Save Me (33 page)

Chapter Eighty-six

The morning was clear and cold, finally October in earnest, and Rose walked toward the school, holding Melly’s hand. John snoozed happily, cocooned in his Snugli, and Melly was bundled up, her red puffy coat making her backpack fit too tightly.

Rose tugged at her backpack strap, on the fly. “We have to adjust these when you get home.”

“It’s the coat, Mom. It’s too heavy.”

“It’s cold today.”

“Not
that
cold.”

Rose smiled, delighted to be talking about normal things again. Meanwhile, mothers were turning their way, smiling and waving as they approached the entrance ramp. The news had been full of stories about her, the Homestead CFO had been indicted, and its board had announced that it was going to rebuild the plant and compensate any victims of its crimes. And the company had already reached a voluntary settlement with Eileen, in connection with Bill’s murder.

“Way to go!” one mom called out, and a dad in a suit flashed her a thumbs-up. Another mom shouted, “Hi, Rose. Hi, Melly!”

“Hiya!” Rose called back, and Melly looked up, squinting against the bright sky.

“Who’s that, Mom?”

“I have no idea.”

Melly giggled, bewildered. “Mom, what’s going on?”

“It’s what I told you.” Rose and Leo had tried to explain what had happened, but it wasn’t something any eight-year-old should know in detail. “I helped catch some bad guys, and everybody’s happy.”

“It’s so different.” Melly looked around, in wonderment. Heads were turning everywhere, as they approached the ramp. “It’s like a birthday party.”

Mr. Rodriguez emerged from the front door and headed down the ramp and strode toward them with a big grin, buttoning his jacket. “Rose! Melly!”

“Hi, Mr. Rodriguez.” Rose met him on the sidewalk. “Good to see you.”

“Rose, I can’t thank you enough. We’re all so grateful to you. You risked your—” Mr. Rodriguez stopped, catching himself in front of Melly. “Well, we’re grateful, leave it at that.”

“Thanks, and I have to tell you that Leo and I never had any intention of filing any lawsuit.”

“I know. I got a phone call this morning, from Oliver Charriere.” Mr. Rodriguez looked down at Melly and touched her shoulder. “And I heard you volunteered to take Amanda her homework.”

“Yes.” Melly nodded.

“Thanks for helping out. That’s the way all of our students should act, at Reesburgh. That’s what community is all about.” Mr. Rodriguez looked up at Rose. “Would you like to stop by the office? I know the staff wants to thank you in person.”

Rose smiled, surprised. “I’d love to, thanks.”

“Great. Mind if I escort Melly inside?”

“Not at all.”

“Melly, come with me.” Mr. Rodriguez smiled, taking Melly’s hand. “Let’s go to class together. I think there’s someone you might want to see.”

“Who?” Melly asked, as they went up the walkway.

The front door opened, and standing in the threshold was Kristen Canton, dressed and ready for work.

“Melly!” Kristen called out, and they ran into each other’s arms.

Rose hung back, tears filming her eyes, finally letting go.

And setting free.

Chapter Eighty-seven

Halloween at the Gigots’ was a houseful of witches, Iron Men, and vampires. Tables were stocked with sandwiches, ginger snaps, and candy bars that kept the boys chasing each other on a sugar high, while the girls bobbed for apples. Rose was dressed as a lawyer in a three-piece suit and a striped tie, Leo was her prisoner in an orange jumpsuit, and John had on a black onesie, as their resident baby judge.

She raised her plastic glass of cider and clicked it to Leo’s. “You know what we’re toasting, right?”

Leo smiled, his glass raised. “Senator Martin’s indictment?”

“No. Guess again.”

“That you look so hot as a redhead. Put me in jail and have your way with me. Got handcuffs?”

Rose leaned over. “This is the first Halloween that Melly hasn’t worn a mask.”

“Whoa, I didn’t realize that.” Leo looked around for Melly, who had dressed as a horseback rider in fringed chaps, paddock boots, and a sweatshirt that read THE BUCK STOPS HERE. At the moment, however, she was with Amanda, Emily, Danielle, and the other girls, her face stuck in a galvanized washtub of apples. They hadn’t become best friends, but the worst of the bullying had stopped, and Amanda had shown a new empathy, after her injury.

“Now drink, felon.” Rose raised her glass, Leo clicked it, and they sipped, then kissed over John’s head.

“Get a room, you two.” Eileen waltzed over, a beaming princess in a rhinestone tiara.

“Hey, girl.” Rose smiled. They’d grown closer, with Melly bringing Amanda her homework in the hospital. “Love the costume. Every mom deserves a tiara.”

