Untethered (28 page)

“Allie will be fine,” Char said. “I promise.”

“A week ago, you'd have promised me Allie would never dream of running away, or violating the law.”

Clench fists. Open. Clench. Open.
Char didn't argue and Lindy smiled. It was a good sign, Char knew. She had played the first part exactly right—refrained from telling Lindy off, admitted everything Lindy had accused her of, apologized for all the wrongs Lindy
had complained of. Now, to remind Lindy what was in it for her if she backed down.

“What if we give it a trial run?” Char said. “I understand all of your concerns. But I also know you're very busy right now. You have all of those destination weddings, Allie tells me. The planning for those, the advance work, the travel, it must be overwhelming. And pulling Allie out of school in the middle of the term, starting her at a new place down there, will be a huge disruption. For Allie, but also for you. Why not spare yourself the hassle? Why don't you just leave her here until the end of July, when your schedule finally eases up?

“We can give you a full report about how things are going. You could even come up and see for yourself. I think you'd find things are going perfectly fine up here, and you could return to California confident that Allie's doing well, staying out of trouble. You'd be free to put all of your energies into your business, without having to worry about her.”

Lindy put a finger on her chin, plainly considering Char's suggestion. Char forced her lips not to curve into a victory smile.
Don't push when you're this close to the yes
, she told herself. “I'll just,” she said, pointing to her car, “check on Morgan, while you think it over.”

Walking away, Char allowed herself a quick grin. It had taken everything she had not to let Lindy have it, not to blast her with five years' worth of built-up frustration and resentment. But she had kept the endgame in mind, and she had played it perfectly. Now, to work the same magic on the Crews tomorrow.

“What?”
Char heard Allie say behind her. “No!”

Char spun around. “Allie?”

“You can't do this!” Allie screamed.

Char jogged back to the girl and her mother. “What?”

“She said no!” Allie said, her hands covering her face. “She said she's taking me! Now! Tell her she can't!”

“I don't understand,” Char said to Lindy. “I thought—”

“You thought I would ignore the danger you allowed my child to put herself in because of your lax oversight?” Lindy asked. “That I would ever trust you with her again after you lied to me about where she was?”

“I'm sorry!” Char said, her heart racing.

She hadn't expected this, and she felt as though she were on the backs of both heels. No strategy came to her, just sheer desperation.

“Lindy, please! Try to understand! It's been such an emotional time for me and Allie since January. She hasn't been at her best, and neither have I. But I'm the adult. All of this is my fault. You have every right to be upset with me, but please don't take it out on Allie!”

“
Take it out on her?”
Lindy said, and her voice dripped with acid. “Are you implying that having my daughter move home with me is some kind of punishment?” Lindy's eyes flashed and Char was certain she saw victory in the glow, as though Lindy felt that, with that comment, Char had given her justification for the horrible thing she was doing.

Char wanted to punch her hand through the hood of Lindy's car. It had been the worst of all possible things to suggest to Lindy. If there had been any chance of Lindy changing her mind, Char had, with that stupid statement, destroyed it.

“Mom, please,” Allie begged. “You don't really want me.” Lindy moved to object but Allie forged ahead. “You don't. You never have. And it's okay. I know I said some . . . things, a few minutes ago. I was mad, and I'm sorry.

“But please,” she choked. “Please, don't do this. Ground me if
you want. For the rest of the school year, even. All summer, too. Come up with the worst punishment you can think of. Char will see it through, we promise.”

Char nodded mutely, her throat so thick she couldn't get a sound out.

Lindy opened the passenger door of her rental car and pointed inside. It took everything Char had not to dive on the woman, pin her down, and yell to Allie, “Run! Get in my car! Drive!”

“You can't,” Allie sobbed, tears running down her cheeks. “You can't make me go!” She gestured to the back of Char's car. “You can't make me leave her!”

“Allison,” Lindy said.

Allie was hyperventilating now, doubled over.

“Get in the car.”

“I c-c-can't,” Allie gasped, a hand on her stomach, and it was clear the girl was telling the truth. She wasn't simply staging a protest against her mother but was frozen in place, unable to move.

Char chased her voice out of her thickened throat. “Lindy, please. Do we have to do things this way? You're angry. I can see that. Do you really want to do something this drastic out of anger? What if you take the night to calm down? Think it over. Decide if this is really what you want. Maybe by morning you'll feel differently. And if you don't, we can discuss it then. Calmly.”

“I've been thinking about it the entire way from Los Angeles to Detroit,” Lindy said. “I don't need another night. Plus, I think that given the emotions we've seen tonight, a clean break would be best. Repeating any part of this tomorrow would be a bad idea. For all of us.

