Her Mother's Shadow (9 page)

O
ne of Jessica's friends, a very young-looking woman named Amelia, met Lacey in the baggage area of the Phoenix airport. She was holding a sign that read “Lacey” in huge red block letters. Once Lacey introduced herself, Amelia hugged her tightly, and Lacey let herself remain in the embrace for a long time, breathing in the scent of the woman's dark hair, knowing she was finally connected to someone who felt her loss as deeply as she did.

“I'm so glad to meet you,” Amelia said as she let go of her. “I've heard a lot about you.” Her voice was sweet and high-pitched. She looked about twenty-two and sounded fifteen. Her nearly black hair was long and swung free around her shoulders, and freckles were spattered across the bridge of her nose.

Lacey had to rack her brain to remember if she'd ever heard Jessica talk about this particular friend. She supposed she had. Jessica had been one to say “my friend this” and “my friend that,” rather than speak of them by name.

“Same here,” she said. “I'm sorry we couldn't have met
under better circumstances, though.” The trite words slipped out of her mouth and she was relieved at having found them without a struggle.

The day before, she had finally been able to reach someone at the number she had for Nola, and although Nola was purportedly “still sleeping,” the woman on the phone told her she would be picked up at the airport and she would have a place to stay. The woman had sounded frazzled, as though she was trying to organize too many things at once and Lacey was just one more ball for her to juggle.

“I could get a hotel,” Lacey had told her.

“No, no,” the woman said. “We've got it all worked out.”

“You're going to stay with me,” Amelia told her now as she started rolling Lacey's suitcase toward the exit.

“Thank you,” Lacey said. “That's great.”

Amelia didn't say another word until they were in her car in the parking lot. It was a convertible, but the top was up and the air-conditioning on, and Lacey was glad of that because the temperature had to be at least a hundred degrees.

“I've never been to North Carolina,” Amelia said. “How's the weather there now?”

“Just really starting to heat up,” Lacey said. She knew they were about to get into a conversation about the difference between Arizona heat and North Carolina heat. Jessica used to talk about it all the time. “It's 115 degrees here today,” Jessica would tell her over the phone, “but it's a
dry
heat. Not like the Outer Banks.” Sure enough, Amelia started down the same path, and Lacey played along. Why did every conversation between strangers always begin with the weather?

“How did you know Jessica?” Lacey asked when they'd exhausted the topic of the heat.

“We worked together,” Amelia said, then shook her head.
“I don't know how I'm going to be able to go back to work without her. She made it bearable.”

Lacey knew that Jessica had worked in an office doing something with computers, but she'd never understood precisely what.

After quite a long drive, Amelia turned into the parking lot of a large complex of cute and well-maintained Spanish-style condominiums. “You can stay with me just as long as you need to,” she said, swinging the car wide to pull into a marked parking space.

“I'm expecting to be here three or four days,” Lacey said. “Are you sure that's not too much of an imposition?”

“Actually, I don't think three or four days will be long enough,” Amelia said.

“No?”

“You might be underestimating the time it's going to take to get Mackenzie ready for the trip back with you.”

They got out of the car, and Lacey pulled her suitcase from the trunk.

“How is she doing?” she asked as they walked toward the building.

“Terrible,” Amelia said. “You can imagine what it's been like for her. She only had her mother. She's lost her world.”

Lacey thought back to her own mother's death. “Is she able to sleep?” she asked. “Is she having nightmares?”

“I don't know.” Without asking, Amelia took the suitcase from Lacey and began lugging it up the stairs to the second story of condominiums. Lacey didn't protest. It was too damn hot. “She's staying with Mary,” Amelia said, “another friend of Jessica's who has a daughter Mackenzie's age. Mary could tell you how she's doing. All I've heard is that she's gotten very quiet and has lost about five pounds in the past two days.”

Lacey could barely picture Mackenzie. She'd been a skinny kid the last time she saw her. If she'd lost five pounds back then, she would have been skeletal.

Amelia stopped at one of the second-story doors. She slipped her key into the lock and pushed the door open, and Lacey felt the welcome rush of cool air hit her face.

The condominium was small and neat and tastefully decorated with furniture and accessories that looked as though they'd come from Pier One.

“Your place is so cute,” Lacey said, touching the arm of the squat gold sofa. “And it's so nice of you to put me up.”

Amelia rolled the suitcase into the guest bedroom, which was filled with white wicker furniture. “Not a problem,” she said. “Why don't you get unpacked and then come into the kitchen and have a glass of iced tea or something.”

“Okay.” What Lacey really wanted was a shower. She felt grimy from the flight and the heat.

“Mary—the woman Mackenzie's staying with—and another friend are coming over in a little while,” Amelia said. “We're going to try to plan the memorial service tonight. I hope that's okay with you. We thought you'd probably want to be in on the planning.”

“Sure.” Lacey nodded, although she had not even thought of that. “Will Nola be here, too?”

Amelia opened the closet door and pulled some empty hangers from among the items of clothing. “I don't think Nola's up to it,” she said, her back to Lacey. She turned, handed her the empty hangers, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “The truth is, Nola's really upset about you being named guardian,” she said. “And we're all…well, we're a little confused about it. Not that you wouldn't be the right person to do it,” she added quickly. “It's just that…” She
looked at the wall instead of Lacey. “Well, we didn't think you've had any special connection to Mackenzie.”

“Who is ‘we'?” Lacey hoisted the suitcase onto the bed and started to unzip it.

