August 2019
The months after Helen’s visit passed in a bleary haze for Ella. Some days she found she could barely leave the apartment without feeling the crush of anxiety. Everyone she loved was gone. Jude. Her mother. Marianna. Carla. She had called child services again this morning to see if there was news of her daughter, and still they refused to talk to her. She had done search after search on the computer for news of Marianna, but what news could there be unless it was bad? She had hurt Henry so badly, she knew he wouldn’t take her calls anymore.
But then there was this, a kind of spark that changed everything. Jude had given her one thing she hadn’t expected: confirmation that she was innocent.
At first she didn’t know what to do with that, or even how to feel. She knew about the exoneration programs, the lawyers who worked tirelessly to prove that their clients had been wrongly convicted. But she also knew there was no guarantee. And those kinds of appeals often took a long time. Did she really want to go through all that?
Her mind was spiraling.
When Jude had come to see her, she’d waited for him to bring up their baby. Helen had told her that he had signed away his rights—she was startled when Jude hadn’t asked her anything about the child. She kept replaying everything he had said, and then she felt something snaking along her spine.
What if he hadn’t known? What if her mother only thought he knew because that was what Judge Stein had told her?
She suddenly felt nauseous.
She was still angry with her mother, but Helen was the only one who might have an answer. Or maybe her mom was just a target for her anger and her sadness. She picked up her cell and dialed.
“Darling,” Helen said, and Ella could hear the relief in her voice. She drew in a breath. “I’m so, so sorry, I—”
“No,” Ella said, cutting her off. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to talk about any of that. I just need to know something from you.”
“Whatever you need.”
“You told me that Jude relinquished our child. Is that true?”
“Of course it’s true. Why are you asking me now?”
“How do you know?”
“Well, I heard that from your lawyer. He said he had sent the paperwork for Jude to sign, and that he had.”
“Jude really signed?” Her stomach began to churn.
“What do you mean, ‘really’?”
She thought of Judge Stein, how he controlled everything, how furious Jude had been with him. He never would have signed. “Did you see a signature?” Ella asked. “Was it Jude’s handwriting? Would you know it if you saw it?”
Ella could hear some rustling over the phone. “No, I—” her mother said, and then she went silent, as if she was thinking about what Ella had asked.
Ella began to gasp, trying to get enough air. “Oh my God. He never knew. He never knew! How could he never know?”
“Honey, you don’t know that for sure. And neither do I.”
“Yes, I do. I know Jude!” Ella cried.
“Everything happened for the best,” Helen insisted.
Ella felt like the air was being sucked out of her apartment. “I have to go,” she said, and hung up.
She sat and clasped her arms about her body to control the shaking. She’d call Jude, she’d tell him they’d had a child together. No one could stop her from doing that. Surely he’d want to know about his daughter. He would want to understand all that had happened, the same way she did.
Then she thought about what that knowledge might do. It could create a whole new set of problems. It would hurt the family Jude was building. It would hurt Marianna, too, because now there might be someone who could lay claim to Carla.
She stopped crying and went to the sink and ran the water until it was ice cold, the way she and Jude used to when they were trying to stay awake, when just the thought of being separated seemed too impossible. She splashed the icy water on her face and leaned against the wall, shaking.
She couldn’t tell Jude about Carla. She wouldn’t.
The moment she thought it, she felt her body wincing as if from a blow. It was a hard choice, one that she knew she’d always question. But she wasn’t going to complicate Jude’s life again. She knew him well enough to know he probably would want to send money he didn’t have to a child he wouldn’t be allowed to know. They’d all try to make something right that never could be. And everything would feel more wrong in the process.
Let him be happy.
ALL THAT NIGHT, Ella couldn’t sleep. She tried playing Miles Davis, but that made her think of Henry, so she shut it off. She picked up her knitting, falling into a hypnotic rhythm.
One row. Then the next. She felt herself going deeper and deeper into a kind of trance. When she was writing Dear Clancy, she used to tell people to go for the hard thing, to scour the broken places inside you, because that was often where the truth lay. She thought back to that night in the Steins’ townhouse, about how crazy in love she and Jude had been. And then she started to remember something, the memory like a fly buzzing in her peripheral vision.
