Chapter 39
It is late by the time they all come together again. Hope had told them they could give their statements “real quick,” but
that was only wishful thinking. The only thing slower than a police station is a hospital or the DMV.
The women reconvene outside, clustering on the sidewalk that leads to the dark parking lot. The press, the county personnel,
and any lookie-loos are long gone. Some of their families are there to take them home, but they hang back out of respect,
giving the five of them a few minutes to say their goodbyes. The families know they will have all the time in the world to
hear the story of this day.
The women exchange contact numbers, make promises to see one another soon, and exchange hugs all around. All five women—Nadine,
Morrow, Blythe, Sylvie, and Hope—shed a few tears. They aren’t guaranteed to see one another ever again, but as they part
ways, each of them wants to. They have experienced something very few people have. They share something with one another that
they will never share with anyone else. Lasting relationships have begun on less.
Nadine gets into her car and rolls down the windows.
She can’t get enough of the fresh air, gulping it as she drives home alone.
Her coworkers, Stacy and Martha, had sent word that she was welcome to come stay with either one of them, and Sylvie and Robert offered as well.
But she wants time to herself. She’s had enough togetherness for one day.
Plus, she is tired and wants to sleep in her own bed.
Her boss said she could have the day off tomorrow. She might just sleep all day.
Driving the short distance to her little apartment, she tries not to think about what’s happening to Tommy at that very moment,
tries not to think about what is to come. She was alone when this day started, and she is alone as it ends. But Tommy being
incarcerated feels like a bigger alone, a more permanent one. Then she remembers, with a jolt, that she isn’t alone.
She places her left hand on her stomach and drives with her right hand on the steering wheel as she speaks to whoever is there.
“I think your daddy might be gone a long time,” she says. “I don’t know for how long, but you should know he’d be here if
he could. He loves you. He even loves me too, hard as that is to believe. He just made—well, he didn’t think, and now he’s
going to have to answer for that. I guess it sounds funny for me to say this, but deep down, he’s a good man. A good man who
did some dumb things, for sure. Things that will affect you. And I’m sorry for that.”
Nadine feels the sharp sting of tears pricking her eyes at the thought of all that today has wrought. There are things she
would maybe do differently if she could, but she can’t. And that’s the way it is. She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs
with the night air that blows through her open windows. She thinks about that air oxygenating her blood, traveling to her
baby and helping him or her grow.
“But I’ll be here,” she says aloud. “I won’t be a perfect mama, but I’ll do my best every single day. I’ll make you that promise
right here and now.” People, Nadine thinks, don’t like to break a promise.
Morrow decides to ride home with Kevin and Maya and collect her car tomorrow. She tells Kevin they need to make a stop on their way home, directing him to turn the opposite way they would usually go. Both Kevin and Maya give her quizzical looks in response.
“Mom,” says Maya. “Everything is closed.” It is true. They roll up the sidewalks in Sunset Beach as soon as it gets dark.
Morrow fishes around in her tote bag and produces the package. She hands it over the seat to Maya, who is sitting behind her.
Maya reaches to take it at the same time she registers what her mother has handed her. She takes in the logo on the front,
then looks at her mother.
“We can put this in the mailbox outside,” Morrow tells her. “It’s been weighed and has the correct postage on it, so it’s
all ready to go.”
Maya stares down at the package. “This is why you were there?” she asks without looking up. “You were going to send this?”
From his seat, Kevin cranes his head to see what she’s referring to, his eyes darting from the road to the back seat and back
again. “What is it?” he asks.
“It’s”—Maya looks up at her mother, gives her a smile—“a long story,” she says.
Kevin slows down as they near the post office. “So am I turning in or not?”
“Shall we?” Morrow asks her daughter and points to the package.
“Eh,” says Maya. “I’m pretty tired. Aren’t you tired, Mom?”
Since they’ve arrived at the post office, Kevin turns in anyway, the headlights of their car illuminating the building. Morrow’s stomach clenches in response to the sight. “I am pretty tired,” she admits.
“Yeah,” says Maya. “Let’s just wait. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“You’re right,” says Morrow. Her stomach relaxes and a smile fills her face. “We do.” They circle past the post office and
pull out onto the street that will take them home. Morrow watches as the post office fades in the side mirror, until it disappears
entirely.
After she’s said goodbye to the other women, Blythe finally has the chance to talk not only to Aaron but to her mother as
well. It is a moment she’s been waiting for ever since she got a glimpse of them together when she arrived at the station,
just before she was hustled behind closed doors for her interview. The phrase “You could’ve knocked me over with a feather”
came to mind.
