He decided to use his phone’s GPS and remembered that he had not turned it back on since rushing out of his mother’s house. As he had expected, there were several voice messages. One from Delores, one from David, two from Katherine, three from Bradley. Anton sighed, a feeling of revulsion gripping him. He turned onto the freeway, knowing that every mile was taking him closer to them, the people who had loved him, shaped him, molded him, as if he were a block of clay they had found by the roadside. He remembered how, in the early days, friends of the Colemans used to comment on how well adjusted their new boy was, how well he conducted himself, what good manners he had, and now he wanted to scream, And didn’t any of you ever stop and wonder why? How bad of a mother could she have been, for fuck’s sake, if she produced such a son? But then his lawyerly self took over. In truth, probably none of them had known about the rape, and without that knowledge, what she’d done was inexcusable. Now it was easy to admire Juanita Vesper’s sobriety, the fact that she had beaten the odds. But back then, who could blame David Coleman for thinking he was—what was the word he’d used?—rescuing a child from a lifetime of neglect, terror, or worse? No, it wasn’t fair that Juanita’s one terrible error in judgment should result in a lifetime of punishment, but hell, that happened all the time, didn’t it? Most people never got a shot at redemption. It was the way of the world, and what was Juanita Vesper’s claim to go against this?
And so Anton rode along the dark highway, arguing with himself. The clock said 9:32. He knew he should call Brad back, if for no other reason than to make sure the pilot was available, but a wave of sleepiness assaulted him, and he pondered whether to spend the night in a motel and then make a fresh start in the morning. He began glancing at road signs to see if there was lodging nearby. He drove a short distance and then saw a sign that said, “Thomasville 12 miles ahead.” Thomasville. Why did that sound familiar? He frowned, trying to remember, but couldn’t connect the name to a news story. And then it struck him and his heart pounded. Thomasville. That’s where she lived. Carine. That’s what she’d written to him almost two years ago. He hadn’t written back, afraid that Katherine would be hurt if she knew he was communicating with an old flame.
But now, seeing the road sign felt like divine intervention. He had traveled the same way earlier today. Why had he not noticed it on the way to his mother’s house? He knew that the prudent thing to do would be to keep driving all the way to that little private airport and get the hell out of Georgia tonight. But he was bone-tired. And in any case, what would be the harm to contact Carine again, to maybe have a late-night coffee with her and then check in to a motel?
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, tempted to stop, agitated at the thought. Drive on, he told himself. Just pretend you never saw the goddamned road sign. Who knows if she’s even in town? She could be on vacation, for God’s sake. He decided to pull off at the rest area and get a coffee. Except for the trucks parked there, it was almost deserted. He pulled up to the building and then sat in the dark, staring at his phone. After a moment, he logged on to his email. He found her email but no home phone number. He glanced at the clock—10:02. He stared at her email, chewing on his lower lip, and then, on an impulse, hit reply. “Hey, there,” he wrote. “You won’t believe this, but I’m sitting at a rest stop just outside of Thomasville. If, by some stroke of luck, you see this in the next ten minutes or so, email me. If you’re up for it, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
He hit send, set his phone on the console, and got out. He used the restroom, splashed water over his face, then got a coffee from a vending machine. He knew it was stupid, but his hands were shaking as he walked back to the car and unlocked it. He set the coffee down in the holder before he allowed himself to check his phone. There was no reply. He blew out his cheeks, disappointed but relieved. Come on, Anton, he chided himself. You think she’s sitting by the damn computer at ten o’clock on a Friday night? What are the odds of that? Well, it was better this way. Less complicated. No lying to Katherine.
He turned on the ignition and rolled out of the parking lot onto the freeway. Another road sign said he was now eight miles away from Thomasville. He’d picked up the phone to call Brad when the ping alerted him to a new email. He fumbled with the phone, almost dropped it, and died a hundred deaths in the second it took him to click on the mail. And there she was. “24 Magnolia Lane. I’ll put on a pot of coffee. Come.”
He let out a startled laugh, unable to believe his good fortune, her exquisite timing, the brevity of her email, the presumption and self-confidence that lay beneath it. But then he was uneasy, the fact that he was going to her home instead of meeting her at an all-night diner making it a little more complicated. The next second he remembered she had kids, chiding himself for not understanding that she couldn’t exactly slip out at a moment’s notice. And really, what was the harm in seeing an old friend? It seemed like providence—the fact that he’d read the road sign to Thomasville, then remembered that it was where Carine lived, and finally, the unbelievable odds that she had checked her email and replied when he was, what, a couple of miles away from her exit.
Seven minutes later, he was turning onto a quiet brick street with old-fashioned gas lamps. A street sign proclaimed it a historic district. The houses here were large, and almost all of them had flowering bushes and flower boxes in their windows. Anton whistled to himself. He hadn’t given any thought to what Carine’s neighborhood would look like, but he certainly wasn’t expecting her to be living on this very bourgeois street. Perhaps this was her parents’ home? Maybe, because she was a single parent, they helped support her? He would find out in a moment.
He pulled up to her house and debated whether to park on the street or in her driveway. As he sat there hesitating, the front porch light went on and the door opened. “Pull in,” Carine yelled, though it was too dark and she was too far for Anton to get a good look at her. He turned in to her driveway, and even before he got out of the car, his chest filled with a warm happiness and he felt young again. He turned off the engine and sat there for a moment, grinning like a happy fool. But the next second, there was a pounding on the passenger window, and he looked over to see Carine’s face, looking more beautiful than he ever could have imagined it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Carine had changed a lot. She had not changed at all. She was a stranger. She was his close friend. She looked rounder, more maternal than he remembered, but she still had those sharp features that used to take his breath away.
Anton was staring at her and he knew it, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off that face. He watched as she walked across her large white kitchen and poured two mugs of coffee. He watched her walk back to the granite island, knew he should help, but he couldn’t move. He noticed that she had served his coffee black, had remembered, hadn’t bothered to check, as if all these years had not gone by, as if his tastes couldn’t have altered, as if they were still that boy and girl who had crossed Harvard Yard together that first time, already half in love with each other. And even if his taste in coffee had changed, even if he now took it with sugar and cream, would he have dared to say so? To challenge this lovely creature who sat next to him on a bar stool, who set the mug down and then patted his hand excitedly, saying, “Anton. My God, Anton. I can’t believe this. Who would’ve thought?”