She dropped the needles. She was back in the townhouse on the Upper East Side. It was that night. That terrible night. She was moving in slow motion, the air heavy and thick around her. She couldn’t keep her eyes open, and she kept rolling in and out of sleep. One minute she was in the kitchen, the next, sleeping on her desk at school until a sound jerked her away, back to the kitchen again. She was standing at the counter, looking at the foxglove, at the cup in front of her. She felt a deep, driving urge. She wanted to make the tea. She wanted to pour the water over the foxglove. She wanted Jude’s father to drink the tea. She wanted him to die so that she and Jude could have their happily ever after. But then she had to pee so fiercely, she couldn’t think of anything else. She had turned and gone upstairs, leaving the kitchen behind—and the empty teacup.
She hadn’t made the tea. She hadn’t made him drink it. But if Jude had asked her to, if he had said the words, she would have made it happen. She would have done anything to keep Jude with her.
But it hadn’t been her.
ELLA SAT UP knitting until morning, and by the time it was light again she had three quarters of the front of a dark red sweater finished. She could feel the morning coming in, scrubbing the day clean, like new. She put the knitting down and reached for her cell.
Helen had texted her repeatedly, but when she tried to read the messages, the letters swam across the screen. I’m sorry. I was wrong. Those words jolted her. And then:
I have a good friend, the man I told you about at the bar. His name is Mouse. We are seeing each other.
Well, Ella thought, good for both of us. Now Helen could lean on someone other than her. But to Ella’s surprise, she also felt a pang of longing. Memories, she knew, were always changing size. What held more force for her now wasn’t how Helen had outed her. Instead, she remembered how Helen had visited her in prison, every week; how she had made all of her clothing in childhood; how she had rushed out to Ann Arbor when she’d called.
She put her emotions aside and searched Google, typing in Marianna’s name, and then Jude’s. But the news was old, familiar—links she had already explored. And then she Googled Dear Clancy, and there was a new column, for the same paper. It was called Dear Sara.
Stunned, Ella studied a photo of Sara, a woman who looked to be her mother’s age, her hair blond and poufy, a pair of sparkly glasses perched on her nose. The first letter was about whether a sixty-year-old woman could start dating again, if she should color her hair. It was signed, Still a Romantic.
“Go for it!” Sara told her, and Ella sighed. She would have told Still a Romantic to stop thinking of her beauty as her best feature, to think instead about her sense of humor, her kindness, her willingness to be open to love. She would have told her that aging doesn’t preclude love, that there is nothing sexier than curiosity about life. But she wasn’t answering those letters anymore. No one was asking her to. No one was asking her anything.
Sunlight splashed through the window. She could shower and change, and then treat herself, get a coffee and a bagel at Full of Beans, and then come back here and look for jobs, for other places where she could live.
People were out in full force now that the weather was warm. Summer students. Faculty. Year-round families. Ella could hear the students’ shouts, their rhapsodic hellos as they ran into one another. She walked across the Diag, through the mass of people reveling in the freedom of summer. Frisbees zipped by her. Dogs gamboled and barked, sporting jaunty bandanas.
She wasn’t a student. She wasn’t a columnist. She most certainly wasn’t a mother. And though for a while, she had loved thinking of herself as an Ann Arborite, she felt that she hadn’t earned her place here. Instead, she’d had to learn to ignore the stares, the whispers. She’d be gone from here soon.
She made her way to Marianna’s old housesit, and as she approached from the street, she saw a pair of boys running out the front door. Two cars were parked in the driveway—it had been empty when Marianna lived there. And she knew Marianna was gone, that Mark’s old house, too, now would be empty or perhaps filled with strangers.
She couldn’t handle it, these holes in her heart. There was nothing she could do about missing Carla or Marianna. She missed Helen, too, but she couldn’t call her. Not yet.
Missing Henry was something different. She recognized him in the chairs at a local diner, in the carvings on a wooden bench in the Diag. She turned down the street to Wood You, her heart thudding. In the window was a beautiful carved bookcase, with real books leaning against the wood, and a sign advertising Literati, where you could buy the books—that was the kind of thing Henry did for others.
Ella took a deep breath and walked inside, but it was a woman who came to the register when the bell tinkled.
“Is Henry here?”
The woman shook her head. “He’s on vacation, and boy does he deserve it. Anything I can help you with?”
“No, no, it’s okay.”
“Do you want me to tell him you came by?”
Ella didn’t know what to say. She wanted to ask the woman her name and what she was to Henry. How long she had known him. The woman’s face was open and friendly.
“Never mind, it’s not important,” Ella said, then turned and walked out of the store.
ELLA WAS HEADED back home when she thought she saw Marianna, standing alone outside a café, as if she were deciding whether to go inside. Ella stopped cold, hoping this really was Marianna and not just someone who looked like her. And then, as if she had felt herself being watched, Marianna turned around and saw Ella.
