Authors: Kristin Hannah
Lauren had been asleep, but barely. She’d heard the highway noise outside and tried to pretend it was the ocean, lulling her to sleep.
“Lauren?”
She’d expected a night nurse, someone checking on her one last time before lights out. But it was Angie.
She’d looked terrible, ravaged almost. Her eyes had been swollen and red and her attempts at smiling were miserable failures. She’d talked to Lauren for a long time, brushing her hair and bringing her drinks of water, until she finally said what she’d come to say.
“You need to see him.”
Lauren had looked up into Angie’s eyes and thought:
There it is.
The love Lauren had looked for all of her life.
“I’m afraid.”
Angie had touched her then, so gently. “I know, honey. That’s why you need to do it.”
Long after Angie had left, Lauren thought about it. In her heart, she knew Angie was right. She needed to hold her son, to kiss his tiny cheek and tell him she loved him. She needed to say good-bye.
But she was afraid. It hurt so much to
think
about leaving him. How would it feel to actually hold him?
It was nearing dawn when she made her decision. She leaned sideways and rang the nurse’s bell. When the nurse showed up, Lauren said, “Bring me my baby, please.”
The next ten minutes seemed to last forever.
Finally, the nurse returned, and Lauren saw her tiny, pink-faced son for the first time. He had David’s eyes, and her mother’s pointed chin. And her own red hair. Here was her whole life in one small face.
“Do you know how to hold him?” the nurse asked.
Lauren shook her head. Her throat was too tight for words. The nurse gently positioned the baby in Lauren’s arms.
She barely noticed when the nurse left.
She stared down at this baby of hers, this miracle in her arms, and even though he was so tiny, he seemed like
the whole world. Her heart swelled at the sight of him until it actually hurt to breathe.
He was her family.
Family.
All her life she’d been looking for someone who was related to her, and here he was, snuggled in her arms. She’d never known a grandparent, a cousin, an aunt or uncle, or a sibling, but she had a son. “Johnny,” she whispered, touching his tiny fist.
He held her finger.
She gasped. How could she ever leave him? The thought made her cry.
She’d promised—
But she hadn’t known, hadn’t understood. How could she have known how it would feel to love your own child?
I’m not Sarah Dekker,
she’d said to Angie only a few weeks ago.
I’d never hurt you like that.
Lauren squeezed her eyes shut. How could she betray Angie now?
Angie. The woman who was waiting and ready to be the best mom Johnny could have. The woman who had shown Lauren what love was, what a family could be.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and gazed down at her son through a stinging blur of tears. “But I’m your mommy,” she whispered.
Some choices, no matter how smart and right, just couldn’t be made.
David was at her bedside that afternoon. He looked ragged, tired; his smile was faded around the edges.
“My mom thinks he looks like her dad,” he said after another of their long, awkward silences.
Lauren looked up at him. “You’re sure about all this, right?”
“I’m sure. It’s too soon for us.”
He was right. It was too soon for them. And suddenly she was thinking of all their time together, all the years of loving him. She thought of their years together; the way he always rambled on about car capabilities and talked nonstop through movies, how he sang off-key and never seemed to know the words; mostly, she thought about the way he always seemed to know when she felt scared or lost and how he held her hand then, tightly, as if he could keep her steady. She’d always love him. “I love you, David,” she murmured, hearing the thickness of her voice.
“I love you, too.” He leaned forward, pulled her into his arms.
She was the first to pull back. He took her hand, squeezed it.
“This is the end for us.” She said it softly. Each word hurt to say out loud. She wanted him to laugh, to take her in his arms and say,
No way.
Instead, he started to cry.
She felt the burning in her own eyes. She longed to take it back, tell him she hadn’t meant it, but she’d grown up now and she knew better. Some dreams simply slipped out of your hands. The worst part was that they might have made it, might have loved each other forever, if she hadn’t gotten pregnant.
