Where They Found Her (29 page)

“Off,” Ella said sleepily. “Bye-bye, Mommy.”

I lingered in the doorway, watching Ella fall asleep. She was so perfect right now, just like that. I couldn’t be sure of how things would turn out, but I could be sure of that much. And that was something.

I headed to the guest bedroom to pull the shades and turn down the bed. To get the room ready for what would likely be Sandy’s long and terrible night to come. The police would call any minute, almost certainly with bad news. That would be followed by the long drive to the hospital and the heartbreaking identification of Sandy’s mother, the gathering of her personal effects. It would all be tragic, devastating, and it would likely be the middle of the night by the time we got home. Sandy would be wrecked and exhausted, and I didn’t want to have to be fussing around her then.

I turned on the small bedside lamp and rearranged the pillows twice. As if any of that could make the inevitable awfulness better. I was so distracted by my handiwork as I walked around the end of the bed that I crashed right into Sandy’s boxes stacked against the wall. The top one tipped over, its contents spilling out into a sad mess on the floor. I kneeled down, quickly gathering up the photos and papers, some plastic cups and silverware, hopelessly trying to put it back the way it had been. I didn’t want Sandy to think I’d been invading her privacy or, worse, to feel embarrassed that I’d seen what was left of her world.

I was about to toss in the last thing: a plastic bag filled with some scraps of paper, ticket stubs, a take-out menu—a sack of mementos—when I saw a long smudge of brownish red on the corner. That wasn’t blood, was it? I held it up to take a closer look. It did look a lot like blood. God, blood from
that
night. Thinking about it made me feel sick. I peered at one of the notes inside. It was a thank-you from Rhea, addressed to Hannah. It had an address written in a girlish hand in a blank space at the bottom. These were the things Hannah had given Sandy for safekeeping: her memories from the baby’s father. I was about to put the bag back in the box when a smaller slip of paper at the bottom caught my eye.

I pressed my face closer to the smudged plastic, my heart already beating hard.

No. I snapped my eyes closed.

That hadn’t been—couldn’t be.

I was tired. I was seeing things. I had to be. I squeezed my eyes tighter.

But when I opened them again, they were still there at the bottom of that blood-streaked bag. Little scraps of paper. Lots of them. And on them, lines of poetry written in Justin’s familiar hand.

I didn’t feel my feet moving, but they must have. Because soon I was standing in our bedroom, staring at Justin, gripping the blood-streaked plastic bag in one hand. The fingers of my other hand clenched into a fist. I was deep underwater, the sound roiling and bent against my ears. Justin was sitting there on the bed, pulling on a sweatshirt like it was any other day. As I watched him, the pressure around my head felt like it was going to crush my skull.

And there was Justin, saying something to me. Talking like the world had not just been incinerated. Like we were not reduced to embers.

When I put Hannah’s bag of notes on the bed next to him, he fell silent. Froze.

He stared and stared and stared at that bag. And all I wanted him to do was look confused. For him to say “What?” or “Why?” or “I don’t understand.” But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he dropped his face in his hands and kept it there for a horribly long time. I must have backed up, retreated to the wall, because all of a sudden my back was pressed against it.

When Justin looked at me, his eyes were wide and terrified. “Molly,” he began, shaking his head.

And then he crossed the room to me. His arms soon locked around me like a cage. All I wanted to do was break free. To break him. To run. Except I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe.

“I would do anything to take it back, Molly,” he breathed into my rigid neck. “It was such a stupid, selfish mistake. I just—and this isn’t an excuse, because it’s my fault—I just missed you. I loved you and I missed you and I wanted you back. And I couldn’t— I didn’t know how to reach you.”

“No,” I said. The word sliced the back of my throat.

But it wasn’t a yell. Or a sob. Or a scream. Just a statement: No. No, what? No, it didn’t happen. No, you didn’t miss me? No, you didn’t love me. No. This. Cannot. Be.

“It was so long ago, too, Molly. Months,” he said, rushing on with his panicked explanations. Like he was only now realizing the awful enormity of what was happening. “It ended before we ever moved here, I swear. Things were so much worse then. And I swear to God, I didn’t know how old she was. We met on campus when I came to interview—I thought she was a college . . . Molly, I am so sorry.”

“The baby,” I heard myself say.

“I didn’t know, not until after you—until just now, really, when Sandy told you. And even then, I mean, do we know for sure? There could have been other guys.”

Justin went on, said other things, they rebounded off me in echoed shards, tearing at my skin.
She was the only one. Never again. I am so sorry. I love you. I am so sorry. I love you.

I am so sorry. She reminded me of you.

