The Winters in Bloom (33 page)

David was trying to distract her by talking about the historical significance of the region in Maryland where they were going, only about ten miles north of the site of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. He went on about the significance of this battle for a while before he said, “This isn’t helping, is it?”

“I’m sorry.” She reached for his hand. Even in her grief, she was touched by how hard he was trying. He had to be very confused. She’d only managed to give him the basic facts about her sister and her niece, yet she felt sure now that he wouldn’t condemn her once he heard the whole story. He’d already told her that she’d been right: he did have things he needed to share with her, too. But none of it would change how they felt about each other; she knew that now. Of course it wouldn’t.

“I think you should go to sleep,” David said, gently rubbing her thumb with his. “If you can.”

Kyra looked out the window. A train was going by; it looked ghostly in the light from the moon. She closed her eyes, sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but then she did. In her dream, Michael was in the front yard, holding a bright orange ball, throwing it up and down. She was standing in the doorway, watching her son and smiling. But when the ball bounced into the street and Michael started after it, she realized she couldn’t move her legs. She couldn’t make her mouth form the words though her mind was screaming them:
Michael, stop!

She startled awake. David was shaking her shoulder.

“You were whimpering, honey.”

She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the familiar sight of the green lights on the Subaru’s dashboard. “It was just a dream,” she said, and exhaled.

Her shoulder belt was cutting into her neck, so she sat up straighter and peered out the window. All around them was a vast emptiness. She assumed it was farmland, though she felt like they’d driven off the edge of the world. “Where are we?”

“On 81. About halfway there.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”

“I don’t mind. It’s much easier that sitting at home, doing nothing. Every mile I drive is bringing him closer.”

“Unless he’s not there,” she said, before she could stop herself. They’d already discussed this. Sandra was spending the night at the house, downstairs, with both the living room and the porch lights on, in case Hannah changed her mind, though Courtney had said it was unlikely.

“Let’s not worry about that yet,” David said, and she quickly agreed. She knew what would happen if they didn’t find Michael tonight. The police would have to broadcast Hannah’s description and license plate to every law enforcement organization across the country. Whatever it took, no matter what happened to her niece.

He urged her to go back to sleep, and she closed her eyes, but her mind wouldn’t cooperate. It was so painful, thinking of Hannah being arrested for the same thing Kyra had been arrested for, though it wasn’t really the same. Hannah had apparently taken Michael on an impulse, while Kyra had planned it all out. Kyra had taken Hannah because she had to save Amy.

Her sister had been on a path of self-destruction for almost two years at that point. Gregory Todd was long gone. He’d left because he was a heartless jerk who said Amy was too depressing to be around after she lost custody of her baby. She’d been fired from her band for missing gigs; she’d had to move out of her condo. She moved in with Kyra for a while, but after they had yet another argument about what Kyra had said to Wendy Jenkins, she left one afternoon while Kyra was at work. Since then she’d drifted from one place to another, until she finally landed at what she called the “peace house,” which was actually a house full of addicts. Kyra was afraid that this might be the last stop, that her sister might not make it if she couldn’t somehow pull herself back from the abyss. She’d decided to take Amy’s daughter to show her sister that she did have another life, that Hannah was worth whatever it took to get herself clean.

It was a Saturday afternoon in October, a beautiful Indian summer day; however, that didn’t mean Zach and Terri were going to agree to let her take Hannah to Amy’s or even to a movie or the mall. They used to let her go anywhere with her niece; she’d even taken Hannah to her apartment to spend the night, but all that had changed two months ago, after they participated in a program at Terri’s church called “divorce-busting boot camp,” and Zach had ended up telling his wife that he and Kyra had slept together. Kyra had been stunned, and she didn’t feel any better when Zach insisted that Terri wouldn’t hold it against her. Instead, she felt like a fool for having ever believed that this guy was smart.