She wondered how long it would hurt to love him. She hoped it was a wound that one day healed itself, leaving only the palest silver mark behind. “I want you to go to Stanford and forget about all of this.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, crying so hard she knew he’d take the out she offered. And though that knowledge
hurt, it saved her, too, almost made her smile. Some sacrifices had to be made for love.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pink piece of paper. “Here,” he said, offering it to her.
She frowned. The paper felt whisper thin between her fingers. “It’s the title to your car.”
“I want you to have it.”
She could barely see him through her tears. “Oh, David, no.”
“It’s all I have.”
She would remember this moment for all of her life. No matter what, she would always know that he’d loved her. She handed him back the pink slip. “Kiss me, Speed Racer,” she whispered, knowing it would be the last time.
The minute Angie passed the nurse’s station, she knew.
“Mrs. Malone?” one of the nurses said. “Ms. Connelly would like to speak with you.”
Angie pulled away from Conlan and ran. Her sandals snapped on the linoleum floor, sounding obscenely loud. She shoved the door open so hard it cracked against the wall.
Lauren’s bed was empty.
She sagged against the doorframe. A part of her had known this was coming, had been waiting for it, but that didn’t make it any easier. “She’s gone,” she said when Conlan came up beside her.
They stood there in the doorway, holding hands, staring at the perfectly made bed. The scent of flowers lingered in the room. It was the only evidence that last night a girl had been here.
“Mrs. Malone?”
She turned slowly, expecting to see the plump face of
the hospital’s chaplain. He was the first person who’d shown up in Angie’s room when Sophia died.
But it was Ms. Connelly, the woman who’d been appointed guardian ad litem. “She left about an hour ago.” The woman glanced down. “With her son.”
Angie had expected that, too. Still the pain came fast and sharp. “I see.”
“She left you a letter. And one for David.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking the envelopes.
The guardian said, “I’m sorry,” and walked away.
Angie looked down at the stark white envelope. The name—Angie Malone—was scrawled across the front. Her hands were shaking as she took it, opened it.
Dear Angie,
I never should have held him.
(Here she’d scratched something out.)
All my life I’ve been looking for a family and now that I have one, I can’t walk out on him. I’m sorry.
I wish I were strong enough to tell you this in person. But I can’t. I can only pray that someday you and Conlan will forgive me.
Just know that somewhere, a new mother is going to sleep at night, thinking about you. Pretending—wishing—that she had been your daughter.
With love,
Lauren
Angie folded up the letter and put it back in the envelope. Then she turned to Conlan. “She’s out there all alone.”
“Not alone,” he said gently. She knew when she looked in his eyes that he’d expected this all along.
“Too alone, then.”
He pulled her into his arms and let her cry.
They found David in the waiting room with his mother.
At their arrival, David looked up.
“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Malone.”
His mother, Anita, smiled. “Hello again.”
An awkward pause fell. They all looked at one another.
“He’s beautiful,” Anita said, her voice cracking only a little.
Angie wondered how it must feel to say good-bye to your son’s son. “Lauren has left the hospital,” Angie said as gently as she could. “She took the baby with her. We don’t …” Her throat closed; she couldn’t finish.
“We don’t know where she went,” Conlan said.
Anita crumpled into a chair, saying, “Oh, God,” and covering her mouth with her hand.
David frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“She left with her son,” Angie said.
“Left? But …” David’s voice broke.
Angie handed him the envelope. “She left this for you.”
His hands were unsteady as he opened the letter.
They all stood there in silence, watching him.
Finally, he looked up. Standing there, crying, he looked so young. “She’s not coming back.”
It took all of Angie’s strength not to cry with him. “I don’t think she can.” It was the first time she’d dared to say it, even to herself. Conlan squeezed her hand. “She thinks we’d all be better off not knowing where she is.”
David reached for his mother’s hand. “What do we do, Mom? She’s all alone. It’s my fault. I should have stayed with her.”
They stood there, looking at one another. No one knew what to say.
Finally, Anita said, “You’ll call us if she comes back.”
“Of course,” Conlan answered.
Angie watched them leave, mother and son, holding hands. She wondered what they’d say to each other now. What words could be found on a day like this.