I tried so hard to get you off the story. I wanted so badly to protect you.

“No,” I whispered. My whole body had gone numb. But my lungs were on fire. “No.”

Q:
    You seem extremely aggravated, Molly.

M.S.:
I am aggravated. I don’t see why you’re trying to get me angry at Justin.

Q:
    I’m just trying to clarify where Justin was that weekend. You told me that you couldn’t reach him when you were at the doctor’s office. But I didn’t realize he was away that whole weekend.

M.S.:
Yes, at a conference in Boston. I told you, he had two conferences.

Q:
    But you’re not angry at him for being away?

M.S.:
Why would I be angry at him for going to a conference?

Q:
    For being unreachable.

M.S.:
He was
working
. I was the one who freaked out.

Q:
    You had just received horrible news. Understandable that you were upset.

M.S.:
Except
I
was upset way before the appointment. Oh yes, I freaked out long before then. And if you want to know why I
really
feel guilty, it’s because of
that
. Because Justin told me he would be busy. That he had three different panels and colleagues to meet with. He gave me a number where I could reach him if it was an emergency. But it wasn’t an emergency. So I just kept calling and calling his cell phone. And I don’t know if it was the hormones or what, but I got myself all worked into a panic—like maybe he was
dead
or something. I mean, it was so stupid. Because he was there
with
someone. She would have called me if he’d been hit by a car.

Q:
    She.

M.S.:
Oh God, seriously? Yes, Justin was traveling with his research assistant, and yes, she was young and pretty and blond.

Q:
    Did he often not call when he was traveling with her?

M.S.:
Oh my God, this is ridiculous! You are desperate for me to be angry at him, aren’t you? Yes, Justin was away in Boston at a conference with a pretty young colleague, and yes, I couldn’t reach him at hours when I should have been able to. And yes, I was suspicious! Because I wasn’t thinking clearly! So, I freaked out and kept calling his cell phone over and over and over again. Then I started calling his room in the middle of the night, and he didn’t answer there. And I got so upset that it—that
I
probably made the baby’s heart speed up. All while I should have been resting and staying calm. And so,
yes
, that’s probably why I feel so guilty. Because
I
killed her! So there it is. Are you happy now, Dr. Zomer?

Q:
    But you don’t blame Justin?

M.S.:
Blame him? She was inside
me
, Dr. Zomer.
I
was her mother. I’m the one who was supposed to take care of her. I’m the one who was supposed to keep her alive.

Molly hadn’t been gone two minutes when Sandy’s phone rang. A Ridgedale number that she didn’t recognize—the police department, probably. Now that they were finally calling, she couldn’t get herself to answer. Instead, she let it ring, four times in all. Sandy was sure it would have gone to voicemail by the time she answered it. But it hadn’t.

“Is this Sandy Mendelson?”

“Yes?”

“This is Sergeant Fulton of the Ridgedale Police Department. Your mother, Jenna Mendelson, has been in an automobile accident.”

“Is she dead?” Sandy heard herself sounding like she wanted that to be true. Even though she didn’t. Even though nothing could have been further from the truth.

“Um, no, miss,” he said, sounding confused about her jumping to that conclusion. And maybe a little suspicious. “Looks like she’ll be okay. Doing pretty well, considering.”

When Sandy got upstairs, Molly and Justin were in their bedroom, the door closed. Sandy sat on the edge of the guest bed for a minute, hoping they’d come out so Molly could offer, with that nice smile of hers, to take Sandy to the hospital
right now
.

Sandy would have headed out on her bike, but they’d taken Jenna to Bergen County Hospital, probably close to an hour by bike, and on a highway, and she didn’t have money to call a cab. She had no choice but to knock.

Justin opened the door a crack, his body filling the doorway. “Hi.” He was trying to sound friendly, but there was definitely something wrong. His eyes were all red, and his hair was all fucked up. “What’s up?”

“Oh, sorry to bother you,” Sandy began, and she seriously hated this shit—asking people for help. Like any bad habit: Do it once, and it got way too easy to do it again. “The police called. My mom is at the hospital. They said I could come down. I would ride my bike, but she’s at the Bergen County Hospital and—”

Sandy heard Molly say something behind Justin.

“Wait, hold on.” He ducked back into the bedroom, resting the door shut without pulling it closed.

There were more voices. Maybe they’d changed their minds about helping her. They had a kid of their own to worry about, and Molly had already helped Sandy a lot, more than most people did.

“You know, actually, it’s okay,” Sandy began as soon as the door opened again. She couldn’t deal with being let down easy. But it was Molly this time, car keys already in her hand. “I’m just going to ride my—”

“No, no, I’ll drive you.” Molly’s eyes were red and shiny, like Justin’s had been. “Please, I insist.” She smiled and waved Sandy forward. “What did they say?”

