Caleb tugged at the collar of his shirt, his throat blotchy.
“Right after you came to town, when I was at the academy,” he said, “I was on a ride-along with the Richmond PD, and the cop I was shadowing had this flyer printed and taped to the dash. They’d sent out an APB on the lookout for a young woman about five foot tall, hair dark, driving a Mustang. They said hair length could be long or buzzed. When I saw you there at the spaghetti supper, I knew it was you. It wasn’t just your hair. It was your eyes, like you could knife somebody with them. Your eyes were the giveaway.”
“You knew all this time?” she asked, feeling so exposed, robbed of her armor. She hadn’t realized how much her secrets had been a part of her.
“I guess I did.”
She lay back to rest, eyes closed, splicing this new information into the last fourteen years. “And you just let me be?”
“I was never going to turn you in,” he said, his cheeks looking hot to touch. “Especially not after I saw you were gonna have a baby.”
She wanted to say something to Caleb, about how she’d felt him loving her all these years. How she didn’t think she deserved someone so friendly and decent. How she had thought she might break him. She remembered the curly-haired gosling standing in line at the spaghetti supper, so earnest and new. How she had spent all these years swerving around him like he was a small thing she could crush.
“You should have arrested me,” she said, feeling sleepy. “I did wrong, I should go to jail.” His fingers found her hand now. He dragged them from the tips of her nails to the crease in her elbow and back again, a swirl around her palm. It did not burn. It was a gesture both bold and comforting. She closed her eyes and felt the pain flow out of her.
“Aren’t you going to take a statement?” she asked, wondering as she said it why she just couldn’t let a good moment be.
“I guess not,” he said and tucked the covers behind her shoulders, flipped off the lights. He settled back into his seat, folded his hands across his chest, and shut his eyes. His hands were larger than she had remembered, the backs of them fleeced with blond. And his nails, while trim, could have used a good cleaning.
The setting sun appeared through a part in the curtains and warmed her face. She could hear a pair of chickadees squabbling outside the window. She closed her eyes again and felt at once the ache in her hip and the warmth that was settling around her heart.
A few days before Kit was set to leave the hospital, there was a quick rap on her door. “Anyone home?” somebody said. Then in came a woman wearing an iridescent aqua unitard with stirrups and white patent leather heels. Her platinum hair was fluffed and sprayed in a fancy mullet. Under the heavy makeup, the familiar face was thin and haggard.
“Red, is that you?” Kit said, dumbstruck. She hadn’t seen her since the night fourteen years ago when she’d come by, newly pregnant and scared. “You look . . .” Kit swung around in search of an accurate but inoffensive description.
“Rode hard and put up wet? Lord, don’t I know it. But we’ve all been through some shit, now, ain’t we?” she said. “Look at yew! All battle scarred and victorious and whatnot. I read about you in the paper is how I knew to come. Oh, Kit,” she said and looked troubled, like she was digging up something uncomfortable.
Kit was trying to figure out what Red was doing here. She was happy to see her, but it was painful, too. With Manny dead, Red was the only one who had known Kit back then.
“Well, you know I could chew the cud with you all day long, and dang is it nice to see ya, but I might as well cut to the chase. I’ve come to beg your pardon.”
“Pardon for what?” Kit asked.
“Well, baby,” Red said, catching a deep preparatory breath. “It’s like this. Manny and I, we kept in touch when he was in prison. I’d come for his conjugals and such, just to keep his spirits up. He really seemed changed, all biblical and right with the Lord. When he got out I picked him up, and right off the bat he dug into me trying to find out where you were. At first, I played dumb, cause it seemed to me you didn’t want to be found, but he didn’t buy it. He made threats I knew he’d make good on, so I—” She stopped and covered her mouth with her hand like she didn’t want to say the next part. “I told him where you might have gone to.”
Kit felt heavy in her gut and so tired. She dropped her head to the pillow and closed her eyes. Manny had found her because of Red.
Red’s voice began to waver and she stopped talking to rummage in her purse.
“Goddamn, I’m not about to cry. I got my full face on and wouldn’t you know my touch-up bag is at home?” She looked at the ceiling, her thick, coated lashes batting, little inky pools gathering at the rims of her eyes. She groped around for something, snapped her fingers. “Quee-ick! Someone hand me a hankie, dammit!” Kit passed her the box next to her bed and Red pulled three tissues and folded them and held them under her eyes to draw out the tears.
“Anyhow, I felt so bad, and I was worried for you. I tried calling you, but you didn’t answer. I left you a message, did you get it? Doesn’t matter. When I couldn’t reach you, I shot myself so full of smack I nearly died. Good thing I got nosy neighbors. Lois Tennenbaum, god bless her vicious little heart, been causing me trouble for the twenty years I’ve lived on Mesquite Lane. That night, she barged in my house to complain about my music being loud and found me unconscious and facedown in my own sick. That old bitch straddled me and gave me mouth to mouth and pumped my chest till I started breathing again. Spent a few days in the hospital, called my folks, and got myself straight in a rehab thingy. I honestly don’t know how I got into that hard stuff, used to be Dr Pepper was my only fix, but I just let my guard down with one of those guys, got caught at the wrong time. Only had to do it once.”
Red blew her nose loudly, then seemed to notice Charlie for the first time.
“Oh, my lord in heaven, is this—?” She pointed at Charlie. “Did you keep it? This your baby?”
Kit nodded. Red clicked over to Charlie and threw her arms around her.