“Oh, no,” Eva said, coming to a stop.
Lexi was crying so hard, she could hardly tell what was going on around her. She felt Eva’s grip on her wrist tighten. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, not really caring. She glanced down the hallway. His door was closed now.
“Look,” Eva said.
Lexi turned, wiped her eyes.
A police officer was standing outside her room.
Eva held Lexi’s hand as they walked down the hallway. At their approach, the officer straightened. He pulled a small notepad out of his shirt pocket. “Are you Alexa Baill?”
“I am,” Lexi said.
“I have a few questions for you. About the accident,” he said, uncapping his pen.
Eva looked up at him. “I may work at Walmart, sir, but I watch Law and Order every week. Alexa will be getting an attorney. He’ll tell her what questions she can answer.”
*
Jude shut the door. She was shaking so hard it took a real effort to hold on to the knob and pull.
“Mom?”
She heard her son’s voice, heard the pain in it, and she moved automatically to his bedside.
It was where she was supposed to be, where she belonged. So she stood there, holding Mia’s purse and pretending to be whole. But every time she looked down at the quilted pink leather in her hands, she thought of the stuffed puppy Mia had loved, Daisy Doggy, and the footed jammies she’d worn as a child and the color her daughter’s cheeks had been yesterday …
“It’s my fault, not Lexi’s,” Zach said miserably.
“No, it’s…” Jude’s voice broke like an old twig, snapped into quiet. She wondered dully if she’d ever be able to look at Zach again without wanting to cry. It was all so tangled up—her memories of Mia were inextricably bound with images of Zach. Her babies. Her twins. But now there was only the one, and when she looked at him, all she saw was the empty space beside him where Mia should have been.
She wanted to say the right thing to him, but she didn’t know what that was anymore, and she was so exhausted. She couldn’t put her words through a mill and crank out smaller, prettier versions. It took every scrap of courage she had just to stand here, to stand by him and pretend he’d done nothing terrible and pretend they would all be fine.
“How?” he said, looking at her through green eyes swimming in tears.
Mia’s eyes.
“How what?”
“I was the designated driver but I drank. It’s my fault. How do I get through this?”
Jude had no answer for him.
“Tell me,” he cried. “You always tell me what to do.”
“But you don’t always listen, do you?” The words were out before she could stop them. She should have taken them back, at least wished them back, but she was too broken right now to care.
“No,” he said miserably. He took her hand, squeezed it. She felt his touch like a shimmer of heat on the road: distant, fleeting.
“She would forgive you, Zach,” Jude said. It was the truth, and all she could think of.
Jude stared dully out the window. I do not forgive you. The last words she’d said to Mia.
“Why didn’t I just tell her I wanted to go to USC?”
Jude thought about telling him about Mia’s last decision to go to SCC with Lexi and Zach, but what was the point? It would only hurt him more to learn how much Mia loved him.
“Mom? Maybe I’ll go anyway. For both of us.”
Jude saw how desperate Zach was for her approval, and it broke her heart. As if a college choice could undo all of this tragedy somehow and return their family to them. It was her fault he felt this way. She’d made college so damned important, and he wanted her love as much as he needed Mia. She knew she should talk to him about this, tell him it was a bad idea; her voice was gone, though. All she could think about was the woman she’d been before. The mother to whom USC had been so important.
I do not forgive you.