“We will get him back, Evie. While you’re away. We’re not lying, we just haven’t done it yet. Let us handle this. I know it doesn’t seem good now, but we will handle this. We want to talk to Landon. Really know what’s going on in his head. Try to trust us. If he wants what you want, we can help.”
His letters crushed me. I felt as if I was deserting him, but I trusted my parents. I trusted DHS, that they would want the best for Landon. If my parents wanted to foster him again, I thought that they could get him out of a group home. They’d told me that they would adopt him if that was what we really wanted. My mother looked me in the eyes and promised that she’d find a way.
So I went to Cambridge, with our baby. I let him go on not knowing the truth.
I didn’t see his other letters until my junior year of college. After all the chips had fallen. After it was broken—our love story.
3-22-07
Things here have gotten worse. The trucker lost his job and he’s been home more. There are twelve kids here, the two women (the wife and her sister Lindy), plus the man. There’s something wrong with this guy. I’m hanging in here because some of the kids are younger. They need someone here who isn’t fucking nuts. But I don’t know how much longer I can do it, Evie. I got some blankets on my bed again. At night I get under them and try to remember you. Sometimes it helps me sleep. I found your school’s calendar on the computer lab computer, and I printed it. At least I can try to picture what you’re doing. Evie, I love you so much. I miss everything about you. You’re so good, Evie. Don’t forget how good you are, and don’t feel bad about not writing me. I’ll find you down the road, okay? I hope your friends are being good to you, and concert band is fun, and Emmaline is giving you the hugs I wish I could. I wanted so much more than this, Evie. One day I’ll come and find you. One day soon.
March 24, my parents’ request to foster Landon again was turned down, basically because of how they’d shipped him out at Christmas. On March 25, they filed the first of many papers to adopt him. They had planned to wait, but his March 22nd letter spurred them on.
4-3-07
I sent the newspaper a letter. Tipped them off. I didn’t trust DHS to get the other kids out of here.
Ev, I’m leaving this place. I can get my GED if I don’t finish. If you find out I left, don’t worry, okay? I know I said skipping town is dangerous for people in my position, but I’m more bulletproof than average. I took the SAT in January and I got a 1600. Colleges will take me.
I want to see you, Evie. I want to touch you. God, I want to talk to you. Ev, I need you.
I love you. It hurts so bad that I haven’t heard from you, but I feel better when I think that probably means you’re doing well. I hope you still remember me. I hope you know I’m getting out of here for you. One day, I’m going to come find you. Until then, I remain yours. Every part of me. Forever.
Landon left that day. We didn’t know it at the time—I didn’t know it until tonight—but apparently, he ended up in Knoxville. My family didn’t hear from him again until the day he showed up at our door, that next Christmas. Emmaline answered. By the time she told my dad, Landon had gone.
It didn’t matter. It was too late. September had come, and it had gone, and with it, any chance we might have had to have a life together.
So I thought.
Six
Landon
I knew she was here when I applied for the program. I’ve kept track of Evie since the day I left her parents’ house. Not because I thought she wanted that. Because I had to. Some things aren’t choices, and over time, we come to terms with that. Evie is one of my life’s facts.
What did I think would happen when I accepted the position as an intern here? I try to answer that as I lie in my bed. I have my window open. I can see the city spread before me, glowing in the dark that soon will turn to gray, then blue, then orange.
Evie.
Even running her name through my mind gives me an element of peace. Peace where there should be none.
I can’t sleep, of course, and by now, I know what to do. I go into the living area and look at my tea pot, but I can’t stand to wait for it. With so much in the air, waiting feels like claws around my neck. It feels like hands around my neck at that old group home, right before I split.
So I walk.
Down the hall and to the elevator, through the lobby, out the doors, into the cool night, which is gray with morning, having lightened slightly while I walked downstairs.
Around the corner, there’s a coffee shop that’s open all night. It serves tea, too. Chamomile, with milk and honey. I don’t realize till I get there what my plan is. I buy two insulated cup infusers, a box of my favorite brand of chamomile, plus a little quilt-looking thing the girl behind the counter calls a “mug rug.” It’s pink and green paisley, and it looks a little like her bedspread print, which I remember so well from the couch.
I walk slowly home while the day brightens and the mountains wink through summer haze. At home, I steep some tea in one of the cup-sized diffusers, then add milk and honey and go straight to bed. I sleep for nine hours. When I wake up, I go by the bank and withdraw three thousand dollars. Several hours later, I steep Evie’s tea, get into my newly acquired 2008 Ford Focus, and drive to the hospital.
Evie
I find the cup and mug rug in my locker after the longest day ever. After a day in which I felt like I was dying alongside the forty-two-year-old woman who actually did—in a tumor resection I was in on with Eilert and Hamm, one of the younger attendings.
I open my locker, swaying on my sore feet at 9:45 p.m., and there it is. As if it’s always been there. Tea. I know it by the color and consistency, and many years of tired sipping: chamomile.
In the few seconds I stare at it, my body heats up hotter than the tea, because…it must be him. I never drink chamomile at work; no one I work with but Eilert really even knows me. Except for Landon.
When I turn around, I find him sitting at one of the round tables, feet kicked up into a chair, fingers steepled in his lap, blinking at one of the walls, all inconspicuous-like.
I give him a slow smile.
Landon smiles back, low-key and mysterious; flirty.
I hold out the cup and arch my brows. I look down at the mug rug in my other hand. “Pink and green. My favorite colors.” I tap my chin, twisting my mouth in mock confusion. “Do you know who left this for me?”
“Must have been a pretty awesome motherfucker.”
I shrug. “Thoughtful, sure. But pretty awesome? Ehhh.”
His jaw drops slightly. “Someone brought you tea—hot tea—and left it for you, and you’re gonna talk like that?”
“Well, just to you.” I wave my hand dismissively.
“Just.” He shakes his head, looking insulted.
And right then, I have this dizzying moment where it doesn’t seem real. That Landon and I are joking. That we work together. That we had sex last night. That he doesn’t know. I take a deep breath, and the moment passes.
Calm down, Evie. Focus on the moment.