Grace peered up at Lexi. “Did you know her?”
Lexi heard Jude’s sharp intake of breath. Lexi looked up. Across the room, Jude stared back at her.
“She was my best friend in the whole world,” Lexi said. “Mia Eileen Farraday. You are so lucky to look like her. She loved practical jokes. Did anyone ever tell you that? She used to put Saran Wrap across your daddy’s toilet seat. And she couldn’t sing at all, but she thought she could, and when your dad told her to shut up, she laughed and sang louder.” Lexi felt something open up inside of her when she talked about Mia. These memories had been trapped for so long, like a dragonfly in amber, but now they were softening. She looked at Jude. “I gave Mia that green sweater hanging in the entryway. It took all the money I made one month, but when I saw it, I knew it would be perfect—it would match her eyes—and I wanted her to know how much her friendship meant to me.”
“Daddy never talks about her.”
“Yeah,” Lexi said, looking down at her daughter again. “It’s easier that way, I guess. When you love someone … and you lose them, you can kind of lose yourself, too. But your daddy has had you to love all these years. I want that, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“What would you think about living with me sometimes? We could get to know each other, and I could—”
“I knew it.” Grace scrambled off the couch. “I am not gonna leave my daddy.”
“I didn’t mean that, Grace.”
“You did. You said it.” She ran over to where Jude sat and climbed into her lap, coiling around her like a baby monkey.
Lexi followed. She knelt on the hardwood at Jude’s feet. “I’m sorry, Grace, I—”
Grace twisted around to look at Lexi. “You didn’t want me.”
“I did,” Lexi said.
“Why’d you leave me?”
How could she answer that? As she knelt there, staring at her frightened daughter, she remembered being that little girl, confused by a mother who’d never wanted her but sometimes pretended to. The memories sickened her, made her feel pathetic and selfish. “I always loved you, Gracie.”
Grace jutted out her pointed chin. “I don’t believe you. Good mommies don’t leave.”
Lexi remembered saying the same thing to her own mother, who had burst into tears and sworn that her love was true.
She knew, better than anyone, that only time could prove the truth of her love. Grace would have to learn to believe her mother loved her.
“I wanna live with my daddy,” Grace said stubbornly.
“Of course you do,” Lexi said. “I was wrong to say anything. I’ve been … away for a long time, and I don’t know much about little girls. But I want to learn.”
“You’re a mommy. You should already know,” Grace said, clutching Jude’s sleeve.
What could Lexi say to that? She got slowly to her feet and looked down at them. “Maybe I should go. Thank you, Jude,” she said thickly. “I know you didn’t do it for me, but thank you.”
“You’re leaving me again?” Grace asked.
“I’ll come back,” Lexi promised, backing away. In ten minutes with her daughter, she’d done everything wrong. She’d scared Gracie. “Next week, okay? Same day and time?”
“You left something on the couch,” Jude said.
Lexi looked back at the stack of letters. They looked small from here, dirty and disheveled in this perfect room. She’d been a fool to think that letters would matter to a five-year-old. Another mistake. “They’re for Grace,” was all she could manage to say, and then she left her daughter again.
*
“She doesn’t even know I can’t read,” Grace said, her voice heavy with disappointment. She slithered out of Jude’s grasp and got to her feet. “When does my daddy get home?”
Jude couldn’t take her eyes away from the battered shoe box on her sofa. It looked absurdly small and out of place against the expensive fabric.