Night Road (27 page)

“Uncuff her wrist,” the doctor said to the guard, pulling off his blue surgical cap. “Now.”

“But—”

Dr. Farst turned to the guard. “In this room, I’m God. Take off the cuff. Leave the ankle if you have to. That should keep society safe from this teenager.” He walked over to the bed. “You’re young,” he said.

It meant he thought she had lots of time ahead of her, that someday she’d be in a room like this, giving birth to a child that she would bring home and love. That someday she would nurse her own child.

She could have told him that he was wrong, that she wasn’t young anymore and that dreams were ephemeral things, like balloons that, once loosed, disappeared into the sky above you. But he was so nice, and she was tired, and she didn’t want to look truth in the face right now.

The nurse came up beside her, handed Lexi a tiny bundle wrapped in pink.

Her daughter
.

“I’ll leave you two alone for a minute. I know … there are people waiting.”

There was an awkward moment when truth muscled its way into the room, and then the nurse and doctor left.

Lexi stared down at her baby in awe, mesmerized by her little pink face and her bow-shaped lips, by her muddy blue eyes that seemed to know secrets that Lexi hadn’t yet learned. Lexi reached down and touched a grape-sized fist. “I have so much to say to you, little girl, but you won’t remember it. You won’t remember me. But I’ll remember you.”

Lexi held her daughter close, gave her all the love she had inside of her, hoping to imprint her in a way that would last. “Like geese,” she whispered into the tiny, shell-pink ear, “their babies imprint on the mama in the first sighting and never forget.”

There was a knock at the door. The guard answered, spoke to someone in the hallway outside, and then opened the door. Scot walked in. He was as rumpled as always, in a cheap wool suit and an out-of-date tie, but the look in his eyes was so caring and compassionate that she felt the start of panic. She instinctively tightened her hold on her baby.

“Hey, Lexi,” he said. At the red mark on her wrist, he frowned. “They shackled you? Motherfu—”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Look.”

Scot leaned down. “She’s beautiful, Lexi.” At the words, his face seemed to kind of fall. “It’s time,” he said gently.

“He’s here?” she asked, and even with all the pain that she knew was coming, her heart skipped a beat.

“He’s right outside.”

“Help me sit up, would you, Scot?”

He helped her get positioned, then drew back. “You sure you want to do this?”

“What choice do I have?”

“You don’t have to give up full custody, that’s for sure. When you get out—”

“Look at her,” Lexi said, staring down at this beautiful girl. “She’ll be loved by them. She’ll
feel
loved. She’ll feel safe. She’ll have all the things I can’t give her. Believe me, Scot, she doesn’t need a mother like me.”

“I don’t agree, but it’s your choice,” Scot said. “I’ll send him in.”

Lexi sat up straighter, and then
he
was there, in the doorway.

It hurt more than she’d expected, more than the labor she’d just suffered through. He stood tall, bigger than she remembered, his shoulders broader. Wheat-blond hair fell across his eyes, and she remembered how much he used to hate that, how she’d laugh when she pushed it aside to see his eyes as he leaned down to kiss her.

She loved him so much. It wasn’t only in her blood, the way she loved him; it
was
her blood. She didn’t know if everyone else was right and her love for him would someday begin to fade like an old photograph; how could she know that? She only knew that her love for him was the very best of her and without it her heart would be empty.

He moved closer, looking uncertain.

She was glad her daughter was in her arms, because she would have touched him. She wouldn’t have been able to stop herself.

Up close, she saw the scar along his jawline; the wrinkled skin was the same pink as their baby’s face. Soon, maybe, it would be gone altogether or become too fine to see, but it was there now, a visible reminder of her crime.

“Hi, Zach,” she said, hearing the tremble in her voice.

He drew in a breath, saying her name quietly, and there finally was the heartache. His voice reminded her of nights on the beach, of kisses that went on all night. Of dreams and futures.

“She looks just like Mia,” he said, and, with that, the past was here with them again, crouched alongside this bundled-up bit of the future.

Lexi wanted to apologize, but she held back. There was no point anymore; those days were over. This was about something else. Someone else. “I would name her Grace,” Lexi said, wiping her eyes. “If it was up to me.”

“You’re her mother,” Zach said.

Her mother
. Lexi didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing.

“I thought you wanted to name … I thought you liked Katya.”

She drew in a breath at that: so, he remembered. It felt like a lifetime ago, that conversation of hope between two kids who thought that love was easy. They’d been on their beach, spinning diaphanous dreams of the future. “My friend … Tamica is a Catholic. She says when God forgives you, he grants you grace.” She looked down at her daughter. “Gracie? Is that you?”

The baby made a mewling sound, and Lexi started to cry. “Don’t cry, baby,” she said, kissing the tiny pink lips.

Then she looked up at Zach. “Tell her I loved her enough to do what was best for her.”

“I’ll bring her to visit—”

“No.” She kissed her daughter one last time, and then slowly, slowly handed her to Zach. “I don’t want her to grow up like I did. Keep her away from me.”

He took the small bundle in his arms. “Grace,” he said. “Grace Mia Farraday.”

Lexi felt the pain of that. “I love you, Gracie,” she whispered, wishing she’d kissed her daughter one more time before she handed her over. “And Zach, I—”

There was a knock at the door. It was so loud it startled her.

“That will be my mom,” Zach said. “What were you going to say?”

Lexi shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

He paused, moved his gaze from the baby to Lexi. “I ruined everything,” he said softly.

She couldn’t find her voice, not even to say good-bye to her daughter or the boy she loved.

