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My heart sings for all the days of the following week. Just sings. I had stayed at Barb and Will’s until night had fully fallen and a clear fat moon rose high in the sky. Now I am back at Lola’s, working the front and bagging. She won’t let me near the dry-clean machine because the smell just makes me so sick. I am happy in a way that I have never been before, and more than once over this last week, I have caught a song breaking free from my lips. I don’t think I ever burst into spontaneous song, but Lola sings all the time, with her beautiful alto voice. Maybe her good spirit is rubbing off on me. I am sending a suit out with Mr. Cruthis’ secretary when I see a familiar face coming up to the door. It’s Molly. Molly White. I feel my face break into a smile, like we are long lost friends.
“Hey, Molly!” I sing out, and she cocks her head to the side, her smile widening.
“Hi, Alison. You’re in a great mood.”
“It’s a good day,” I say and head back to the rack to get her clothes, but the W slot is empty and her voice reaches me about the time I realize this fact, telling me that she isn’t here to pick up. “Oh. Okay. What can I do for you?”
“Well,” she says, drawing the word out, “I was wondering if you had any plans for Thanksgiving?”
“I do.” I reach out and grab her hands and lean across the counter, “I found my grandparents.” I say it hushed, like it’s a secret, like it’s a treasure. I press my lips together to suppress a shout of joy.
Her eyes go wide, and her lips spread into her pretty smile. “Really?”
“I know. It’s crazy, but my mom left me a letter and told me their name, and it just so happens they live in Sorento.”
“Oh my God. What a small world.” Still smiling, she squeezes my hands.
“I know. What are the odds that Warren would bring me here?”
She knows my story. We had sat out at the little coffee shop one day after work last week, and I told her about Warren and how he had just left like he had fire under his feet. I was pretty sore about it then, but it seems to be so much less important now.
“What are they like?” she asks.
“They are wonderful. They are good people. I have an uncle and two cousins. It’s insane.”
“Oh my God.” She says it with praise in her voice. “You have a family.”
“I know. I’m so excited. I haven’t told them everything yet, but I don’t know that they need to know it all, you know?”
She nods. “Probably a good plan. How did they lose touch?”
“She ran away. They thought maybe somebody took her. They searched for years.”
“Oh wow. That’s terrible. Can you imagine? And she was only two hours away the whole time.” She looks thoughtful. “Did they know she was pregnant?”
I shake my head, “No. Didn’t even know she had a boyfriend. She was only fourteen. She was wild though.” I am surprised to hear the pride in my voice. “She made a suit of rubber in home ec and flew off of the Ripson Bridge.”
“Respect,” Molly says, laughing.
We talk a little longer until a customer comes in with clothes to drop off. I do the intake, and when we are alone again, I ask, “Why were you asking about Thanksgiving?” I realize that I had totally hijacked the conversation.
“Oh, I was just going to ask if you wanted to come for Thanksgiving with me.”
I feel like I could burst, and I don’t even know what to do with all the happy in my heart.
––––––––
It’s the end of the day, and Lola has already gone to the front to lock the front door when the phone rings. I answer it on the second ring, mid spin, what I think may be something like a pirouette. “Lola’s,” I sing into the receiver.
“Al?” His voice comes tinny over the line, and I step around the corner, into the bathroom, dragging the cord with me.
“Warren?” My voice comes out in a rush, in a sigh, in relief, in exasperation.
“Yeah.” His breath shudders across the line, and that sound washes away my frustration at him, that anger.
“Where are you?” I ask, desperately wanting to know, needing to know.
“It was always you, Al,” he says, sniffing at the end.
“Warren, what’s wrong?”
His chuckles, so low and familiar, but so much more forlorn and lost than ever I’ve heard it.
“They’re coming for me,” he says, nearly frantic. “They’re coming for me, Al, and I have to let them take me.” He swallows hard, and I cup the phone holding it closer to my face.
“Talk to me, Warren. What is going on?”
“I just—” He breaks off, and I try to be patient. I try to wait him out. Is this some drug he’s on? Is this something bigger, something different? “I just need you to know. I need you to really know, Al. You have to believe me.”
“What, Warren?” My stomach is churning, flipping end over end, and the tension over the wire is leaking down my arms and coursing through my veins.
“I didn’t kill her. Al, I didn’t think she would go through with it. It was so crazy. We fought, because I know what she did, but I left. Damn, I didn’t think she’d do it. I didn’t think she’d do it, Al.”
“People saw you leaving, Warren. Did you kill her?” Ice breaks along my spine, and my skin prickles. I know, of course I know . . . he did.
“No. Listen to me, Al. I told her I was going to the cops, but man, I didn’t. I just fucked it all up.”
It was a gray car with decals on the back, not a blue truck.
“People saw you!” The ice has seeped into my voice.
“I knew she did it when they found the truck. She . . . I don’t know. She didn’t want . . . accident. She said . . . to jail, said this was the only way.” The line is filling with static, and his words are lost, not making sense. I think I hear him say, “She set you free.” But I can’t be sure. Then I hear the phone bouncing on the floor perhaps, the sound crawling through the line. I am crying now, and the tears drip into the receiver of the phone and slip into the holes.
There is a sudden pounding on the door, not here, but across the telephone line. It crackles—he has picked it up again; I know because I can hear him breathing. Then he says, his voice rising, “I didn’t kill her, I swear it.” The pounding is becoming a concerted thudding. There are yells behind it, and through the line I think I hear: “Police, open the door.”
I hear the wood of his door breaking. I hear feet bursting into the room. I hear others yelling and him yelling, and I hear him being taken to the ground, his breath blowing out across the floor and into the phone, “I didn’t kill her, Al. I swear to God, I didn’t.”
I hear the phone being picked up, and I hold my breath. A strange voice asks, “Who is this?”
I don’t say anything and step as quietly as I can out of the door and replace the receiver in the cradle. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” I slide down the wall, and I pray. I pray like I have never prayed before. I pray that they don’t kill him. I pray that they don’t hurt him. I pray that he didn't kill mother. He can't have killed my mother, because those flipping feelings in my stomach . . . those are the first kickings of the baby Warren left for me.