Epilogue
Snow had just begun to settle in a thin layer on the roads.
Kara drove with caution toward the canal.
She hadn’t been back to the plant since the incident, and she wasn’t planning on going there now, but she wanted to see the water.
She’d be sure not to look too far to the left.
She drove over the one-lane, wooden bridge, gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles hurt.
She stopped the car halfway across, and put it in park.
Kara opened the door and stepped onto the worn, wooden ties, leaning over the railing with her back to the power plant.
She took a deep breath, and a smile crept across her lips.
She’d miss this place. She could feel the power plant looming behind her, beckoning her to turn around, face her fears.
Kara didn’t want to give in to anyone else’s desires anymore.
She wanted to honor her own choices. It was her choice not to look at the place where her life had met such horror.
It was hard to believe she was finally leaving Williamsport. How could an event so horrific have a positive outcome? She wouldn’t claim it as such, but she smiled at the thought of finally going after her dreams without the tether of her heart holding her back.
Kara took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Without turning to see the power plant, she said, “Goodbye,” and climbed back into her car.
Saying goodbye to the town was the easy part. She drove down the familiar streets at fifteen miles per hour. She looked at the houses as she passed, and laughed at the silly gutters that hung in the air, resting on poles like arms outstretched. Only in Williamsport, she thought.
She drove past the church, wondering if she should go inside and say her last goodbye, or confess her sins.
She had plenty of them. No, she decided.
If she stopped, she might change her mind.
She was ready, and she was doing this. She followed Artizan to her mother’s small rambler, and pulled into the driveway.
Ted waved from the carport. “Hey,” he said with a smile as she stepped from the car.
Kara embraced him. “I’m sorry for being such a pain for so long,” she said.
“It goes both ways, kiddo.” Ted winked. “She’s inside. She’ll be happy to see you.”
Kara nodded. She hadn’t called her mother.
After she’d made her decision, she’d immediately gone into planning mode.
Her new apartment awaited, along with a job assisting one of her new professors.
Now she just needed the courage to make her plans her new reality.
She didn’t want to do this over the phone.
She didn’t want to answer a long list of questions, or end up in tears, feeling guilty and forced to back out of her plans.
She needed to see her mother’s face, look her in the eye.
She needed to confront her past and her future.
She stood before the screen door, for the first time feeling uneasy about walking into her mother’s house.
Part of her longed to move and be rid of her mother’s intrusions into her life—another part was scared shitless to lose her.
But it was time for Mimi to relinquish that protective, motherly place that had consumed so many years of her life.
It was time for her to focus on herself and live the life she deserved, and it was time for Kara to pull herself up by her bootstraps and take care of herself.
She had to move past the immaturity that allowed her to run back to Mommy’s house, and finally build a separate life for herself.
How could anyone respect her decisions if she didn’t take care of herself?
Kara took a deep breath and walked inside.
“Mom?” She walked through the foyer to the kitchen, where Mimi stood in front of the stove, stirring a pot of something thick and sweet smelling.
Mimi’s eyes grew wide, instantly filling with tears. She dropped the spoon into the pot and rushed to Kara, stopping herself just short. She let her hands fall awkwardly to her sides.
“It’s okay, Mom. You can hug me.”
Mimi grinned. “Oh, baby. Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around Kara.
Tears brimmed in Kara’s eyes as she breathed in the familiar, warm smell of her mother’s shampoo.
Mimi sniffled, holding tightly to Kara.
Kara gently pushed back.
Mimi let go of her and dropped her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Kara said.
“No, no, Kara, it was my fault. I should have—”
Kara interrupted her. “No, I’m not talking about that.
That was what it was. You did what you felt you had to.
” Kara swallowed hard, taking in the kitchen where she’d spent so many mornings eating cereal before school while her mother drank coffee and read the comics aloud.
The side of the refrigerator still held Kara’s sixth grade photograph, taken just after she’d gotten bangs, and her high school graduation photograph, in full cap and gown, one arm around Mimi while Ted stood awkwardly to her other side.
“I have to leave, Mom.”
Mimi shook her head. “You just got here.”
“No. I have to leave Williamsport. I got accepted to UNC nursing school.”
Tears streaked Mimi’s cheeks, rolling over her smiling lips. “Kara,” she said.
“I know you don’t want me to go, but I have to. I have to do this for me.”
Mimi nodded. “It’s not that. I’m just…so proud of you. Are you sure you’re ready?”
“I can’t live like this, with everyone pointing and whispering, with Daryl—with you.” She laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know.” Mimi nodded. “Kara, I just want you to know—”
“I know, Mom, and I love you, too.”
Within the walls of the third floor of the Annapolis Home for the Criminally Insane, patients moved through the halls in a fog.
Roland sat in blue pajama pants listening to the shuffling of feet outside his room.
He hunched over a small and efficient wooden desk, a blue Bic pen gripped between his fingertips.
A white t-shirt hid the six-inch scar that ran from his ribs south.
His hair was shorn to his scalp. Two thin red scars ran from the edge of his hairline to just above his eyebrow like a road map.
His once thick shoulders had become thin, almost angular.
Roland’s hand moved slowly across the paper. He leaned back, lifting his gaze to the barred window. His lips moved, repeating what he had written, his voice a thin whisper. “Born together, die together.”