Chapter 10
The hour drive from Zachsville to Austin had been the longest of Paige’s life. She paced the airport terminal, flicking her ID against her fingers. It should be shredded, or dumped in the garbage, but she couldn’t let it go. She and Will had gone together to change the address on both of their licenses when they bought the new house. The name and address mocked her, and her heart broke all over again.
Damn her family. How had they managed to ruin her life all over again? The years and work it had taken to become Paige White flipped through her mind. Days of living on the street, until she’d found an elderly couple to give her money and a place to stay. Guilt over the con haunted her still, but they’d been on to her and wanted to help her for some unknown reason. She’d worked her fingers to the bone to repay them.
But there’d been others before them, nameless, faceless people whose wallets she’d picked, or jewelry she’d taken and pawned. The self-loathing never went away. Would she always feel like she had to make amends for the sins of her past? She’d done everything she knew to do to live a rehabilitated life. She’d chosen the name White as a surname in an effort to be the exact opposite of who she was raised to be. Her entire professional life was spent helping people and giving back to atone for her sins, and along the way, she’d learned to love it.
And now she’d have to start completely over from scratch. Who would she be now? Where would she go? At the moment, she had a flight to Orlando, for no reason other than it was cheap and she could always rent a car and get lost in the Florida Keys.
A middle-aged woman with long, greying hair, tattoos, and enough anxiety in her eyes to sink a ship, bumped into Paige. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“No problem.” Paige moved out of the way so the woman could study the flight board.
The lady dropped her backpack to the ground. “Damn it, I can’t read this stupid board.”
“I know, it can be confusing. Would you like some help? Surely between the two of us we can find what you’re looking for.”
The grateful look on her face broke Paige’s heart. This woman had a story alright, and she was clearly out of her element. “Where are you headed?”
“Salt Lake City.”
“Airline?”
“American. My flight’s supposed to leave at four p.m.”
Paige glanced at the digital clock above the flight information screen: one o’clock. “Well, I guess there’s no chance of you missing your flight.”
The woman grinned, exposing a few missing molars. “I didn’t wanna be late.”
“I get it. There it is, Terminal C, Gate 11, so you’re in the right place. I’m Paige, by the way.”
“Norma.”
Her training kicked in and suddenly she wanted very much to get to know Norma who was flying to Salt Lake City. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee, Norma?”
She thought the woman would say no, but after an awkward second, she nodded.
They walked to a restaurant a few feet away and got a table by the window. After they placed their order and had a little small talk, where Paige discovered Norma was a classic over-sharer, she asked, “Are you traveling to Salt Lake City for business or pleasure?”
“Um--pleasure.” Norma’s weathered hands shook as she tore the paper napkin into strips. “I probably shouldn’t be drinking’ this coffee. I’m already nervous as a cat.”
Paige sipped her coffee. “Don’t like to fly?”
“I don’t know if I like to fly or not. I’ve never been on a plane before.” Norma took a deep breath in and blew it out. “Isn’t that crazy?”
“Not really. Are you going to visit friends?”
“No. I’m goin’ to see my son and his wife, and my granddaughter.” The smile on the woman’s face could’ve fueled every plane on the tarmac.
She pulled a photo from her wallet and slid it across the table to Paige. In the picture was a young man with the same hazel gaze as Norma, his arm around a pretty brunette holding a beautiful little girl who shared her father and grandmother’s eyes. “That’s my boy, Trevor, his wife Becca, and my grandbaby, Lucy.”
“What a beautiful family. You must be so excited to see them.”
She reverently rubbed her fingers over the image as tears filled her eyes. “I am. I honestly never thought this day would come.”
Paige took Norma’s hand. “Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”
The older woman mopped at her face with another paper napkin. “It might help me to not feel so nervous if I talked ‘bout it.”
The waitress refilled their coffee cups and after setting down the check, strolled away.
