When We Were Friends (34 page)

Despite myself, I felt a beat of anger. Life is cruel, life is suffering; she’d conveyed this to me throughout my childhood. And that belief became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’d never expected happiness, and maybe that was why I’d never even tried. What kind of lesson was that to teach a baby? Shouldn’t a child be taught that anything was possible, that she was in control of her own destiny?

Molly held her arms toward me with a plaintive
“Mama!”
And, my insides aching, I lifted her from Star’s lap. This was the hope I had for her: That she’d never be teased, never be ignored, never inflict pain on anyone else. Would be shown throughout her childhood the empathy her own mother lacked so she’d be able to weep for others, even people she didn’t know. And most of all that she’d someday arrive relatively unscathed at a place where she loved, and was loved. That was the future everyone deserved.

“Don’t you listen to her,” I whispered, soft enough that Star wouldn’t hear. “I promise, you’re going to have an amazing life.”

Star and I were washing dishes when the phone rang. We both turned quickly toward it, then looked at each other and Star smiled. “Tell him you miss him,” she said. “It can be interpreted completely innocently, or completely not.”

“This is why I don’t take your relationship advice,” I said, reaching for the phone. “Subtlety is not your forte.”

But it was a woman on the phone with a deepish voice and a strange way of speaking, somewhat upper-class British minus the actual accent, like she was speaking around a mouthful of unpalatable food. “Who is this?” she said.

The Girlfriend
, was my first thought. I closed my eyes and willed her to disappear,
poof!
I didn’t want to throw her into the mix, not now, not when I was just starting to feel hopeful again. “I’m sorry,” I said, “who is this?”

“I asked you first. I’m just wondering why you’re answering Alex’s phone.”

“My name’s Leah,” I said. “A close friend of Alex’s and I’ve been staying with him here.” Let her interpret that however she would.

“Really.”
She sounded more amused than upset.

Star raised her eyebrows at me and I shook my head. “Now can you tell me who this is?”

“Tell Alex it’s Posy, and he’s succeeded in getting me to foot the cost of a phone call.”

Posy. “Alex’s sister?” I said.

“I just wanted to support him on the anniversary day, since he chewed me out last year for not wanting to talk about it.”

“Anniversary?” I said.

“Of the accident. I thought you were a close friend. Doesn’t sound all that close.”

“Oh right,” I said slowly, “the accident. I’m sorry, he went away for a couple days. He should be back by Wednesday, but I’ll tell him you called.”

“He’s not off with that skank, is he? If he’s there, I swear I’m disowning him.”

I stared at the wall, my eyes feeling chalky dry. “I don’t know, actually,” I said.

“Do you know anything? I’m starting to think you’re some kind of squatter; does he even know you’re there? Or a hopeless cause.
Alex is big on picking up hopeless causes.” She paused. “Look, just tell him I called, and he can call back if he wants. Rest of the week’s bad but Sunday morning might work, long as it’s not godawful early. And tell him I’m thinking of coming up for a visit, so if you’re still squatting we might meet face-to-face.”

“Okay,” I said, in a little-girl voice.

“Okay,” she repeated. “Pleasure talking with you and etcetera.” And then she hung up.

I replaced the receiver and said, “That was Alex’s sister calling because she wanted to support him. Because of some accident, which I have no idea what that means. And she mentioned some woman she thought he might be with.”

“Ah, the girlfriend. And now you’re thinking he felt guilty about wanting to kiss you, so he went off to make amends with her.”

“Maybe. Yeah.”

Star hesitated, then said, “I saw him holding her photo the other day, the one from his bookshelf. He was holding it in his lap and looking out the window, kind of haunted. And then … I don’t know if I should be telling you this, but then he touched the picture and he whispered how he was sorry, and then he said, ‘Tell me what to do.’ ”

“Tell him what to do?”

“Because he’s started having feelings about you.” Star smiled at me. “That’s got to be what it is, don’t you think?”

“Stop, Ma, you’re acting like we’re in high school. And besides, regardless of whether he has quote-unquote
feelings
, sooner or later he’ll figure out I’m not who I said I am, and he’ll stop feeling anything except disgusted.”

Star reached for my hands and squeezed them in her own. “He knows the important parts of you, Lainey, the kindness and the caringness. And what you’re doing for Molly, he’ll see it’s just another aspect of the sort of person you are.”