“That she’s going to be okay,” Sandy said, not sure she believed it herself.

“I’m so glad, Sandy,” Molly said, and it looked like she meant it. “Come on, let’s get you to her.”

“You can go ahead on in, hon,” said the nice nurse, standing to the side in her pink flowered scrubs, holding open the door to Jenna’s hospital room. “You were the first person she asked about before she went into surgery. She’ll be so happy to see you when she wakes up.”

Sandy shuffled inside. But she hung back, near the door. Eyes on the ground. She was afraid to see how bad off Jenna was. When Sandy turned her gaze up, she saw that Jenna didn’t look great, but maybe not as bad as Sandy had been afraid of. Her eyes were closed and her skin was a grayish blue that matched the hospital bedsheets. She had bruises all over her arms, a bandage on one cheek, her leg raised in a brace.

It was a miracle that Jenna wasn’t worse, everyone at the hospital had said. She’d passed in and out of consciousness, severely dehydrated, hanging upside down, her leg pinned, bleeding internally—something surgery had corrected—for days, maybe. They couldn’t be sure how long, because Jenna didn’t remember when or how the accident had happened. But everyone had been convinced she was already dead when they pulled her out. If it hadn’t been for Monte, she probably would have been.

“Let me know if you need anything.” The nurse pulled up a chair next to Jenna’s bedside and motioned for Sandy to sit. “She just had some pain medicine, and she’s still sedated from the surgery. She’ll probably sleep for a couple more hours. But if she wakes up and you need anything, just push this.” She motioned to a call button on the wall. “My name is Terry.”

Once the nurse was gone, Sandy kept on standing there for a while with her arms crossed, watching Jenna sleep. Eventually, she did rest on the hard chair a few feet from Jenna’s bed, the whole time trying to figure out how the hell she could have ever thought, even for a second, that she might be better off without her. After a while, Sandy let herself relax a little, sinking lower in the chair as the minutes became hours, and the hours stretched on toward dawn.

“Hey, there,” Jenna said when Sandy woke up. “You’ve been out like a light in that chair for I don’t know how long. They kept coming in and offering to wake you, but I told them to leave you the hell alone.” Jenna half smiled with her bandaged mouth. “I like watching my girl sleep. Reminds me of when you were little.”

The sun was up, streaming in through the curtains. Jenna looked pale and tired but much better than she had the night before. Makeup-less and with her hair pulled back, she looked like a totally different person. A little older, but more beautiful, too.

“Are you okay?” Sandy got up and stepped closer to the bed. “Does your leg hurt?”

Jenna smiled and shook her head, squeezing Sandy’s hand. “They have me hopped up on so much shit, I feel better than I have in years.”

“That’s good.” Sandy smiled, but she felt her mouth pulling hard the other way. She didn’t want to cry. She hadn’t cried in front of Jenna since she was— She couldn’t remember the last time. And if someone was going to cry, it should be Jenna. She was the one who’d been in the accident. “What the hell happened?”

Jenna shook her head with a quivery smile. “The last thing I remember real clearly is going in to work. I was drying glasses by myself behind the bar, watching Judge Judy rip in to some prick with this ugly-ass barking dog, and you know how much I love when she does that.”

Only Jenna.

“Yeah, I do,” Sandy said, smiling. “But nothing else?”

“I’ve got some flashes of being in the car after the accident. My fucking leg was on fire, and I was so goddamn thirsty. That and the fucking quiet. You know how I hate that shit. Can you imagine
me
with all that time on my hands, all by myself, just to think?” As Jenna shrugged, tears filled her eyes. “I do remember hearing my phone ringing and ringing, up until the battery kicked. And I knew it was you. I swear, you calling was what made me hold on.”

“You really don’t know how the accident happened?”

Jenna frowned, shook her head. “I was definitely fucking sober by the time they found me. But before that, who knows?”

“The Palisades Parkway?”

She shrugged. “Buying drugs, I guess. I know a guy who sort of lives out that way. But not really. I got to be honest, I don’t have a clue.”

“So you don’t remember some woman you were talking to before you left work? Laurie said she had blond hair.”

“A woman?” Jenna looked as confused as Sandy had been. “Nah. But like I said, I don’t remember anything after Judy.”

