Leaving Yesterday (22 page)

We rode an elevator up to the maternity ward and found her room. The head of her bed was slightly elevated, her long black hair fanned across the pillow, but her eyes were closed. I glanced at the television set on the wall, where the women from
The View
were arguing about whether six-year-olds should be allowed to bring their cell phones to school. I turned my attention back to Pamela. She was a beautiful girl. Fine cheekbones, smooth skin—skin that was definitely a bit pale, but she was in the hospital, after all.

“Pamela, we’re here.” Kurt touched her gently on her shoulder and she opened her eyes. She blinked a couple of times, then smiled up at him.

“Hey.” Then she looked toward me and straightened on her pillow. “Oh, hello.”

“Hi.” I started to extend my hand but wasn’t sure what protocol would be in the situation. Instead, I stayed planted at a close but safe distance and nodded. “Hello. I’m Alisa, Kurt’s mother.”

She smiled at me and nodded. “You’re just as beautiful as Kurt always said you were.”

I felt my cheeks grow hot; I don’t know why. But it was uncomfortable enough that I wanted to change the subject. “He’s always had the gift of overstatement.”

“Nuh-uh. Not when it comes to my mama.” He squeezed my shoulder, then went to sit on the edge of the bed. “What are the doctors saying?”

“I should get out of here first thing in the morning. Everything is stabilized, but I have to take it easy for the next few months. Not quite bed rest, but almost.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I already talked to my host family. They were great about it. I couldn’t believe it. Susie told me not to worry about it, that she would help me out as much as I needed helping.”

Kurt looked toward me. “Life Network set her up with a host family. She’s living with them until the baby is born.”

I looked at the girl on the bed and hoped that her host family would give her some of the guidance she needed. “Sounds like you found a nice family.”

She nodded. “The best.” She pointed toward a packet on the beside table. “Get that for me, will you, Kurt?”

He handed her the manila envelope, and she removed a few pieces of paper stapled together. She handed them to him and nodded toward me. “This is the family I think I’ve decided on. What do you think?”

I went to look at the smiling couple on the first page and gasped before I could stop myself.

Kurt looked at me. “What’s up?”

“That is Lori Radcliff’s daughter and her husband. I can’t think of their names.” I looked at the sheet of paper. “Oh yes, Rachel and Stefan Tuttle, that’s right. I know they’ve been struggling with infertility for years, but I wasn’t aware that they had begun looking for a child to adopt.”

Pamela looked at me, a hint of desperation in her eyes. “Are they nice people?”

I knew she needed the comfort of knowing that her child would be safe. I needed to know that, too, and while I didn’t know the couple very well, I knew the family. “I can’t think of any nicer. They would be a great choice.”

“Good.” She sat back and closed her eyes in relief, or exhaustion, I wasn’t sure.

Just then, a nurse in pink scrubs came walking into the room. “Time for your medicine.” She carried a white paper cup of pills in her hand.

Kurt stood. “We’ll be going. I just wanted to see that you were okay, and to let you meet my mother.”

Pamela opened her eyes and smiled up at me. “I’m so glad to have met you. Take good care of Kurt.”

Spontaneously, I reached down and squeezed her hand. “I will. You take good care of yourself.”

She squeezed back. “I plan to.”

As Kurt and I walked down the hallway toward the car, my mind was twisting in all sorts of new directions. “She could stay at our house. I could help her while she’s on bed rest.”

“Whoa there, easy, Mom.” He put his hands on both my shoulders and pulled back as if he were reining a horse.

“No, really.” I was already picturing the setup. “It would work. We could do this.”

He shook his head, his face suddenly serious. “I knew you’d say something like this, but that’s not where this is headed. Pamela and I, we aren’t … I’m just trying to do the right thing for her. As soon as the baby comes, Pamela plans to go back to Florida and live with her family, finish school, get a job. If she came to live with you, it would be that much harder to give the baby up for adoption, for all of us. It would not be the best decision for any of us.”

I knew that in many ways he was right, but there was plenty of argument left inside me. I’d wait and think it through before I stated my case again, though. “I’m so proud of you.” And I was. So proud. And at times like this, it was so obvious to me that I had done the right thing on the night I struck that match.

Thirty

A MOTHER’S HEART BROKEN

The headline in Monday’s Life section of the newspaper caught my eye, as I suppose it would any mother’s. The picture beneath it showed a woman I’d guess to be my age, soft in the face and with eyes that could only be described as tortured. She held two eight-by-ten photographs in her hands, both of clean-cut young boys wearing the forced smiles of school photos. The caption beneath read,
Theresa Singer holds photos of her two sons. Joe, pictured right, died of leukemia when he was twelve years old. Gary, pictured in happier times, is currently awaiting trial for the murder of Rudy Prince.

That sat me back in my seat. This was the boy who had been arrested for murdering Rudy Prince? Even if the picture was from a few years ago, this innocent-looking child couldn’t possibly be the drug-addicted maniac that I’d been picturing in that prison cell. It didn’t look much like the hollow-eyed man I’d seen in the booking photos, either.

I picked up the paper, carried it outside, and put it in the recycle bin. I didn’t want to see any more.

“Mom, where are my tennis shoes? I know I left them right here.” Caroline pointed at the bottom stair. “They’re not here anymore. I’ve got to have them for PE today. We’re running the mile.”

“Caroline, if you left them right there, then right there’s where they would be. I haven’t moved them.”

“Well, somebody moved them, because I left them right here.”

“Did you look in your closet?”

“Yes.”

“How about the car? Did you take them off in the car on the way home from your father’s?”

She cocked her head to the side. “You know what, maybe I did.” She disappeared out the door into the garage and returned a minute later, tennis shoes in hand.