“Don’t run,” Ella called, coming closer. Marianna didn’t move, her face unreadable. Ella wanted to touch her, to hold her in place.
“Marianna?” Ella said. She couldn’t tell if she was angry or just stunned.
“What do you want?” Marianna said finally.
“You’re still here—”
“Of course I’m still here. Do you think I’d abandon my child?” Marianna said. “Are you going to make more trouble?”
“No—no.”
“I read about you in the paper,” Marianna said. “Another nice secret you kept from me about your illustrious past.”
Ella started to speak, but Marianna raised her hand.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, folding her arms. “I’ll ask you again, what do you want? Carla is mine now. Just mine.”
Ella blinked hard. “What? Truly? I’m so happy for you—”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am!”
“A lawyer heard about my case. He took it on. Pro bono. He got Carla back to me and so quickly, too.”
“You have her now?” Frantic with longing, Ella looked around. “Is she okay?”
Marianna’s mouth narrowed.
“How could she be okay? Mark took her across the country to California and left her alone in a hotel room for hours. And somehow child services was investigating my capacity as a parent, not his. As fucked up as that was, there was no legal separation, no custody agreement, so he technically had a right to take her. But then he was stabbed, bleeding on the floor, and—” Marianna stopped, wavering. “Mark died, Ella. In the hotel room. With Carla. He died, right in front of her.”
Ella glanced at the ground, then asked, “Do they know what happened?”
“Bar fight maybe. They found his girlfriend, but she was in Montana and didn’t want anything to do with him anymore, big surprise. The police never found out who did it. They didn’t even find the knife.” Marianna looked past Ella for a second.
“I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s out of our lives. Carla was in foster care a few weeks and then they gave her back to me.” Marianna buried her hands in her pockets. “Carla told me she called you, that you had given her your number.”
“I did. I was worried—”
“I was glad she called you, that she had someone to help her.”
“Where are you living now?”
“Mark never got a chance to change his will. Or he was just so certain I’d come back that he wouldn’t have to. The house was left to me. And some money I never knew he had.”
“You’re staying in Ann Arbor?”
“What happened to me here could have happened anywhere,” Marianna said. “And I’ve always loved this place, always felt it loved me back. Plus, I want Carla to have continuity. To be in a place she’s familiar with. Her own room. A school she knows.” Marianna frowned. “And anyway, you could have left, too. But you’re here.”
Ella drew in a breath. All this time, and she had only ever checked Marianna’s housesit. If she’d gone to Mark’s, she might have caught a glimpse of Carla, known that she was okay.
“Not for long,” Ella admitted. “I’m thinking about moving.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet. Someplace cheap so I can coast while I figure out what to do. I won’t be close enough to mess with your life, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She wanted to ask if Carla ever mentioned her. Did her daughter keep anything that Ella had given her? But she didn’t think she had the right.
“She’s yours. I know that. I just want… Could I see her sometime? Can I visit?”
Marianna tilted her head, considering. Ella knew that Marianna would probably tell her no, give her nothing.
“Who do you think you are?” Marianna said quietly.
“Someone who loves both of you.”
“Please don’t do that, don’t work on my feelings,” Marianna said. “My answer’s that I don’t know. My main concern is Carla. We’ll have to see how things go with her.”
“Can I see you?” Ella started to reach for Marianna and then let her hand drift back to her side. “We were friends.”
Marianna snorted. “Were we ever really friends? I mean, I certainly thought so, but you lied to me. I’m still mad at you.”
Ella didn’t push. She thought of all the ways this could play out. Marianna might let her see Carla. She might get to play with her and watch her grow, help her fix her hair and learn to knit more complicated things, laugh at her silly jokes. She’d get to keep on loving her and be loved back. That had to be possible.
“I’ll tell you something funny,” Marianna said. “Something Carla loved. The lawyer said he was referred to us—convinced to take our case by someone who had a funny name. Some kind of animal.”
“An animal?”
“Mouse. That was his name. Short for Mouskevitch.”
Ella’s legs turned to liquid. Her mother had mentioned that name. Mouse was her mother’s boyfriend.
“How did you find him?”
“I didn’t. That was what was so amazing. I was looking for a better lawyer, one I could afford. But then, out of the blue, this lawyer found me. Said he had heard about my case. God knows how, but I was so grateful I didn’t want to jinx anything by asking. And he was taking it pro bono. He was great—we didn’t even have to go to court.”
