When We Were Friends (17 page)

I slapped the phone shut. What the hell was going on? Did Star think Sydney had given the cops my name?

I reached into the diaper bag and pulled out the paper I’d bought, flipping through the first pages. There was nothing in the front section, but there on the front page of the Nation/World section was a photograph of Sydney, standing on the steps of the police station.

A sound came from the back of my throat, guttural and inhuman. I jumped up to stuff the paper into the trash. “We have to leave, Molly. We can’t stay here, okay? Star was right, we have to go.”

I threw toys frantically into the diaper bag, then crammed our
clothes into my suitcases. And then I scribbled two notes of apology, to Muriel and to Alex. Alex had given me a hundred dollars and with tax, I knew I owed Muriel over two hundred. But all I had now was Sydney’s thirty dollars, and I couldn’t leave it for them, not with a baby. So I left them my watch and a pair of gold hoop earrings, promising I’d send the rest plus interest as soon as I got settled.
This is for Molly
, I kept telling myself.
Yes, it’s horrible, illegal, but not immoral. You’re doing what you have to do for her
.

I left the notes and the jewelry on a pillow, strapped Molly into her carrier and, my chest tight, carried the suitcases to the car, then went back for Molly.

And met Alex in the hallway.

He studied my face, his brow furrowed. “Leah? You okay?”

I backed toward my room. More than anything I wanted to tell him the truth before he learned about me on the news, make him realize I wasn’t a child snatcher, a thief. I wanted to but I shouldn’t but I had to but I couldn’t. “Fine,” I said, “I’m fine.” But just as I was about to flip my hand in a dismissive-as-possible gesture, Molly—who I’d left in her carrier—started to bawl, and suddenly I felt like my ribs had cracked open. “I’m fine!” I said again, and then I strode into the bedroom and closed the door behind me, dropping to the floor beside Molly, smoothing my hand over her tearstained cheeks.

“Leah?” He knocked on the door, then cracked it open. He watched me a moment and then entered and knelt beside me. “What is it? What’s going on?”

I swiped a sleeve across the tears on my face. Molly was now wailing, and I stumbled to my feet. “I have to go,” I said. “I’m sorry, and please tell Muriel I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye, and that I’ll pay her back as soon as I possibly can. You too, Alex.” I reached for the last of my bags. “It’s been great, I can’t even tell you how great it’s been. You seem like one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met and I’d do anything to be able to spend more time with you.”

“Wait.” He sat on the bed, elbows on his knees and hands clasped in front of him, not looking at me. “Listen, Leah. I know this is going to sound awfully intrusive, which is why I haven’t asked you any personal
questions, but ever since I met you I had the feeling like you’re in some kind of trouble. I don’t know what’s going on and you don’t have to tell me, but you’ve got the look of someone who’s running away from something without a place to run to.”

“Well no, I mean I’m going to Kansas.”

“From Chicago, right. And driving through West Virginia was a natural detour.”

I turned away, focused on unbuckling Molly’s carrier straps. “I’m not in trouble,” I said finally, in the overly firm pitch of a lie.

“But you don’t have anywhere to go.”

I lifted Molly and rubbed at her back to soothe her. “I wouldn’t say that. It makes me sound like a vagrant, or like some runaway kid. Okay, you’re right, maybe I’m not going to Kansas. But it’s not that I don’t have anywhere to go, just nowhere in particular. I’m traveling the country.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Look.” I sank onto the bed beside him, my mind racing. “I’m leaving my husband, okay? He wasn’t good for Molly and he wasn’t good for me, so I just grabbed my stuff and left.” Maybe this was the key to lying, to completely believe in the lie, to feel it. I let the rage at David McGrath fuel and burn inside me, and became Leah: strong, independent, overturning my life to save my daughter.

“I can’t let him find her,” I said, my voice tight. “He’s dangerous and he’s destroyed both our lives, so I decided I had to run as far as possible from home. But all I could take out of my bank account was a couple hundred bucks, and I don’t want to use an ATM or a credit card because I don’t want him tracking me. But this is for Molly’s sake, see? And I realize I should’ve thought things through more before I left him, but I didn’t have time to come up with a real plan.”

“You don’t want him tracking you because you don’t have custody.”

I hunched my shoulders. “Kind of. I mean no, I don’t have custody yet, but I’m leaving because I’m scared of him. Because he’s … done things. To me and to Molly.”

Alex went suddenly still, and then he said, “You mean he hurt you?”

I probably shouldn’t have said it. It had come out of my mouth without any thought, because it seemed like the only legitimate excuse for my present situation. But it opened up a huge can of worms that I had no idea how to wrestle back into the can.

“Okay,” I said, “I have to show you something.” And then I carefully pulled up Molly’s dress to show him her back. “Cigarettes,” I said.

Alex’s face slackened as he stared at her scars, his eyes slowly filling. He touched her back gently. “Oh no,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I said softly. And watching him, the look on his face, all this pain for a child he didn’t know, the only thought inside me was,
Please
. Please what? I didn’t know exactly. Please help us, please save us, please don’t let us go off on our own. “They’re healing up now, I don’t think they hurt anymore, but I guess you can see why I had to leave.”