I went over and patted the bottom stair. “Sure glad you left them right here, aren’t you?”

“Well, that’s where I usually leave them.” She pulled the long pink laces together and tied the first of a double bow. “So, did you pack my lunch? Today’s menu is that mixture of cardboard and rubber the school has the nerve to call pizza.”

“Yes, I packed your lunch. It’s in your backpack.” I pointed toward the bulging blue camouflage bag. “Now, you need to get moving or you’re not going to make it in time for a game of handball before the bell rings.”

“Mo-om, nobody plays handball anymore.”

“Since when?”

“Last week, when we decided that handball was lame. Now we do cartwheels out on the lawn.” There was a wistful tone to her voice.

“Who decided?”

She shrugged. “You know, the group.”

“But you love to play handball.” And besides that, I knew that she hated cartwheels.

“Mom, it’s lame. Now, I gotta go.” She pulled her backpack strap over her right shoulder and opened the front door. I watched her disappear down the sidewalk and thought about how much I hated what peer pressure did to our kids.

I climbed into my car and drove to work, listening to the radio as usual. Reid and Sam, the morning hosts, were discussing the morning’s news. This was fine until Reid brought up the article about Gary Singer’s mother.

“Can you believe that? She lost her youngest son to leukemia when he was just twelve years old. She says right here … Wait, let me find it. Yes, here it is. ‘I spent so much of my energy dealing with Joe’s illness, I just didn’t have anything left for Gary. I saw what was happening but couldn’t stop it. It’s all my fault. If I had forced myself to deal with it then, my son wouldn’t be an addict now. It should be me facing jail time, not my son. I will never be able to forgive myself.’ End of quote. Can you believe the burden that poor woman carries?”

I flipped off the radio, pulled my car to the side of the road, and cried on the steering wheel. I’d never thought of the other mother, of the other family that maybe was very much like my own. The death of one child followed by the addiction of the second, which went down and down from there. This was the woman I was letting take the pain for what my son had done. As much as I’d managed to convince myself that the dream was totally a coincidence, that the bat had been planted—in this moment, I had to acknowledge that I knew better.

But what could I do about it? Going forward meant losing Kurt all over again. And he was doing so well. College waited for him. And, like Lacey said, I was going to be in trouble if I went forward, too. What if I went to jail for destroying the evidence? What would happen to Caroline then?

I knew the answer. Her father would get full custody, and I wouldn’t be able to see her. I couldn’t face that. I’d lost too much already. “God, surely you wouldn’t ask that of me!” I wailed at the sky. “How could you even think of asking that from me? It’s too much, too much.”

At some point I started my car and drove toward work. As I pulled into the church parking lot, I saw Carleigh in the driveway. She smiled and walked over to me, her brown curls dancing happily in the spring breeze. I put on my best church face and smiled back.

“Isn’t it a blessed morning?” she asked.

“Yes, it certainly is.” I smiled back at her and thought of Caroline, handball, and cartwheels. I realized then that grownups aren’t so different from kids after all.

“Lacey, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

It was only Tuesday. I hadn’t even had breakfast yet and I already felt exhausted. I couldn’t imagine making it through the week. I laid my head on her kitchen table and slapped my palm against the walnut surface.

“As soon as I saw that article in the paper yesterday, I knew you’d start having doubts. Alisa, you need to think this through.”

“What is there to think through? There is an innocent boy locked up in jail right now for a crime that my son committed.”

“Yes, and that innocent boy has a rap sheet longer than this street.”

“But he’s still innocent.”

“This time. All you’re doing by letting him out is prolonging the inevitable. He will eventually end up in prison, I can guarantee it.”

I didn’t doubt at all what she was saying, but my justifications for what I’d done were feeling thinner and thinner “I know that’s probably true.” And Kurt was clean, he was good, he was living a worthwhile life now. “But is it fair for him to go to prison for someone else’s crime?”

“Our legal system’s not about being fair. It’s about society’s version of justice. If you ask me, society would be better served by having Gary Singer locked up, and having Kurt Stewart doing well in college and making something useful of his life.” She put her hand on the back of my head. “Are you willing to face charges yourself for this?”

Just the thought made me want to cower in fear. “I don’t know. You know I don’t want to, but I don’t think I can live with myself, knowing what that mother is going through. I don’t know what else to do.”

“That’s a decision you’re going to have to make for yourself. But I can tell you, I don’t think substituting Kurt, and the life he is building, for that Singer boy’s life is a fair trade. I’m sorry that his mom has had such a rough time of it, but you had your own, too. It wasn’t a bit fair that either one of you lost a son the way you did, but the fact is, Kurt has turned his life around and that Singer boy has not.”

The words made so much sense when she said them. But as much as they were exactly what I wanted to hear, this time they didn’t offer the release I’d hoped they would.

“You read the article. That poor mother is blaming herself,” I said. “I know what that’s like, because I did the same thing. At least I did until I destroyed the evidence and somehow managed to convince myself that nothing really happened. Well, now there’s no denying the fact that something did happen. How can I allow that poor woman to live with any more sorrow than she already has?”

“Baby, you do what you’ve got to do. I’m not going to talk you into something that will eat you alive, but I am going to make sure you think about every aspect of this before you do anything. What do you see happening if the truth comes out?”

I shrugged. “Not much doubt I’d have to step down from my job at the church. They were going to move me to full-time, but obviously that won’t happen. If Rick and I are going to get divorced, I’ll need to find something that can pay the bills. As for my friends at church …” The words that rose to their defense died somewhere before they reached my lips. I wanted to believe they would be there for me, and I knew that a few of my closest friends would be. The others, well, I tried not to think about what would be whispered as I walked down the aisle to my usual seat.