“I was raised in an abusive family. So as soon as I could, I hightailed it out of West Virginia with twelve dollars in my pocket and my thumb in the air. I worked odd jobs for a while, mostly waitressin’, and ended up in Florida. It was the first time I’d seen the ocean and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”
She peered out the window as a plane rolled by, but Paige didn’t think she saw it.
“I was happy for the first time in my life. I met a man and got pregnant.” Her her lower lip wobbled a bit. “I was goin’ to raise my child different than I was raised, with all the love I could muster.”
“I can understand that.”
Norma gave her a knowing look, like she knew every one of Paige’s secrets. “Anyway, the baby comes and things are financially hard, but still good. Me and Chuck, that was my man, we loved our boy, and we loved each other.” She gave Paige a wistful smile. “Lord, I would’ve followed that man to hell and back.”
Norma didn’t say anything for several minutes, Paige had learned to be comfortable with the silence when people were sharing their stories, especially hard stories, so she took another sip of coffee and waited.
Norma gave a snort of laughter that had no humor behind it. “Actually, I did follow him to hell, it’s just that he got out and I couldn’t.”
Paige was pretty sure where this story was headed. She’d seen it way too many times to count.
“He had these friends that were real party people, and we started hangin’ out with them.” Another long silence, only filled by the other patrons’ chatter and a ballgame on the TV above the bar. Again, Paige waited.
When Norma spoke this time, she wouldn’t meet Paige’s eyes. “The drug use started out easy enough, a little weed here, a little ecstasy there, nothin’ we couldn’t handle, but one day me and Chuck decided to try heroin. The first hit washed away all the emotional pain I’d lived with my whole life. It was like a warm blanket on a freezin’ night, and I snuggled right into it.
Another long glance out the window, then she continued. “Chuck didn’t like it and stopped almost as soon as he started, but I was hooked from the first second that poison went into my system. And I spent the next sixteen years chasin’ that first high.” She scrubbed her face with her hands and finally looked at Paige. “Long story short, I lost everything—my man, my boy, my life. Chuck left me and took Trevor with him to Salt Lake City, and I haven’t seen them since. That was nearly twenty years ago.” She sucked in a huge shaky breath. “I eventually found myself here in Austin, homeless, sick of body and soul. I became so ill that I ended up in a shelter with a free clinic. They said I could stay, but I’d have to get clean and stay that way. I was so damn sick that I agreed, but I never intended to get clean. It’d been too long, and I was too far gone.”
Paige wrapped Norma’s shaking hands in her own. “What happened next?”
“Well, as you can tell I like to talk, and we had these group meetings and other women were sharin’ too. Some had been clean for a while, some hadn’t. But we all had the same story. I mean we all got there by different means, but the reasons were so similar. I realized I wasn’t so different than everybody else.” She ran her finger around the rim of her coffee cup. “That’s what the drugs do to you. They isolate you, make you feel like the only safe place is when you’re high. But if some of them other women could get clean then so could I.” She sat back and puffed out her chest. “I’ve been clean four years now.”
A tear rolled down Paige’s face and she swiped it away. “Oh, my word, Norma. That’s incredible.”
Her smile was a mixture of pride and regret all rolled into one. “Thank you. It’s not easy and some days are harder than others, but I work the program, and I now work at the center and help other women.”
“Amazing. When did you reconnect with your son?”
Norma chewed on her deeply lined lower lip. “About eighteen months ago. I didn’t want to get in touch with him until I’d been sober for at least a year, but then the year came and went and I still didn’t reach out to him.”
“Why?”
“A pretty little thing like you, with your life all together, probably can’t understand this, but I didn’t want to poison his life.”
Paige struggled to stay upright in the chair. Hadn’t she said the same thing to Will that morning?
“So, I waited. Finally, my sponsor and best friend said if I didn’t get in touch with him then she would. But I didn’t call because of her. I decided I was tired of livin’ with a boatload of regret. And I knew that if I didn’t take the opportunity to reach out to him, then I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”
The knot in Paige’s throat made it impossible to speak, so she nodded.
