Jenna waved Sandy back over. “You know what I thought about out there when I knew it was you calling me over and over again?”
Sandy shook her head as she sat back down on the bed, trying not to cry. It wasn’t working. All that fear, all that worry, she’d been holding back all these days was rushing in. Soon there would be nowhere left for it to go.
“I thought: There’s Sandy, taking care of me again. When all I’ve ever done is mess things up for her.”
“That’s not—”
“Yes, it is true, baby.” Jenna stroked Sandy’s cheek. “And I have to live with that. But you don’t, Sandy. You have a choice. That’s why I need you to take that money, and I need you to go.” There were tears on Jenna’s cheeks, rolling down in big fat streams. “You need to leave this town, and you need to never come back. You need to get away from me.”
“Mom, what the hell are you—”
“Do it for me if you have to.” Jenna’s voice cracked, but she was trying hard to keep it together. “And I don’t want you to call or write. You need to start a new life, Sandy. A life as beautiful as the person you are. And you need to do it without me.”
“Without you?” Panic flooded Sandy’s belly. “What are you talking about? That’s crazy. I’ll miss you. I can’t go somewhere alone.” She was starting to cry. She didn’t want to be, but she was. Because she already knew that Jenna was right. She had to go.
“I love you, baby,” Jenna whispered. “But if you stay, you won’t stand a fucking chance. I’ll destroy the both of us.”
Then Jenna pulled Sandy’s face close, kissing her on the forehead—just like the mom Sandy had always wanted her to be.
Sandy was numb when she pushed herself out into the busy hospital hall, doctors and nurses and patients moving this way and that. Life and death keeping on.
In tears, Sandy started toward the front doors of the hospital, waiting for someone to stop her. Waiting for someone to tell her that she wasn’t free to go. That she needed to go back. But no one did. No one asked her to slow down. No one stood in her way. And before long, Sandy was outside, the sun in her face, the town to her back, trying to figure out which way to go.
But forward was all there was. That was the only way to go.
Molly
I was finishing cooking dinner, Ella coloring on the kitchen floor next to me, when there was a knock at the front door. When I looked out the window, Stella was on our front stoop, arms crossed, a determined set to her jaw. I’d been avoiding her since our last awkward coffee date a week earlier. I considered ignoring the door. Stella hadn’t seen me look out, but surely she had spotted my car in the driveway. And I knew her well enough to know: If she really wanted to talk to me, she wouldn’t go away until she did.
Apart from necessities like bringing Ella to school, meeting Stella at the Black Cat had been the first time I’d emerged from hiding in the six weeks since I’d found out about Justin and Hannah. It wasn’t as though their involvement or the baby had gotten extensive coverage in the local news. Thanks to Erik, the Reader hadn’t mentioned it, but people in town knew. At least I felt like they did.
Luckily, Barbara had left town with Hannah and Cole, one less horrifying interaction for me to contemplate. They’d gone for Hannah—whose prognosis was apparently good, and Cole was much better, too—to get her rehabilitation treatment at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. Or so Barbara was telling people. There were rumors that Barbara’s parents, humiliated by Steve’s arrest and what had happened with Hannah, had insisted she leave for an extended summer at the family beach house in Cape May, New Jersey. Steve was in Ridgedale, awaiting sentencing. He’d confessed to killing Simon Barton in exchange for a reduced, voluntary manslaughter charge. Given the circumstances, which Jenna had come forward to corroborate, the prosecutor seemed loath to pursue much jail time.
Five minutes into that first coffee with Stella, and I was glad I’d agreed to meet her. As always, I got lost in Stella’s silly color commentary on life in Ridgedale. And I was impressed by her restraint. She didn’t even mention Justin’s name. We’d never talked about what had happened between him and Hannah, and I was sure Stella was dying for details.
Ironically, I was the one who ended up mentioning Justin, offhandedly repeating a joke he’d made recently about the Black Cat barista whom Stella couldn’t stand. A joke I thought she’d appreciate.
“Wait, you’ve been talking to Justin?”
For weeks, I had hated Justin so much it frightened me. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to hate another human being that much. The detailed fantasies I’d had about ways to inflict suffering on him—physical and mental—were so elaborate, they were alarming. But eventually, my hatred had given way to sadness and then to resignation. Justin had betrayed me in the most horrifying way, exactly when I needed him most. And I had been lost to him for so long, caught up in the worst of my depression for over a year. Both things were true. That made me sad, mostly for me and Ella, but occasionally for Justin. After all, his life was ruined, too.
He’d left Ridgedale, fired immediately by the university, and moved back to Manhattan. With the help of a loan from his parents, he was trying to get a freelance career off the ground, editing a well-respected political blog. He and I talked, but not much.
“He’s the father of my child, Stella,” I’d said that afternoon at the Black Cat, already wishing I hadn’t brought him up. “I have to talk to him.”
“Yeah, I know. But the way you mentioned him.” She looked sickened. “It seemed like you’d forgiven him. I hope you’re not blaming yourself or something. It doesn’t matter if you were depressed when he did it, Molly. That doesn’t excuse it.”