they were alone, but clearly they weren’t.
“I’m so sorry, Sister,” John began.
The nun stopped walking. She was just a few feet in front of them.
“Hey,” John said. “Mary Jean, is that you?”
Lucky was sure she saw recognition in the nun’s face, as though she knew who they were. But when the woman opened her mouth, she said, “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
The nun turned and walked down the aisle, fast, then out the front door of the church. She left them standing there, truly alone with all those extinguished flames.
October 2008
NEW YORK CITY
Sister Margaret Jean had recognized them right away. She had been standing near the door, letting the fall breeze blow over her, when through the front entrance they had emerged.