“All Jessie's friends,” Amelia said. “And, of course, Nola. Nola has seen Mackenzie at least once a year, and well, I don't have kids, but Jessica has lots of friends who do and who would take Mackenzie in a heartbeat. And who are married, so Mackenzie would have two parents raising her.” Amelia lifted her hands in a helpless gesture, then dropped them to her lap. She had tears in her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I know this is coming out all wrong. I don't seem to have the energy right now to make it come out right.”

“Are you one of the friends who would be a better choice?” Lacey asked, and Amelia's eyes widened.

“No!” she said. “I'm only twenty-three, I'm not married, and I don't have any kids of my own.”

“Well.” Lacey tried to smile. “Except for the twenty-three part, you just described me.” She pushed the suitcase toward the center of the bed so that she could sit down, herself. “I'm just as confused about this as you are, so you don't need to feel awkward about it,” she said. “But Jessica's attorney told me that she was very firm about wanting me to take Mackenzie. She obviously had her reasons, and I want to do what she wanted. I think it would be horrible to put a lot of thought and care into making a huge decision like that, and then have the people left behind not follow through on my wishes.”

Amelia nodded. “I know Jessica really cared about you,” she said. “Some of her friends don't remember her talking about you, but I do. I was probably closest to her. She said that, even though you didn't see each other much, she still considered you her best friend. Or maybe she didn't say
best,
but she said that when you saw each other, you could just pick up where you left off without any problem.”

“That's true.” It seemed like a slim reason to leave her child to her, though, Lacey thought. She pulled her thick hair up and held it against the back of her head to let the air-conditioning reach her neck. “I had a lot of time to think on the plane,” she added. “I came up with a few reasons she might have wanted me to take care of Mackenzie.”

“What are they?” Amelia asked.

“Maybe she wants Mackenzie to be raised in the place she was raised,” Lacey said, dropping her hair to her shoulders again. “In the Outer Banks.”

“That's possible,” Amelia said. “She always talked about how she loved it there and she complained about how dry it was here. But she stayed here, didn't she? I mean, she could have gone back. And if that was the reason, she could have left Mackenzie to her mother.”

“True. But I think Jessica really liked my family. She felt comfortable with us. Maybe she wanted Mackenzie to be part of that.”

Amelia nodded. “Well, maybe. Was she very close to your family? Is it big? I know she was always sad she had no brothers or sisters.”

“Well, she was close to us when we were kids, though not since she moved out here,” Lacey said. “I have a brother and a niece and a father and stepmother and half siblings. And my mother also died—”

“Yes, I remember Jessica saying something about that,” Amelia interrupted her. “Do you think that could be her reason? That she knew you would understand how Mackenzie felt, losing her mother?”

“I thought of that,” Lacey agreed. She'd also thought of another reason: Nola's wanting Jessica to have an abortion
and Lacey's dissuading her from that decision, but she didn't want to mention that to Amelia with Nola in town. “And there's one other possibility I can think of,” Lacey added.

“What's that?”

“I was always after Jessica to let Mackenzie's father know that he had a daughter. To let the two of them at least
know
about each other's existence, if not actually be in each other's lives. Maybe she really wants that for Mackenzie and thinks I'll do it.”

“Oh, I don't think so.” Amelia shook her head, almost violently. “She never talked about him. What was his name? Bobby?”

Lacey nodded.

“The only thing she ever said about him was that he was no good—her very words—and that she didn't want Mackenzie to have any part of him.”

“But she knows—” she caught herself “—she knew that I didn't feel that way.” Lacey pleaded her case. “I don't care what a person is like, unless he's an abuser or something. Children still have a right to know who their parents are. Jessica knew that was the way I feel and she still chose to leave Mackenzie to me.”

Tears of frustration filled Amelia's eyes. “God, I wish we could talk to her and find out what she was really thinking!” she said.

“Me, too.” Lacey stood up, suddenly anxious to have her hostess out of the room so that she could cry herself. She reached for her suitcase. “I'll unpack and be out in a minute.”

Two other women arrived at the condominium shortly after she and Amelia had eaten chicken salad sandwiches for dinner. At least, they'd tried to eat the sandwiches. Neither of them had much of an appetite.

The women, Mary and Veronica, were the mothers of
Mackenzie's closest friends. It was Mary's family with whom Mackenzie was staying. The women were in their middle to late thirties, blond, well dressed and with an air of casual sophistication that accompanied them into the condo. Lacey felt them appraising her shorts and T-shirt, her unruly red hair and her youth, and finding her lacking. She felt instantly on edge. She had not expected to come to Arizona and face such scrutiny. Or maybe she was reading too much into the cool greetings the women gave her.

Amelia, clearly nervous and out of her league with the two older women, ushered them into the little living room. She poured them iced tea and set a plate of Pepperidge Farm cookies on the glass-and-wrought-iron coffee table, next to a stack of books Mary had carried with her into the room.

“When can I see Mackenzie?” Lacey asked Mary, as she reached for a cookie she had no interest in eating.

“We haven't told her about you, yet,” Mary said. “She's been through so much. We thought we'd wait to tell her until after the memorial service. I guess we were hoping that it was a mistake and didn't want to tell her until we were absolutely sure she'd be going with you.” Mary didn't even attempt to spare Lacey's feelings as she spoke. “But the lawyer said it's valid, so…” She shrugged her shoulders. “I just hope Jessica wasn't out of her mind when she drew up those papers.”

“Me, too.” Lacey tried to smile, to join in the subtle attacks against her competence with good humor, but the attempt fell flat and all three women simply stared at her, expressionless. “So,” she said awkwardly, “I guess I won't see Mackenzie until the funeral, then?”