That Saturday, her plan was to get Zach alone and beg him to let her take Hannah out for a few hours, just this once. It worked, but before she made it out the door with her niece, Terri found out. She was obviously angry, but she only said, “You have to bring her back in fifteen minutes.” Kyra nodded. She assumed Zach would tell Terri it was okay when the fifteen minutes were over, and she headed off with Hannah to the bus stop.

Hannah liked the bus ride, and the little girl didn’t seem afraid as Kyra carried her down the street in the crime-ridden neighborhood. But Kyra was very afraid. Every corner had a drug dealer and guys kept stepping out of the shadows to leer at her and say “Hey, baby” and “What you up to?” She ignored them all and picked up her pace. She’d been to the peace house before, but never with Hannah. She felt so much more vulnerable, knowing she had to protect her niece.

Of course Amy must have been surprised to see her daughter, but she didn’t show it. She led them into the back room she shared with some pinched-face woman named Bonnie. The room had nothing but two mattresses, a microwave, and a few crushed boxes. Bonnie was sitting on one of the mattresses, shooting up, and Kyra turned around so that Hannah couldn’t watch.

They talked of nothing for several minutes, and Amy didn’t even really look at the little girl. Her voice was flat; Kyra wondered if she was coming down from her high. Her pupils were still dilated, but everything about her seemed slow, like she barely had the energy to stand up. After a while, Hannah was complaining that she wanted to get down, but Kyra couldn’t let her. The place was too filthy. The toddler was squirming when Kyra said, “She’s getting heavy,” as casually as she could manage, as if Hannah were just some kid they were taking care of for the Callahan Child Care Company. “Want to take her for a few minutes?”

Kyra felt sure that if only Amy held Hannah, she would remember how the little girl felt and how she smelled and how her hair felt brushing against your lips—and what a gift it was to be able to know these things about a child you loved.

“Sure,” Amy said. Bonnie had flopped over, but Kyra had reassured herself that the woman wasn’t dead because her chest was still moving. The two sisters were essentially alone in the room. There was one window, and Kyra was watching the light splay across the floor, all too aware that she couldn’t stay very long or she would have to walk back to the bus in the dark.

Hannah let Amy take her, and it was just as Kyra hoped. Amy held her close and took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet smell. “Oh, my baby girl,” Amy said. “You’ve gotten so big.” She smiled. “How did that happen?”

“I’m three!” Hannah smiled, too, and held up three fingers.

“I know you are.” Amy kissed the little girl and patted her bottom. “She’s already potty trained?” she said to Kyra, and she sounded upset. Kyra wasn’t sure why this particular detail bothered her sister. It wasn’t nearly as important as all the other things Amy had missed out on during the ten months she hadn’t visited her daughter: from Hannah’s birthday to her first full sentence to her obsession with her tricycle, which she loved so much she tried to drag it to bed with her.

“She basically did it herself,” Kyra said. Terri was a big believer in independence, at least when it came to little Hannah. Her own daughters were still held in her lap and carried all over the house, though they were six and seven.

When Amy just stood there without saying anything, the child started to get fussy. Still, Amy might have tried to engage Hannah again if the little girl hadn’t held her arms out and said, “Mommy, hold me”—to Kyra.

“She knows I’m not her mother,” Kyra said quickly. “It’s just pretend.” Kyra had reminded the little girl over and over that she was her aunt, but Hannah kept calling her “Mommy.” Another reason that Terri was furious with Kyra, but Kyra thought Terri deserved most of the blame herself. Hannah could sense the woman was not her mother—and someone had to be.

“She wants you,” Amy said, handing her back. “She doesn’t even know who I am.”

Amy sounded so sorry for herself. It was infuriating. “What do you expect? The poor kid hasn’t seen you since—”

“She’s better off.”

“No, she isn’t. God, Amy, were we better off with Dad and Marie? Because that’s what you’re saying about your daughter. Terri’s her stepmother, but you’re her mother. She needs you in her life, and you know it!”

Amy shrugged. “Too bad you didn’t think of that before, huh?”