“We're on the early flight from Detroit in the morning. We need to get to the airport hotel tonight. Angrily or calmly, dramatically or quietly, I will be taking my daughter home in the morning.”

Char felt numb. This was happening. There were no more tricks she could pull to get Lindy to change her mind. There was no point in continuing to discuss it with her, or in begging her to reconsider. The only hope now was to make the last moments in the driveway go smoothly, so Lindy wouldn't leave in a rage, annihilating any chance of Allie seeing or talking to Char and Morgan in the near future.

“In that case,” Char said, pointing to Allie, who was still doubled over, gasping for air, “maybe you could give her a minute to get herself under control? She could go upstairs, take some deep breaths, splash some water on her face. Put a few things in an overnight bag. Calm herself down enough that she could come back out and spend a few minutes with Morgan, to say good-bye. It would all help, I think. I'm sure you don't want to walk into the hotel while she's like this.”

Allie looked at her mother. “Please.”

“I don't want you going inside and building up another head of steam and coming out here to argue with me again,” Lindy said. “But if you promise you'll just do those things: calm down, wash your face, pack a very few things into a very small bag. Say good-bye. And then get in the car without further incident.” She looked from Allie to Char, making it clear she expected both of them to commit to the promise, with the elder responsible for ensuring that the younger one stuck to her word.

“You go grab some things,” Char told Allie, “and I'll wake Morgan.” Allie nodded, straightened, and shuffled past Char toward the house. “It'll be okay,” Char said. She pressed the house keys into Allie's hand, then wrapped her arms around the girl, pulling her tight.

“Everything will be okay,” she whispered. “But you need to
stay calm now, okay? And when you come back out, you need to keep it together. No more arguing with her. I know it's hard, but you need to do it.”

“But—” Allie said.

“Shhh,” Char said. “I know everything you're thinking, and you're right. But this is the way we need to handle it now, okay? Please? Can you do this?”

Allie nodded. Char hugged her tighter, then released her, and Allie walked toward the front door.

“Maybe you should go with her,” Lindy said, pointing as the front door closed behind her daughter. “To make sure.”

“She's not going to sneak out the back, or lock herself in her room, or . . .” Char tried to imagine what other foolish things Lindy thought Allie might do, but came up with nothing more, so she gave up and walked back to her car. “I'll get Morgan.”

“I don't want that younger child creating a scene, either,” Lindy warned.

Char brought her hand in front of her chest, where Lindy couldn't see it, and made a fist. Except for her middle finger, which she left extended. “She won't.”

L
indy didn't ask how Char could be so sure that Morgan wouldn't cause a scene. In the end, Char wished she hadn't been right. She wished Morgan would cling to Allie and refuse to let go. She wished the girl would scream and howl that she wasn't going to let it happen—she wasn't going to let Allie get into the car. She wished Morgan would throw herself on Lindy's hood and refuse to let go unless Lindy agreed to leave her daughter behind.

“I've come to wake you up,” Char whispered to Morgan, leaning inside the back of the car and shaking her gently.

“We're home?” Morgan rasped. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She peered into the front for Allie, and not seeing her there, looked outside the car. “Did Allie go inside already? Who's here?”

Char told her who was there. And she told her why. And what would be happening when Allie came back outside. And she knew, even as she drew her head backward, out of the car and away from Morgan, that she didn't need to take her ears out of the range of a shrieking child.

Morgan sat back against the seat, opened one hand, and poked at it with the finger of the other. “Is she ever coming back?” she asked quietly. “To see us? Or no?”

“I believe she is,” Char said. “I'm going to talk to her mother about it. To see if she can come for a few weeks in the summer. For starters. But I can't make any—”

“No promises,” Morgan said, nodding as though she had heard the caveat many times before.

“No,” Char said, “no promises. But I think we can be pretty sure that—”

“No promises,” Morgan said again.

“Should we go and wait by the car?” Char asked. “So we can give her a hug before she goes?” She extended her hand.

Morgan took it, and climbed out, and they made their way to the front walk. Morgan's tear-streaked face glistened in the light of the outdoor spotlight mounted at the peak of the garage. Each time she wiped a cheek with the back of her hand, it was wet again within seconds.

It wasn't Morgan's tears that made Char's own start to flow. It was the fact that Morgan, even though weeping uncontrollably, didn't make a sound. Not a single intake of caught breath. Not a sigh. She didn't even sniff. She had, for reasons Char could only guess at with impotent rage, perfected the art of noiseless crying.