Ella braced one arm against the wall. Through all those terrible years, navigating fierce first love with Jude, struggling in prison, Helen had always made sure that Ella knew what she had done for her—the prison visits, the special dresses she made for her, the way she had prodded Ella into getting an education. And yet here was something new from Helen, something perfectly orchestrated without Ella even asking or knowing about it. And it had turned out to be what she and those she cared about needed the most.
Ella reached for Marianna’s hand again. “Can I call you? Can I see you again? And Carla?”
“I read the stories,” Marianna said abruptly. “You’re a felon.”
Ella felt bile rising.
“You have a right to hate me,” she said finally.
Marianna studied her. “Losing the column. Being exposed like that,” she said. “That was terrible, and unfair, and it must have been horrendous for you.”
Shame pushed down on her shoulders, but Ella resisted, drawing herself up.
“It was hard,” she admitted. “It’s still hard. But losing you, having you know I’m a felon, that’s harder.”
“I don’t care that you’re a felon,” Marianna said. “I care about the deception.”
Ella shielded her eyes from the sun. In the light, she couldn’t read what was in Marianna’s eyes.
Marianna’s face softened. “How are you?” she finally said, which surprised Ella.
“I’m okay,” Ella said slowly.
“Are you still with”—Marianna paused—“Henry? The guy Carla met and liked?”
Only a friend would remember something like that, Ella thought.
“I wanted you two to meet. I did. But now he’s furious with me. I think we’re over.”
“Maybe you should tell him the truth. The way you finally did to me.”
Ella thought of Henry’s apartment, the chairs he lovingly made, the way he looked at her. She thought of how angry he had been with her.
“Listen,” Marianna said. “Give Carla and me some time. Lots of time. Then maybe we can see you. Maybe you can come see us. I don’t know what I’ll decide is best for Carla, best for me. But we can see.”
Ella put her hand to her mouth. She watched Marianna walking away, waiting until she was out of sight before she began to cry uncontrollably. So hard that a woman stopped to ask her if she was okay.
“I will be,” Ella said, and she tried to believe it.
THAT NIGHT, ELLA called her mother.
“I saw Marianna,” Ella said. “And I need to thank you and Mouse.”
Helen drew in a long, slow breath.
“You don’t have to do that for me, honey. Or for him. Mouse is just that kind of guy.”
“I’m glad then,” Ella said, and then she hesitated. “I’ve decided to move again. I’m just not sure where yet… You have any ideas for me?”
“Honey,” Helen said. “I’m not going to tell you what to do anymore, but I can tell you what worked for me. When I stopped trying to reconnect with the community, another community came to me. I realized I didn’t have to run anymore. I think, maybe, that can happen for you too. And you don’t necessarily have to move again to find it.”
“But everyone knows about me here—”
“No, they don’t. And they talk because they don’t know. Give them a chance to know you. Then they’ll stop talking. And if they don’t? Well, who needs them.” Ella heard a loud buzzer ring inside her mother’s apartment.
“Honey,” Helen said, “I have to go. I’m meeting Mouse for a show.”
Imagine, Ella thought. Helen with a boyfriend. Helen with her own life.
“Mouse! This makes me ridiculously happy,” Ella said.
Helen laughed. “He’s going to love you,” she said, and hung up.
It was the word love that did it. The simple fact that she could be loved, and she could love back if she were brave enough. A flash of Henry crossed Ella’s mind. His kind face. The way he made her laugh. It was time. Without hesitation, she got her box of secrets and left the apartment.
STANDING IN FRONT of Henry’s building, Ella buzzed his apartment, the box in her hand. To her surprise, the door clicked open. As she reached the top of the stairs, there was Henry, in a blue denim shirt, standing in his doorway.
“Come in, then,” he said.
She entered his apartment and handed him the box, then sat down on his couch.
“I thought you should know everything in here now. All my secrets,” she said.
He put the box aside and frowned, then sat beside her.
“Where were you?” she asked. “I went by the shop, but they said you were on vacation.”
“I went away to think,” he told her. “I was worried about you. And I was also mad and a little shell-shocked, if you want to know the truth.”
She was sitting so close she could smell the earthy scent of his soap. She could reach out and touch his hair if she wanted. She burrowed her hands between her knees.
“I waited and waited for you to come to me, but you didn’t,” he said. “I kept thinking, well maybe she needs more time. Maybe I should let her be. You could have told me anything and I would have understood. I thought that was what we were moving toward.”
He sighed resignedly. “But now I just don’t know how I fit into your life. I don’t know how I feel about any of this.”