Listening to her, I tried to believe this could be true, thinking how he’d come home and tell me about the “skank” he was maybe visiting
now, how he’d realized when he met me just exactly how much of a skank she was in comparison. How maybe he’d ended everything because of what he’d seen in me.

And then I’d tell him everything. Not right away, maybe, but I knew the opportunity would present itself again; he’d ask a question about my past, or become comfortable enough to reveal more of his, and then I’d tell him and he’d understand.

He’d know who I really was, and love me anyway.

Tuesday evening, as I was getting Molly ready for bed, my cell phone rang. I grabbed for it. “Alex?”

“What?” I heard a strange, barking laugh, then, “No, no it’s me. I just wanted to ask how you’re doing. And Jacqueline. And also to see if someone from the FBI called.”

“Sydney.” I clutched at the shirt over my heart, as if that could still it. “They called last week. A woman.”

“Good, I figured they had.” She paused, then said, “So would you say they seemed really suspicious? Like did they ask you pointed questions about me?”

“Yeah, they seemed suspicious, but I told them you were a sweet, honest person and somehow my head, and their ears, didn’t explode.”

“You’re too funny.” She didn’t sound remotely amused. “Did they mention anything that worried you at all? Specifics about me?”

Molly started to fuss on my lap, so I cradled the phone against my ear and set her on her feet facing me, letting her balance against my knees, her weight against me so comforting as she bounced up and down like she was readying herself to jump. “They told me you did a paternity test on Jacqueline.”

Silence, then, “Oh that. Well yes, I did. I needed to make sure she was David’s.”

“And …”

“You mean is she his? Of course she is. I mean you can look at
them and see the similarities, but I was grasping at straws. I was starting to think about how I could possibly fight him for custody, and I wanted to see if there was a chance I might not have to fight. I realized it wasn’t likely, and it was scary as hell to think what David might do to me if he found out, but I thought it was worth the risk, and I knew he already had some idea.”

“That you were screwing around.”

“Not
screwing around
, Jesus. I told the investigators I met him at a bar, that it was a one-night stand and I didn’t even know his name. But it was actually Kemper.”

I stared at the wall, letting this sink in. “Did you think you were going to end up with him when this was over? That the three of you would live happily ever after?”

“I don’t know.” She paused. “Maybe, yes. I thought maybe he still cared enough to help me, since in all his letters he kept saying he’d do anything to help us get away from David. I thought he loved me.” Her voice broke. “Which I know now he doesn’t, probably never did; you should’ve seen how he reacted after I told him you had the baby. Maybe he was concerned about what David was doing to me, but it’s so obvious it was never actual
love
, and now I have to come up with a whole new vision of what my future’s going to look like.”

“Meaning what? Do you have any idea what your next move is?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been so focused on getting past all the questioning that I haven’t had time to really think this through, but … I guess I’ll have to go it alone somehow.”

I pressed a thumb and finger against my eyes, feeling suddenly so tired. Without Alex here even little things, like not being able to find spare lightbulbs, made me all too aware that I was invading someone else’s space. So without fully thinking it through I said, “How about Montana?”

A beat of silence, then, “Montana?”

“Because I might have to leave here soon, Sydney. Things’ve happened between me and the man I’m staying with.”

Another beat, then tentatively, “Things? What do you mean, things?”

“Nothing you have to worry about, just that he’s left without telling me where he went, and I’m not sure if it’s right anymore to be taking advantage. I’ll let you know once I have a better idea what’s going on, and then if I have to go maybe you could join us, as soon as you think it’s safe.”

“Montana,” she said, then repeated, “Montana, yeah. Okay that could definitely work. When do you think you’re leaving?” Was I imagining it, or was there something cagey in her voice? I suddenly remembered what Pamela had said, how she’d thought there might be things Sydney was keeping from me. What if she was planning to tell the cops where I was and collect the reward money herself? Or if there was something else going on that I had no idea about? Had it been stupid to tell her where I was thinking of going?

“I haven’t decided anything for sure yet,” I said slowly. “Once Alex gets home I’ll have a better idea what to do next.”