“True, except I’m Paris Hilton.” Eileen laughed, then Wanda came over dressed as a witch, followed by some other class parents, Rachel and Jacob Witmer as Barack and Michelle Obama, Susan and Abe Kramer as Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Elida and Ross Kahari as Sarah and Todd Palin. Rose regarded them all as new friends, regardless of political affiliation.

Wanda looked at Rose. “Honey, you know, I have to say it again, I’m so sorry for the way I treated you.”

“That’s okay,” Rose said, meaning it. Lots of people had apologized, and her new email and Facebook page were flooded with virtual love.

“The new CEO at Homestead even mentioned you in his speech. He said the new broom’s gonna sweep clean.”

Jacob added, “I’m so happy that Martin got his.”

“Nobody’s happier than I am!” said a voice behind them, and they all turned around.

“Kristen!” Rose gave her a hug, and the young teacher looked pretty, even dressed as Humpty Dumpty.

“Rose, Leo, everybody, let me introduce you.” Kristen gestured at the white knight beside her, dressed in tinfoil armor. “This is Erik, my boyfriend. Or should I say, my fiancé.”

“Woohoo!” Rose hooted, and all the women clustered around Kristen, who showed off her engagement ring to the sound of much clucking.

“Mom!” a child shouted, and the women looked up, because they all answered to the same name.

“Yes, honey?” Eileen asked. It was Amanda standing there, her face wet from bobbing for apples.

“Can you fix my lightning bolt? It’s coming off, from the water.”

Rose smiled at the sight.

Amanda was dressed as Harry Potter.

Chapter Eighty-eight

Rose parked at the end of the street, twisted off the ignition, and sat in her rental car for a moment. She broke into a light sweat, and her heart pumped a little faster. She checked the dashboard clock—10:49. She was ten minutes early. She inhaled, trying to calm her nerves. She’d felt something come over her the moment she turned onto the street, a shudder that seemed to emanate from her marrow and reverberate out to her skin, like shockwaves from her soul.

She looked around, taking it all in. This end of the street looked different than it had twenty years ago, but she could see the way it had been, the same way she could look into Melly’s face and see the baby she’d been. The past lived in the present, and nobody knew it better than a mother.

Mommy!

The houses were still close together, though the paint colors had changed, and the trees grew in the same places, though they were taller and fuller, their roots breaking up the concrete sidewalk, like so many tiny neighborhood earthquakes. Drying leaves littered the sidewalk, and big brown paper bags of them, stamped with the township’s name, sat at the curb like a row of tombstones, just like then.

Rose closed her eyes, and it all came back to her. Halloween, and she was eighteen years old. She’d just turned onto the street when she saw the white blur and heard the horrible
thud.
Tears came to her eyes, just as they had then, instantly. That night, her heart knew what had happened before her brain did. It just didn’t know how to tell her. Then she’d heard agonized scream of Thomas’s mother.

Thomas!

Rose found a Kleenex in her purse and wiped her eyes. She eyed the house, which hadn’t changed at all: a three-bedroom colonial, with a front porch, and wooden steps. The Pelals still lived here, and their phone number had been easy to find online. She’d called them yesterday, and they’d recognized her name. She’d asked if she could visit, and they’d suggested the very next day, today, but hadn’t asked any questions.

Rose put the Kleenex away and slid the keys from the ignition. She knew that what happened here had set her in a pattern she hadn’t recognized, and so couldn’t stop. Then, when she was young, she’d been told not to talk to the Pelals, and she didn’t want to, anyway. She could only run and hide. But it wasn’t about law, any longer. It was about right and wrong, and she had become an adult. Jim and Janine Pelal were parents like her, and she had killed their child. She couldn’t let another day pass until she said what needed to be said.

She got out of the car, closed the door, and made her way up the sidewalk to the house. She composed herself, then pressed the doorbell.

Chapter Eighty-nine

“Thanks for seeing me.” Rose sat in a wing chair, the nicest seat in the living room, which had a worn brown sofa and a plain wooden coffee table, covered with a folded newspaper and an ashtray with a pipe and a pile of black ash. The air smelled like burned cherrywood from its smoke.

“Of course.” Jim sat down next to Janine, on the sofa. Both of them had short hair, his gray and hers a dark brown, with steel-rimmed bifocals, plain polo shirts, wide-leg jeans, and newish white sneakers, so they looked paired but not identical, like salt-and-pepper shakers. They had a benevolent way about them, down to their smiles, which were polite, even kind.