Though this usually made Kyra back off, it wasn’t going to work this time. Not when she’d brought Hannah with her, even though she knew Terri would be so angry that she probably wouldn’t be allowed to take her niece out of the house again for another two months.

“This isn’t about me,” she said. “It’s about you and Hannah.” She grabbed her sister’s skinny arm. “Don’t you see what’s going to happen if you keep living like this? You’re going to die, Amy, and this little girl is going to grow up without her mommy.”

Kyra could hear the word echoing from when she and Amy were little:
Mommy, Mommy, Mommy
. She had tears standing in her eyes, but she was surprised to see that Amy did, too.

Bonnie was groaning on the mattress. Hannah said, “Go home now! Bus?” Kyra told Hannah “a few more minutes,” and promised the little girl they would get ice-cream cones when they left. Then she looked into her sister’s eyes. “I want you to come with us.” She shifted Hannah’s weight onto her other arm. “I have it all arranged. There’s a rehab place only a few blocks from my apartment. Once you get clean, we can go back to court, try to get custody or at least a lot more visitation. It will be like you wanted it to be. Just me and you, taking care of your daughter.”

Amy smiled then, a real smile. After a moment, she put her arms around Kyra and Hannah. The hug was real, too, and so much like the old Amy that Kyra was positive she was about to agree to do it, to go with them and enter rehab. They were both crying, and Amy whispered, “Sis, thank you for—”

Before she could finish her sentence, the police were shouting, banging on the front door. The sound was so loud that Hannah screamed and covered her ears. Kyra was terrified; she wondered if Amy would be arrested with all the other addicts and prayed her sister wouldn’t be. The police did take about half the people in the house to jail, including Amy, but they let them all out a few hours later. Only Kyra had to stay.

Kyra would never be sure who called the police, but even if it was Terri, it was still Zach’s fault for not stopping his wife. And it was her own fault for keeping Zach up to date on where Amy was living, because he always acted like he was a friend, like he was worried about Amy, too.

She got off with only a night in jail, a small fine, and community service, but she lost everything that mattered to her. She was not allowed to see Hannah again for a full year, and after one brief visit, she was never allowed to come back. And she never had another chance to save Amy. Her sister ended up leaving Kansas City only a few weeks later—after Terri told her that Kyra had been sleeping with Zach during the custody battle.

“I would never have picked any man over you,” Amy said, laughing bitterly. “To think that I loved you more than anyone in the world.”

Her jacket was ripped at the shoulder and so dirty it looked like Amy had found it in the garbage; her cheeks were hollowed out, and her skin was as gray as the late afternoon November sky. But it was her eyes that Kyra would never forget. They were so hopeless. And yet Amy was still feigning a laugh when she spit out, “You’ll never see me again,” and turned to walk away.

She begged her sister to stop, but when Amy didn’t, Kyra felt like her heart was breaking. She knew her sister meant it when she said she’d never see her again, and she was horribly afraid that it might turn out to be true.

For years after, she tortured herself with daydreams of the life she and her sister could have had if only she’d picked Amy that day instead of Zach. The only thought that comforted her—but then she wouldn’t have moved to Philadelphia, and she wouldn’t have met her husband and had their son—also made her feel guilty. It was as if her family’s very existence relied on the collapse of her sister’s.

“We’re almost there,” David said. “About twenty more minutes.”

She’d been staring out the window, but she hadn’t really seen anything. Now she was surprised to realize they were back in civilization. They were driving by a huge shopping mall. In the dark, it looked strangely frightening rising up in the middle of the immense empty parking lot.

He gently rested his hand on the back of her neck. “Are you ready for this?”

“I’ll have to be.” It wasn’t really an answer, but it was the only one she had. If her son was at Vivian’s house, then she would have to be at Vivian’s house, no matter how she felt about it.

All night, she’d refused to spend one minute thinking about her mother. She didn’t even intend to speak to her if she could help it.