“At first it was very awkward. Neither of us knew what to say. But do you know, he has always been happy to talk to me. Now that’s a blessin’ I don’t deserve. Anyway, a month ago he asked if I’d like to come and visit, so here I sit three hours early for a flight to see my boy for the first time in twenty years.” A tear zigzagged between the wrinkles on Norma’s cheek, but the smile that broke across her face shone brighter than a Texas sunset.
“Norma…” Paige fought to control the wetness gathering in her own eyes, but it was impossible. One tear, then two, then she was crying silently in the middle of this airport restaurant.
Two sun-aged hands engulfed her own. “Hey, now. Something tells me this isn’t all about my story.” Norma’s voice cracked at the end of the sentence.
All Paige could do was shake her head. No words would form. She dropped her head to their joined hands and wept like a baby. Norma shooshed and stroked Paige’s hair, but didn’t try to stop the onslaught of emotion.
Once every drop of moisture had been wrung from Paige’s eyes, she raised her face to Norma. “I’m so sorry?—”
“What’s his name?”
“Will.”
“You love him?”
“More than my life.”
Norma nodded. “I thought so. I watched you earlier, pacin’ and frettin’, and thought, that girl’s runnin’ from somethin’.”
Paige’s bark of laughter caused the people at the adjoining table to look their way. “And here I was thinking I was helping you, and all the time you were trying to help me.”
Norma shrugged. “It’s weird, but ever since I got sober, if I get the nudge to share my story it’s always been with someone who was going through, or has been through, somethin’ like me. Do you wanna tell me ‘bout it?”
Did she? She’d tried to look at this thing from every angle, but if anyone could understand it was this woman. “I’m supposed to be getting married today.”
Norma nodded like she completely understood.
“I ran from my family when I was seventeen. They’re bad people, and they raised me to be a bad person too. Like illegal bad,” she said to clarify. “Anyway, I left and made a life for myself. I got an education, a job, and I met the best man, who amazingly fell in love with me. I’ve never been happier than when I’m with Will. Last night my parents showed up at my rehearsal dinner and…”
“They wanna suck you back into your old life?”
“Yes. My fiancé has an influential job and his family is well connected, so my father thinks it’s the perfect setup to advance his agenda. I won’t bring that foulness to Will and his family. If I’m not there then my parents don’t have any power over Will.”
“But they still have power over you.”
“What?”
“If you run away, then you give them the power to ruin everything you’ve worked so hard to accomplish. I thought you said you ran away to not be like them. To have more from life, and it sounds like you found it, but now you’re throwin’ it away. So, your family wins.” Norma took a sip of coffee.
“I – um – no. No, I’m shielding the people I love by leaving.”
“Did they ask you to protect them? It sounds like your man would rather have you there to fight this with him.”
The muscles in Paige’s face went slack and her jaw hung open. Fight with him? That was what Will was asking her to do. Norma was right. Why hadn’t she been able to see that before now?
Fear.
Trauma.
Abuse.
All the things she walked other women through to help them see their lives and options more clearly. She just hadn’t taken a moment to do the same for herself. That was why she hadn’t been able to see what she was doing to Will.
She grabbed her purse and threw several bills on the table. “Norma, you’ll understand if I take off, right?”
Norma laughed. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” She took Paige’s hand and looked her in the eye. “Be safe, be happy, and live the life you were meant to live.”
That damn moisture blurred Paige’s vision again. “Norma, here’s my card. When you get back from Salt Lake City, will you give me a call? I’d love for you to come speak to the women I work with in Zachsville.”
Surprise lit the older women’s features from the inside out. “I’d be honored.”
“You know where your gate is, right?”
Norma nodded. “I know where I’m goin’. Now you get.”
Paige kissed the woman’s wrinkled cheek. “Thank you. I’ll never forget you.” She left Norma sitting at the table blubbering like a baby.
The bright Texas sun warmed her face when she stepped out of the airport. She checked her watch. She had just enough time to drive back to Zachsville, grab her dress, get rid of her parents, and marry the man of her dreams.