“Well,” Rose began, her mouth dry. “It was lucky for me that you still live here. It made you easy to find.”

“Oh, we’d never move.” Jim shook his head, once. “We love it here. It’s our hometown, both of us. We’re semi-retired, but all our friends are here, and our church. Our daughter lives in Seattle. Her husband’s an engineer at Boeing.”

Rose flashed on Thomas’s sister running from the porch, then put it out of her mind.

“We have two grandchildren now, both boys. We love to visit ’em, but we love to come home, too.” Jim chuckled. “I read in the newspaper, online, that you have children.”

“Yes, a boy and a girl.” Rose felt awkward making small talk, especially since Janine was so quiet, her small hands folded in her lap. Her nails were polished, and she wore a fair amount of makeup, with thick eyeliner. “My call must have come as a surprise.”

“We thought we might hear from you someday. You were so young when Thomas died. Just a kid yourself.”

“Not that young. I should have come before.”

“As I say, we’ve been reading about you, but that’s new. We didn’t know where you lived until the fire. Some of our friends up north saw it on TV and called us.”

“I hope that didn’t cause you further … pain.” Rose had to grope for the right word.

“Not at all. A TV reporter called us about it, too. Tanya.” Jim rubbed his forehead. “What’s her name?”

“Robertson?” Rose felt a pang. “She found you?”

“My wife, she didn’t want us to talk to her. Seems like you did a bang-up job up there, in Pennsylvania. That crooked senator going to court, and all.” Jim glanced at Janine, who remained quiet, so Rose got back on track.

“Thanks, but to come to the reason for my visit, I’m grateful that you agreed to see me. I want to apologize to you both, as inadequate as words may be, and to tell you how sorry I am about Thomas.” Her throat caught, but she was determined to keep her emotions in check. “I think of him every day, and I replay that scene. I try to make it end differently. I wish I’d taken another way home, or gone slower, or seen him sooner. I think of how one little thing could have changed everything, and he’d be alive now, with you. I mourn him, but he was your son, and I’m so deeply sorry for what I did that night. Please accept my apology, if you can.”

Jim met her eye, behind his bifocals. Janine lowered her head, a small gesture that broke Rose’s heart.

“Thank you. Thank you for saying that. We do accept, but you don’t have to apologize. We know it wasn’t your fault. We saw what happened. We weren’t that far up the street.”

Rose blinked. She hadn’t known. The lawyers had assumed that the Pelals hadn’t seen it, and even if they had, that they’d sue her anyway.

“Thomas, he ran out in front of the car.” Jim’s lower lip trembled, then he seemed to recover. “It was horrible, seeing how it happened and knowing we couldn’t get there, in time. But Thomas, he liked to run everywhere. He always had ants in his pants. Janine always thought he mighta had, you know, attention deficit. But in those days, well, we didn’t get him to a doctor.” Jim shook his head. “So he ran into the street. We used to tell him, don’t do it, you’ll get hurt. It wasn’t the first time he did it, it was just the first time you were there, and this time, well, the Lord works in mysterious ways, that much is true.”

Rose felt her throat thicken, but didn’t cry. And she didn’t feel better either. “Regardless, I wish it hadn’t happened.”

“We have our faith, and we rely on it, always.” Jim nodded, his skinny shoulders suddenly slanting down. They both looked so sad for a minute, sagging together in the middle of the sagging couch. Janine said nothing, hanging her silvery head, with a whorl of gray at her crown, like a hurricane.

Jim sighed. “I just wish, well, I guess Janine, she wishes she was there. That she was there with him, for him, at the end. That’s what wakes her up at night, almost tortures her, really. Any mother would want that for her child, I suppose.”

Rose remembered holding Thomas in the street, then him looking up at her, seeing her in the Cleopatra makeup. Now that she’d gotten a good look at Janine, with her dark hair and eyeliner, Rose understood why he’d mistaken her for his mother, on that dark night.

“You can understand that,” Jim continued, more softly. “She wishes that she’d been there, to hold him. Not for her, but for him. That he wouldn’t think he was alone in this world. That he knew we loved him, that she loved him, right until the very end. He was our youngest, you know. Our baby.
Her
baby.”

Rose swallowed hard. She would never forget what she’d said to Thomas, right before he passed. Maybe there was something she could do for the Pelals, after all. Maybe the words that had been haunting her all these years would be the words that eased Janine’s heart.

“You can see that, can’t you? Being a mother yourself.”

“Yes, I do understand, and I’d feel exactly the same way.” Rose took a deep breath. “Janine, I have something I think you should know.”