At last, she turned to Conlan, gazed up at him.
Their whole life was in his eyes, all the good, the bad, the in-between times. For a while there, it had seemed that love had moved on, left them behind. They’d lost their way because they’d thought their love wasn’t enough. Now they knew better. Sometimes your heart got broken, but you just held on. That was all there was.
“Let’s go home,” she said, almost managing to smile.
“Yeah,” he said. “Home.”
Lauren stepped off the bus and into her old world. She tightened her hold on Johnny, who was sleeping peacefully in the front pack; she rubbed his tiny back. She didn’t want him to wake up in this part of town.
“You don’t belong here, John-John. You remember that.”
Night was falling now, and in the darkening shadows the apartment buildings looked less shabby and more sinister.
She realized suddenly that she was nervous, almost afraid. This wasn’t her neighborhood anymore.
She paused, looked back at the bus stop with a longing. If only she could turn around, walk to the corner, and take the bus out to Miracle Mile Road.
But there was no going back. She’d known that when she’d left the hospital. Lauren had betrayed Angie and Conlan’s trust; she’d done exactly what she’d vowed not
to. Whatever love they’d shown her would be gone now. She knew a thing or two about abandonment.
Lauren didn’t belong across town anymore, in that cottage perched above the sea or in the restaurant that smelled of thyme and garlic and simmering tomatoes. Her choices in life had led her here again, inexorably, to where she belonged.
At last she came to her old apartment building. Looking up at it, she felt a shudder of loss.
She’d worked so hard to get out of here. But what else could she afford? She had a newborn son who couldn’t be put in child care for months. The five-thousand-dollar check in her wallet wasn’t nearly enough. She wouldn’t stay long, anyway, not in this town that would always make her think of Angie. Only until she felt better. Then she’d go in search of a new place.
She set down her small suitcase and straightened, arching her aching back. Everything hurt. The Advil she’d taken earlier had begun to wear off and her abdomen ached. There was a sharp, pinching pain between her legs. It made her walk like a drunken sailor. With a sigh, she grabbed her suitcase again and trudged up the weed-infested path, past the black trash bags filled with garbage and the soggy cardboard boxes.
The door creaked open easily. Still broken.
It took her eyes a second to adjust to the gloom. She’d forgotten how dark it was in here, how it smelled of stale cigarettes and despair. She went to apartment 1-A and knocked.
There was a shuffling of feet, a muffled, “Just a sec,” then the door opened.
Mrs. Mauk stood there, wearing a floral housedress and fuzzy pink slippers. Her gray hair was hidden by a red bandana that she wore in an old-fashioned style. “Lauren,” she said, frowning.
“Did … my mom ever call for me?” She heard the pathetic neediness in her voice and it shamed her.
“No. You didn’t really think she would, did you?”
“No.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I thought you got out.”
Lauren tried not to react to the word—
out
—but it wasn’t easy. “Maybe there is no out for people like us, Mrs. Mauk.”
The heavy lines on Mrs. Mauk’s face seemed to deepen at that. “Who’s that?”
“My son.” She smiled, but it felt sad. “Johnny.”
Mrs. Mauk reached out and touched his head. Then she sighed and leaned against the doorframe.
Lauren recognized the sound. It was defeat. Her mother had sighed like that all the time. “I guess I’m here to see if you have an apartment for rent. I have some money.”
“We’re full up.”
“Oh.” Lauren refused to give in to despair. She had Johnny to think about now. Her tears would have to be swallowed from now on. She started to turn away.
“Maybe you better come in. It’s going to rain. You and Johnny can sleep in the spare bedroom for a night.”
Lauren’s legs almost buckled; her relief was so big. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Mauk led her into the apartment’s living/dining room.
For a split second, Lauren felt her past and present collide. It looked so much like her old apartment; same Formica dining set, same shag carpeting. A rose floral sofa was flanked by two blue La-Z-Boy recliners. A small black-and-white television showed an old episode of
I Dream of Jeannie.
Mrs. Mauk went into the kitchen.