Sandy was trying to stay focused on Jenna being back, but it was hard not to let her mind wander. Because even with Jenna found, there were plenty of other things to worry about—no place to live, no emergency fund. And now Jenna wouldn’t be able to work, and there would be medical bills. Jenna had insurance at Blondie’s, but only if they stayed in Ridgedale. Sandy wasn’t sure if the coast was clear for her after what had happened to Hannah. To say they were screwed was a fucking understatement. But then they’d always lived on the razor’s edge. And so far they’d managed to survive.

“Can you come here?” Jenna patted the bed next to her. “Closer.”

Sandy pushed herself up onto the bed, which was a shitload stiffer than it looked. Jenna reached forward and tucked Sandy’s hair behind her ear, staring at her the whole time, like she was drinking Sandy in, filling up on her. “You know, when you were a real little girl, you were so afraid of the dark. I mean blind-ass terrified.”

“Was not.” But how would Sandy know? There was a reason she’d blocked out so much of her childhood. Jenna wasn’t easy to live with now; for a little kid, she had been kind of a nightmare.

“I know, you’re not afraid of anything anymore. But you’d cry yourself to sleep every night lying there. I told you a million times that you could leave the light on. You know me, why beat something when you can wriggle around it. But you were like ‘Fuck, no.’ Only five or something, and within weeks you’d cured yourself.” Jenna’s voice was breaking apart, her face melting. “You are so much stronger than I ever was, Sandy. Than I’ll ever be.”

Sandy rolled her eyes.

“I mean it, baby.” Jenna’s voice was serious. “There is so much in this world you could do. Anything you want. That’s why I need you to do something for me, Sandy. But you have to promise you’ll do it. Even if you don’t want to.”

That
did not sound good. Not at all like something Sandy wanted to agree to. God fucking knew what Jenna was going to ask—buy her drugs, sell her extra pain pills, steal some hospital toilet paper.

Sandy shook her head. “Um, yeah, I don’t think—”

“Sandy!” Jenna shouted. “I’m serious.”

“Okay, okay,” Sandy said, raising her hands. She could always pretend she’d done whatever Jenna asked.

“There’s an envelope in there that belongs to you.” Jenna pointed toward a hospital-issue plastic bag sitting on the little table near the windows. “All of it’s in there. I counted. It’s not worth saying, but I am more sorry about taking that money than I’ve ever been for anything in my entire life. I’d like to say I changed my mind before the accident. That I realized that only an asshole would spend her kid’s money getting high. But let’s face it, you and I both know that’s probably a lie.”

Sandy pulled out the envelope, and sure enough, there were all her twenties. Thank fucking Jesus. Finally, something breaking in their favor. Enough for food while Jenna was in the hospital and at least a week in some shithole motel after she got out. In the meantime, the hospital would probably let Sandy sleep in the room, and if they didn’t, she could go back to Molly’s.

Jenna waved Sandy back over. “You know what I thought about out there when I knew it was you calling me over and over again?”

Sandy shook her head as she sat back down on the bed, trying not to cry. It wasn’t working. All that fear, all that worry, she’d been holding back all these days was rushing in. Soon there would be nowhere left for it to go.

“I thought:
There’s Sandy, taking care of
me
again. When all I’ve ever done is mess things up for her
.”

“That’s not—”

“Yes, it is true, baby.” Jenna stroked Sandy’s cheek. “And I have to live with that. But you don’t, Sandy. You have a choice. That’s why I need you to take that money, and I need you to go.” There were tears on Jenna’s cheeks, rolling down in big fat streams. “You need to leave this town, and you need to never come back. You need to get away from me.”

“Mom, what the hell are you—”

“Do it for me if you have to.” Jenna’s voice cracked, but she was trying hard to keep it together. “And I don’t want you to call or write. You need to start a new life, Sandy. A life as beautiful as the person you are. And you need to do it without me.”

“Without you?” Panic flooded Sandy’s belly. “What are you talking about? That’s crazy. I’ll miss you. I can’t go somewhere
alone
.” She was starting to cry. She didn’t want to be, but she was. Because she already knew that Jenna was right. She had to go.

“I love you, baby,” Jenna whispered. “But if you stay, you won’t stand a fucking chance. I’ll destroy the both of us.”

Then Jenna pulled Sandy’s face close, kissing her on the forehead—just like the mom Sandy had always wanted her to be.

Sandy was numb when she pushed herself out into the busy hospital hall, doctors and nurses and patients moving this way and that. Life and death keeping on.

In tears, Sandy started toward the front doors of the hospital, waiting for someone to stop her. Waiting for someone to tell her that she wasn’t free to go. That she needed to go back. But no one did. No one asked her to slow down. No one stood in her way. And before long, Sandy was outside, the sun in her face, the town to her back, trying to figure out which way to go.

But forward was all there was. That was the only way to go.