When Allie stepped out of the house and saw Morgan, the poker face Char could see the teen trying to maintain started to crumble. Allie dropped the duffel bag she was carrying and hugged her arms around her waist as though physically trying to hold herself together.

“Wait one second, okay, sweetie?” Char said, a hand on Morgan's shoulder. “I'll get Allie's bag, and you can walk her to the car.” At the front door, Char put a hand on each of Allie's shoulders, leaned
close, and whispered, “Easy, now. However this goes for you, it goes for her, too. If this is the end of the world for you, it will be for her. If you can make this ‘Good-bye for now, but see you soon,' it can be that for her, too. Which would you rather leave her with?”

Allie nodded, and Char let go of her shoulders. To give the girls a few extra moments, she took her time with Allie's bag, making a production of checking to make sure it was zipped all the way before she hoisted it over one shoulder, dropped it, and lifted it to the other shoulder, all while studiously avoiding the impatience she could predict in Lindy's expression.

She shuffled down the walk, toward the car. Lindy pointed to the back seat, but Char walked slowly to the trunk instead, feigning surprise that it was locked. Lindy sighed and unlocked the trunk, and Char took too much time setting the bag inside.

All the while, Char kept an eye trained on the girls. Allie was hunched over Morgan, both arms wrapped around the girl. Her upper body rose and lowered with her sobs and the entire surface of both cheeks shone wetly. But while the teenager could not control her body, Char could hear her fighting valiantly to control her speech. Gulping for air around her sobs, Allie maintained a steady stream of patter designed to make the listener feel better but also, Char knew, as a means of comforting the speaker.

“It's . . . it's . . . f-f-fine, Morgan. It's going to be fine. We're going to text and talk on the phone and Skype. All the time. You'll see. You'll be sick of me, you'll hear from me so often! And I'll be back. As soon as I can. Maybe for a week in the summer. I'll talk to my mom about it. Or I'll have Char ask her.”

As Allie spoke and sobbed and sniffed and wiped her eyes and nose, Morgan stood immobile, a child carved out of granite. Char looked from the girls to Lindy and worried that Allie might be
pushing her luck. Lindy, sitting in the driver's seat, was scrolling through her phone for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before she lost interest in that and started making a show of her impatience, at which point it was possible Allie would get fired up again. Char moved to the girls and gently pulled them apart. The teenager gave Morgan a few last desperate kisses on the cheek before allowing Char to put an arm around her and lead her to the passenger door.

At the car, Char kept an eye on Lindy. Too much sentimentality between the girls was one thing. Too much between Lindy's daughter and the woman who had raised her for the past five years was another. Char estimated she could take about a tenth of the good-bye time that Allie and Morgan had before Lindy made motions that it was time to go.

She put both arms around Allie, pulled her close, and kissed the girl's cheek, laughing as their tears made their skin stick together. “I love you, Allie,” she whispered. “So much. As long as you're gone, I'm going to feel like a part of me is missing.”

“Me, too,” Allie whispered back.

“I'll work on your mom. I'll come up with something. Maybe I'm her solution to those business trips she's got lined up in July.”

Allie nodded. “You think that'll work?”

“I hope so. But you've got to watch what you say, okay? Vent as much as you want to your friends, but don't—”

“I know,” Allie said. “I blew it tonight.”

“No. I did. But we can't think about that now. We need to move on.”

“Take care of her for me,” Allie said. “Tell her every night that I love her. Give her an extra kiss every night, from me.”

“I promise.” Char kissed the girl again and helped her into the car.

She stood with Morgan on the front step, crying and waving as Lindy backed out of the driveway, Char sniffing and gulping, Morgan not making a sound.

Later, Char tucked an exhausted and still soundless Morgan into bed in the guest room and sat beside her, rubbing circles on her back. When the girl's raspy breathing became slow and deep, Char crept into the hall, eased the door shut behind her, and snuck downstairs to Bradley's office. Without turning on the overhead light, she made her way to his desk and lowered herself into his chair.

She reached her hands across the desk and, feeling in the dark, moved her palms over papers and journals and notepads until she came to the smooth glass dome that covered Einstein. She lifted it and passed it from hand to hand, feeling the heavy glass solidity she loved so much.

Then she stood, wrapping her right hand around Einstein's smooth encasement. Twisting from her torso so her right shoulder rotated back, she raised her hand, and Einstein, up in the air, high and back. Then she whipped around and forward, and as she did, she catapulted her arm and opened her hand, launching Einstein into the darkness.

She heard a sharp crack as the dome splintered against the wall, and then a sound like rain as a thousand pieces of splintered glass sprayed against the wall, the bookshelf, the hardwood floor, and the floor-to-ceiling windows.