She had expected Aaron to be there waiting for her but not her mom. And she definitely didn’t expect for Aaron to have his
arm wrapped around her mom, which is still the case when she joins them on the sidewalk. Aaron lets go of her mom so that
she can be the first to embrace Blythe. “I called you once I heard, but you didn’t answer,” her mother says. “I was so worried.”
Blythe, shocked, manages to say, “He took our phones pretty early on.”
Her mom steps back to get a look at her. “My baby,” she says. “You’re okay?”
Blythe, her mind reeling, doesn’t realize it’s a question until Aaron answers for her. “Probably a little shaken up. But she’s
okay. Right, Blythe?”
“Huh?” She can’t take in what’s happening. “Oh, yeah. I’m okay. Or I will be.”
Aaron takes her in his arms. He kisses the top of her head. “We’re all going to be okay.”
“I don’t know what I would’ve done without Aaron today,” her mom says. “He was my rock. He literally held me up at times.
I’ve been a mess. A wreck. To think of that monster holding you hostage like that. He’s just a horrible, horrible person.
I hope they throw the book at him.”
Blythe can’t know for sure, but she has a feeling that one of the ways Aaron supported her mom today was by giving her wine.
She steps back and gives him a look. “Did you take her to Grapevine?”
He shoots a grin at her. “Maybe,” he says, then shrugs. “We had to wait somewhere. I thought it’d be good for her to see where
you work. And meet everybody.”
Blythe tries to picture her mom there, in her place of employment, in the midst of the people who work there, who have come
to feel like family. She likes thinking about the people she loves surrounding her mother, loving her too. Even when she doesn’t
deserve it. Especially when she doesn’t deserve it.
“Just so you know,” her mother says, “I told Aaron about why you were at the post office.”
Blythe’s eyes go wide. “What did you . . . tell him?”
“Well, I told him the truth. That I sent you off on a ridiculous errand and that the whole thing was my idea. That I’d been
tunnel-visioned about the absolute wrong person, when Aaron is so clearly the right one. Oh, wait!” Her mother gets a panicked
look on her face. “You didn’t mail that package, did you? Please tell me it all happened before you could!”
Blythe thinks about her brawl with Tommy, the intensity with which she fought to get Murphy’s ashes back. “I didn’t mail it,”
she says.
“I’m so relieved,” her mother says, wrapping her into another hug. “You really are a lucky girl. This man will always be there for you. I can tell. He’s a good one.”
“Yes,” Blythe agrees. “He is.” Aaron and Blythe smile at each other over her mother’s shoulder. She thinks about today, about
Tommy and Nadine, and Sylvie and Robert, and Morrow and her daughter, and Hope and her mom, about love and all the ways it
can go wrong. But sometimes it does go right.
Robert and Sylvie are the last ones to leave. They sit in their car in silence, thinking of, and discarding, words to say
to each other. Sylvie holds the envelope in her hands, sees Robert look down at it and away a few times. Finally, she says,
“I take it you heard me explain about this,” she says. She lifts the envelope slightly. “When you were in the NOC.”
He nods but says nothing.
“I’m sorry you had to find out that way. It wasn’t what I intended.”
“Nothing about this day has been what any of us intended.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” she agrees. They sit in silence for a moment longer before Sylvie taps the tearstained envelope. “So,
about this.”
“Yes?” Robert’s voice goes up with the question. He will not, she understands, ask her not to mail it, not if it’s what she
thinks is best. Not if it’s what she wants. What do you want? she thinks, recalling the question being posed to Tommy. It’s good to know what you want. But sometimes it’s just as good
to know what you don’t want. Sylvie doesn’t want to give up the home they love in the place they love. Not yet. Not yet.
“I’m not going to mail it,” she tells her husband. “In fact—”
She smiles as she pinches the envelope and makes the tiniest tear, watching delight, and relief, cross Robert’s face.
She tears the two halves of the envelope into more halves, and then into more halves again until, finally, she stops and stares at the mess she has made.
It looks like confetti scattered across her lap.
Sylvie recalls the question Nadine asked Blythe before she mailed her package all those hours ago. It is a question she’s
heard every time she’s been in the post office, the question postal workers ask every customer who mails a package, repeated
over and over, day after day. “Does the parcel contain anything liquid, fragile, perishable, or potentially hazardous?”
She gathers the pieces of the envelope and cups them in her hands as she thinks about the answer she will give the next time
she’s asked that question: Don’t we all, honey, she will say. Don’t we all.