He looked up at me, tears glazing his eyes. “Is there anything else? Did she get hurt anywhere else?”

“That’s all I know about. Those are the only sores I’ve seen, but who knows what he might’ve done if I stayed?”

He smoothed a palm gently over the wisps of Molly’s hair. “So what’re you going to do?” he said hoarsely. “Have you told the police?”

“I can’t. I can’t because I basically kidnapped her, and if I turn myself in I’m sure she’ll be taken away from me. And my husband’s family is rich enough to hire lawyers who’ll find a way to prove he didn’t do anything to us, which means he might end up with custody. I can’t let him get custody!”

Alex thought a minute, then said, “Have you tried looking for shelters? There are places that can help women disappear, even train them in new careers, get them back on their feet.”

My skin felt clammy. What should I say? “I’ve imagined those places, shelters with bunk beds, ten women sharing a room. Gruel.” I smiled grimly. “But maybe you’re right, I should look for something like that. I can’t keep driving around forever.”

All at once my eyes filled again, and I pressed the back of my arm
against them, trying to keep my voice steady. “But I just found out from my mother that the police, and maybe my husband, might already know where I am. Maybe they’re even on the way, so I have to get out of here.”

Alex didn’t respond for so long that I pulled my arm away from my eyes to look at him. His face was pale and tight, watching me. Finally he said, “I’ll go with you, find you somewhere safe. I can drive you, or if you don’t want to leave your car here you can follow behind me.”

He’d want to escort me to some shelter, and what was the protocol for entering a shelter? By tomorrow my name and face would probably be splashed across the headlines, and surely the shelter would look at my ID, and figure out who I was. “Thanks,” I said, “you’re incredibly sweet. But I really feel like I have to do this on my own.”

“Leah, look. I’m not letting you go off by yourself, not if this guy’s dangerous.”

“Please.” I set Molly back in her carrier, and she immediately started to cry again. “I’m going to be fine,” I said, “we both are. And I think … I think it’d be best if after we leave you just forget you ever got to know us.”

“Leah—”

“Thank you so much for everything, for giving me one of the best nights of my life.” I pulled him into a quick hug, then lifted the carrier and diaper bag and turned away.

At the car, after fastening Molly into her car seat, I looked back toward the inn to see Alex standing in the open doorway. I stood a full minute watching him silently, then got into the car and drove away.

Molly was still crying in the backseat, and I glanced into the rearview. “Stop?” I whispered. “Please stop?” And then my voice broke, tears blurring my vision. Driving with no idea where I was going, what I was doing; I was literally shivering with terror, an earthquake in my bones, seismic plates scraping inside my chest. How stupid was I that I’d trusted Sydney, knowing who she was, who she’d always been. Or I hadn’t trusted her, I’d known she couldn’t care less about me, but I’d truly believed that she loved her daughter. The stupidity had been in not realizing that she loved herself more.

So there I was back on the road, exhausted and confused, panicking at the headlights in my rearview mirror, sure I was being followed. I knew if the cops wanted to stop me all they’d do was pull me over, but I imagined they were sadistic cops, playing games, taunting me, waiting to make their move.

Considering my state of mind it was a wonder I didn’t drive in a complete circle, ending where I’d started. But after four hours I found myself crossing into Ohio, the hills giving way to flat farmland, corn and hay and the scent of either manure or methane-generating cows.

All of me wanted to bring Molly up to the passenger seat beside me so I could look at her, comfort myself with the feel of her chubby knees. Since hearing myself called a “suspect” I’d felt her being torn from me, no longer mine.

She slept for a good part of the drive but still I talked to her, making up stories of where we were going. Kansas was out now, so after some pondering I decided on Montana, a state I imagined as being basically uninhabited. Open countryside where we’d cook dinners over a campfire and bathe in rock-bottomed streams. I’d grow my hair down to my knees, hike mountains with Molly riding on my back, shoot game and make our clothes out of animal pelts.

Oh I know, I know, but imagining it was so soothing, and the more
far-fetched my fantasies got, the more my fear abated. So that I felt myself drifting, watching the fields pass in front of me with the same blurred inattention with which one watches scenery on a moving train, an unnoticed background Muzak. Until my head lolled and I jerked back awake in a sudden panic.

Coffee, I needed coffee.

I circled through a McDonald’s drive-thru and bought a large cup, then pulled into a parking space. I got out to stretch my legs and check on Molly, and was about to open the back door when a car pulled up behind me. The lights flicked off and a door opened. And … out stepped Alex.

My eyes widened. I felt suddenly faint. He wasn’t here, I must be hallucinating, my exhaustion and fear arranging his features onto someone else’s face. “Alex?”

In response he smiled, almost apologetically.

“What the hell?” I said. “What’re you doing here!”

“Nice greeting.”

“You followed me!”

His smile fell. “Yes, it would appear so. I thought you’d be glad to see me.”