“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t make it harder, okay? I appreciate all you’ve done for me, but I’m going to Florida tomorrow morning. Eva got me a job. I’ll be able to save up enough to come back in a year. My bus leaves at 9:25.”
“Oh, Lexi…” Scot said. “I wish you’d listen to me…”
“Make sure they send me pictures,” she said quietly, trying not to cry. “I’ll write to her every week.”
He went to her then, took her in his arms. She had a hard time letting go. “Thank you for everything,” she finally said.
“What about Zach?” Scot asked.
The question hurt so much she didn’t even try to respond.
“Do you need a ride to the bus station tomorrow?”
“No.” The last thing she wanted was to tell him good-bye again. “I’ve got it covered. I left Jenny’s suit in the conference room. Tell her thanks for me.”
“You can tell her yourself. Come to dinner tonight?”
“Okay, but there’s something I have to do later.”
“Do you need help?”
“No. I need to do it alone.”
*
Jude sat on the sofa in Zach’s quiet living room. She hadn’t bothered turning on any lights, so the lavender evening crept through the windows. A fire danced orange in the black hearth, and for once she felt warmed by it. Every now and then she heard a giggle coming from down the hall, where Miles and Grace were playing something on the Wii. Grace was like a light that had suddenly been switched on; she talked nonstop, and she hadn’t told a lie all afternoon. Jude had no doubt that the last few hours with her granddaughter would become one of the anchor memories of this new part of their family’s life. The start of After.
But even as she’d joined in, Jude had felt a rising sense of urgency. There was more to be done, she knew, more wrongs to right.
Finally, at about seven, the front door opened and Zach walked in, with his heavy backpack hanging off one shoulder.
“You’re late,” Jude said, rising to her feet.
“The last test was a bitch,” he said, tossing his backpack. He looked utterly exhausted. “I think I blew it.”
“You have a lot on your mind.”
“You think?”
“I tried calling you.”
“My phone died. Sorry.”
She got up from the sofa and stood there, staring at him. Even now, she wasn’t sure quite how to say all the things on her mind. The last few days had been so startling; she felt like a glacier that had begun slowly to melt and move again.
“I stopped by the lawyer’s office, too,” he said, meeting her gaze. “I agreed to the modified parenting plan. It’s done. I know you don’t like it, but I can’t hurt Lexi anymore. I won’t. And if she needs to have Grace by herself for a while, I’m going to say yes.” He paused, and then said quietly, “I shouldn’t have gotten drunk. If I had stayed sober—”
“Don’t, Zach, I—”
“You can’t run this thing, Mom. I know how much you care about everything, but this is about me and Lexi and Grace. I have to do what’s right.”
“I know,” she said. It was time. “And I’m proud of you.”
They were like soldiers who’d fought on a common battlefield, she and her son. There were things to say, but they were just words, and they would come in time. What mattered was that they had survived and that there was still love—between them and around them. Everything else was a postscript. There was really only one thing she needed to say to him now. One question to ask. “Do you still love her?”
Zach seemed to crumble at that. In his eyes, she saw both a fragile youth and a terrible maturity. “I’ve always loved her. I never even tried not to.”
She gathered her son in her arms and held him as she should have years ago, when he was young and hurting and afraid. She wished she’d known then what mattered most. “I love you like air, Zach.”
He held her tightly. “I love you, too, Madre.”
It was the first time he’d called her that in years, and with that little endearment, she melted more, moved just that much closer to who she’d been. She drew back slowly. “I think she’s leaving tomorrow. Going to Florida maybe.”
“Why?”
“She thinks Grace will be better off without her.”
“But that’s crazy.”
“Lexi has always tried to do what was right for everyone else. That’s who she is, isn’t it? I should have remembered that, Zach … how much Lexi meant to us … to me.”