I went back to the park and wrote a note, but I knew it wasn’t good enough. I put it in my pocket anyway. When I got to Shan’s house, Gram and Grampy’s RV was parked in the driveway. The house was dark except for the glow from the stove light in the kitchen. I knew she’d be in there. I knew it wasn’t the first time and probably wouldn’t be the last that Shan would be sitting up alone in the kitchen, waiting for someone to come home. Sure enough, when I went around and slipped through the kitchen door, she was sitting at the table in her pink fluffy housecoat, the cordless phone and her World’s Best Mom mug in front of her. I stayed in the doorway.
“Gram and Grampy are here?”
“They’re asleep in the RV.”
I nodded. Shan said, “You’re not coming in, are you?” Her lip trembled.
“Something bad happened,” I said. “I have to go.”
She looked down. “Don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to know.”
“I—”
“No,” she said. “Don’t. Please.” She gripped her mug with both hands.
“Shan—”
“NO!” She slammed the mug down on the table. It shattered. What was left of her tea splashed out, and a line of red began to trickle across one of her thumbs. I tore some paper towels from the holder under the kitchen cupboard. She wrapped them around her thumb and put her hands in her lap. She was crying now, but silently, her eyes screwed shut and her shoulders shaking.
I sat down at the table, across from her. “Will you tell me something? You don’t have to.”
She didn’t answer for a long time. Then she said, “What?”
I knew what I wanted to ask, but I didn’t know how to ask it. “Did…Do you…”
Shan looked up at me. Her cheeks were streaked with wet. “I just wanted everything to be right.”
It was all I was going to get. Maybe I didn’t need any more. I reached over and pushed at the pieces of broken mug in their tea puddle.
“You really are…” I said.
“Wh-what?”
“That.” I pushed the shard of mug toward her that said World’s Best. “Thank you,” I said. “I wish I could stay.”
“Then why don’t you?” It was her last shot.
It took me a long time to find an answer. Finally I said, “I’m a different person now.”
Shan closed her eyes. Outside, a car rolled by. Across the kitchen, the tap dripped. Time leaking down the drain. She nodded.
I stood up. “I won’t take anything,” I said.
She looked at me. “Where—no, I don’t want to know. How?”
I shrugged. “I’ll just go.”
“That’s—” She shook her head, pulling herself back together. “No, there’s a way.” Now she looked right at me, a look as sharp as the shards of mug on the table. I nodded. I’d had the same idea. “All right,” she said. “Leave a note.”
“I don’t know what to—”
“For Christ’s sake,” she snapped. “Leave a note. Tell the kids you’ll miss them. Tell—leave me a note.” She stood up and moved to the counter, scrounged up a pen and paper and pushed them at me. This time I wrote:
Dear Shan and everybody
Im sorry but I have to go. I have tried hard but Ive been so long away that I cant fit here anymore. Maybe it doesn’t help but I told you a lie about what happened to me. I didnt get taken. I ran. It was bad with Ty and Momma before and I couldn’t take it any more. I didn’t want to say that when I came back. Some bad things happened to me while I was away but nothing I couldnt handle. Being away is what I am used to now. Please don’t come after me it is better this way. Im sorry if I hurt you.
love
Danny
When I was done, I folded it up and gave it to Shan. She didn’t try to read it. “Now,” she said. “Go up and get some sleep. I’ll call you.”