“The more I think about it, the more I realize you probably
should
leave. I never liked the idea of you staying so long with someone who might figure out who Jacqueline is. Things’re getting bad for me here; they have been for a while but now they’re suddenly getting worse. I know you’ve been careful, but we’re getting to the point where … well you can’t be careful enough. And wouldn’t it make more sense to leave
before
he gets home so you don’t have to explain anything to him?”

Molly reached her arms toward me and I lifted her back onto my lap, feeling a sudden swirl of anger. All my life I’d let other people pull me along to wherever would shore up their needs, and I’d told myself repeatedly that now I was going to finally be the one in charge. Why should Sydney be the one to decide where Molly would go and what would happen next? She might think she could manipulate me, that I’d just stand by and let her, but this wasn’t high school.

“Right,” I said calmly, “okay, just tell me exactly what to do. I’ve lied to the FBI, which is a federal crime but no big deal. I’ve lied to the man who’s been sacrificing everything to take us in, nearly
killed my mother by pulling her away from home, and now I’ll take off again whenever and for wherever you want. No problem!” I was happy with the tone of my voice—confident, take charge, even though I was nothing of the sort.
Don’t mess with me
, that tone said.

“Stop! Lainey, don’t. I can’t take your yelling on top of everything else right now, I just can’t. I’m falling apart here. The thought of being away from all this and starting a new life, it’s the only thing keeping me remotely sane. I’m lonely, I’m scared and I don’t know what to do without Jacqueline. I dream about her crying for me, and then I wake up and jump out of bed before I remember. Sometimes I even run into her room and then I panic when I see the crib empty. Do you know what it’s like seeing that empty crib? And I sleep with a pair of her pajamas; how pathetic is that? Don’t you get how this feels?”

You gave your baby to a near stranger
, I wanted to say,
made that stranger commit a felony so that you could falsely accuse your ex-husband of kidnapping. How does
that
feel?

But then I imagined her looking at Molly’s empty crib, imagined myself doing the exact same thing after Molly was gone. She did love Molly. She was confused and terrified and alone, and Molly was all she had left.

“Oh Jesus, Lainey, I need to talk to her. Can I? Could you let me talk to her?”

“She’s sleeping,” I said, the words instinctive, self-protective. Molly had tucked her head against my shoulder and was plucking sleepily at one of my shirt buttons, and I willed her to stay silent. “It took a long time to get her down, and I’m not going to wake her up, sorry.”

“Well okay. Okay, but tell me how she is? Tell me what you did with her this week?”

“I don’t know, not much. We’ve gone on walks and we played in the garden.” I squared my shoulders. “And she said her first word on Sunday.”

“What? Oh Lainey, she did? She did! Are you sure it was a real word? What did she say!”

I hesitated, hearing the anguish behind her excitement. And … I couldn’t tell her. Much as part of me wanted to gloat, I just couldn’t. “Baba,” I said. “For her bottle. That’s her first word; write it down in the history books.”

“Baba,” Sydney repeated in a whisper.

“Yeah,” I said softly, “I know.”

She made a choked sound, then said, “This is the most important time of her life, isn’t it. I mean she’s learning more now than she ever did before, faster than she’s ever going to again.”

“It’s amazing, really. It’s like she gets these new skills every day, little things like how to take lids off containers, find things when I hide them, she’s even learning new facial expressions.”

“Oh Jacqueline …” I heard Sydney’s breath hitch. “You know I had this dream of how it was going to be, her first word. I pictured myself playing with her, and she’d look up at me with that questioning look she gets; you know that look? And she’d say,
Mama
. She’d say
Mama
and smile up at me, and then I’d pull her into my lap and we’d laugh and we’d laugh. In that moment I’d know everything was okay, that every minute I’d spent with her, even the mistakes I’d made, they were all okay.”

“Sydney—”

“No, I know. I did this to myself, and the mistakes aren’t even close to okay. I didn’t deserve to hear her say her first word.”

“It’s not about deserving.” I thought of all the times I’d prompted Molly with the word “Mama,” patting at my chest with my hand and then hers. I leaned back against the wall, looking down at Molly. Her eyes were closed now, her breath heavy, but I said, “Well look at that, she’s up again. I swear, it’s every thirty minutes; I could use her as a kitchen timer. Hold on, let’s see if she’ll talk to you.” I jounced her awake and held the phone to her ear and then, my voice hoarse, said, “Can you say Mama? Mama!”