*

Jude had tried to prepare for this day. She told herself
this would be it,
the start of a new Jude, and so when Zach came out of Lexi’s hospital room, holding a pink-wrapped newborn, his eyes glazed with emotion, Jude felt hope rising within her, standing tall.

“Grace Mia Farraday,” Zach said.

“She’s gorgeous,” Miles said, coming up beside his son, cupping the baby’s small head in his long surgeon’s hand.

Jude looked down into her granddaughter’s small face, and time seemed to fall away.

For a second, she was a young mother herself, with a baby in each arm and Miles beside her.

Grace looked exactly like Mia.

The same bow-shaped lips and muddy blue eyes that would turn green, the same pointed chin and white-blond eyelashes. Jude drew back instinctively.

“Mom?” Zach said, looking up at her. “Do you want to hold her?”

Jude started to shake. The cold in her heart radiated out to her fingers, and she wished she’d brought a coat. “Of course.” She made herself smile and reach out, taking Mia—
no, Grace
—in her arms, holding her close.

Love her,
she thought desperately, beginning to panic.
Feel something
.

But there was nothing. She stared down at her own granddaughter, this baby who looked enough like Mia to fool anyone, and Jude felt nothing at all.

*

Physically, Lexi healed quickly. Her boobs shrank back to their normal size, and her milk dried up. Within a month, a few pale silvery lines on her lower belly were the only evidence that she’d ever had a child.

She felt as faded as those marks. Pregnancy had changed her. A girl named Alexa Baill had gone into that hospital, chained to a bed, and given birth to the most beautiful baby in the world. She’d seen the boy she loved one last time. And then it was all gone, and an older, wiser Lexi had come back to Purdy.

Before, she’d been fragile, even hopeful; she saw that now, the way you saw a missing fence post. The lack stood out. She’d been damaged, broken by the terrible thing she’d done, but she’d believed in redemption, in the power of justice. She’d thought that going to prison would be an atonement and that with atonement she could be forgiven.

What a crock.

Her lawyer had been right. She should have fought the charges, said she was sorry and young and stupid.

Instead, she’d done the right thing and been crushed. She’d lost everything that mattered to her, but nothing hurt more than the loss of her child.

In the two months since Grace’s birth, Lexi had tried to hold on to who she was, but the best parts of her were draining away. Day after day, she attempted to write letters to her daughter, and each new failure stripped away a piece of her, until now there was so little left she felt transparent. Especially today.

She was in the yard, sitting on a bench beneath a pale denim sky. Over to her left, some khaki-clad women were playing basketball. The trees outside the prison were in full, vibrant bloom. Every now and then a pink blossom floated over the skeletal mountain of razor wire and landed on the ground like an impossibly kept promise.

“You look like someone who could use a boost.”

Lexi looked up. The woman standing there had a carrot-colored crew cut and a blue kerchief tied around her shorn head. A snake tattoo peeked out from her collar. She was a stocky woman with powerful hands and skin that looked like someone had scrubbed at her cheeks with steel wool.

Lexi knew who this woman was. Everyone did. Her nickname, Smack, said it all.

Lexi got slowly to her feet. In all the time she’d been here, she’d never spoken to Smack. There was only one reason women befriended Smack, and once you started talking to her, you never stopped.

“I can make your pain go away,” Smack said.

Lexi knew it was wrong, dangerous to listen to that promise, but she couldn’t help herself. This pain of hers was unbearable, especially today. “How much?”

Smack smiled slowly, revealing black, ugly teeth. Meth. Mouths like that were a dime a dozen in here. “For the first time? A sweet thing like you? I think—”

“You get the hell away from her, Smack.”

Lexi saw Tamica barreling this way like a mama grizzly bear. She put a paw-sized hand on Lexi’s chest and pushed her aside hard. Lexi stumbled, almost fell. She regained her balance quickly and surged forward. “This is
my
business, Tamica. You can’t tell me what to do.”

Tamica went toe-to-toe with Smack. “Back off or I’ll take you apart like cheap-ass furniture.”

Lexi pushed in between the women. “I
need
it,” she said to Tamica, almost pleading. “I can’t stand it anymore. I don’t want to feel anything.”

“Hold out your hand,” Smack whispered.

“No,” Tamica said. “I won’t let you do this,
hermana
.”

Lexi made a roaring, wailing sound of pure unadulterated pain and punched Tamica in the nose.

A whistle blew.

Smack slipped two pills into Lexi’s hand and then ran so fast it was as if she’d never been there.

“You crazy?” Tamica said, stumbling back. “I don’t know why I care about you.”

“I don’t either. I never asked you to.”

“
Hermana,
” Tamica said, sighing. “I know how much it hurts.”

“Do you? A year ago today I killed my best friend.”

Two guards stepped in between them and pushed Lexi away from Tamica. “Back up, Baill.”

“I fell,” Tamica said.

“Nice try, Hernandez,” one of the guards said. “I saw the whole thing. Come on, Baill.”

Lexi knew where they were taking her, knew and didn’t care. Yesterday she would have said that nothing scared her more than going to The Hole, but now, on the anniversary of Mia’s death, in a world where Lexi had had a child and lost her, it barely warranted a sigh.

They led her down one hallway after another, finally coming to a small, windowless room. When the door opened, Lexi got a whiff of urine and filth and she started to panic, to turn away.

“Too late,” the guard nearest her said, giving her a shove inside. There was a rough steel-gray blanket on a metal bed. The mattress and pillow were made of old, misshapen rubber. The only opening in the door was the size of a TV remote. Food probably came through that slot three times a day.

Lexi stood in the darkness, shivering suddenly, although it wasn’t cold. The stench of the cell was making her eyes water.