“I know.”
“I mean, what has this been, you and me? I never could tell.” He looked suddenly miserable. “I’m a good guy. I could ask you—oh all right, I want to ask you, why not make a fool of myself—why didn’t you love me?”
“Henry—I…”
He waved his hand. “I know the answer. No one knows why anyone falls in love.”
“I’ve been miserable, too.”
“What is it that you want? Why are you here? I don’t want that box; I made it for you. And I don’t think I want your secrets, either.”
“The ones I kept from you, you deserve to know.”
“Ella,” he said, pained. “I don’t need to know them. I don’t want to know them. This all feels too late.”
“I wanted to tell you that I’m innocent. That I was railroaded. And if I ever wanted to be exonerated, I’d have to go back to court. But there would be no guarantee of anything other than more media, and I can’t deal with that again.”
“What are you saying?”
She told him more, about Jude and Andrew and that terrible night. She kept his gaze.
“That little girl you met. Carla. She’s my daughter. I had her in prison, and she was adopted.”
Stunned, he stared at her. “Jesus,” he said finally.
“It’s all true. I swear to you. And I know I fucked up. Maybe you’re right, and it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m thinking of moving anyway. To make a fresh start.”
“I don’t understand. Your child is here.”
“I don’t have any legal rights. And I’m still fodder for gossip here. Maybe not forever, but I don’t want to be walking around in a place where everyone will be giving me the side-eye.”
She expected his face to change, to show disbelief or maybe just relief, but she didn’t expect compassion. She didn’t expect sympathy.
“I’m so sorry, Ella.”
“Please don’t be angry with me,” she said. “You have a right to your feelings. I know that I expect too much of people. I’m trying to stop doing that.”
“Why?” he asked seriously.
“Why what?”
“I actually think you don’t expect enough from them.”
Ella blinked back tears. “I don’t understand—”
“Why wouldn’t you expect everything from someone you care about? Why wouldn’t you want to give them everything, let them know everything? Isn’t that the whole reason we’re here, on this planet?”
“What if people don’t want to give it—”
“Then that’s their problem, not yours.”
She wavered, feeling the ground shift beneath her.
“I really missed you,” she said finally.
“Sometimes you have to have a little faith in people,” Henry said quietly. “They can surprise you.” His hair flopped over his face and he shoved it back.
“We good now?” he said, and Ella nodded.
“Good then,” he said. “Will you please not even think of moving? I’m here. I’ll watch out for those side-eyers.”
Ella laughed and then grew serious.
“I don’t even have a job,” Ella said.
“But you could get one,” Henry said. “I know a lot of people around Ann Arbor.”
“Who would hire me?”
“People will surprise you,” he said again.
“Oh, Henry, I don’t know.”
“So, you don’t know yet,” he said. “Don’t you want to find out?” He reached over and put one finger in her top buttonhole. “You know, I admire you.”
“What? Me? Why?”
“You were able to grow here. To be honest with me about something really tough.” She heard him swallow. “You were brave. Are brave.”
“That’s the first time anyone’s ever used me as a good example.”
“Stay,” he said. “We have more to figure out, you and me. And it will be more fun if we do it together.”
She hesitated. She thought about what it would be like to stay here, to stand her ground among people who thought she was guilty of something terrible, who would stare at her in wonder. But she’d also be among people like Henry, people who accepted her, who rooted for her. And maybe she could start to accept and root for herself, too.
“Is that a maybe?” Henry said.
“Are you going to open the secret box?” she said, and he shook his head.
“You’ve told me every secret I wanted to know,” he said.
She wanted to hurl herself into his arms, to take him to bed. She glanced at the door, but she couldn’t move. She loved how he wasn’t pushing, how he was waiting for her to make her own choice, and then she leaned against him and gave him the tenderest kiss she could. He kissed her back.
“If I stay the night, I’ll never leave,” she said.
“And that’s bad—how?” he asked, smiling. But he got up and gently opened the front door for her.
WHEN SHE GOT home, she shucked off her clothes and reached for her robe in her closet. She really should straighten things up in here. Shirts were half off their hangers, and the yellow dress Helen had sent her was crumpled on the floor. When she picked it up, she felt something she hadn’t noticed before: a lump in the hem. Something hard. She got a sewing needle to pick out a few stitches and opened the seam. There, falling into her hand, were her mother’s tiny gold hoop earrings, and what looked like a scrap of fabric.
She tugged on the scrap until she could read the words:
I will always love you and always be proud.
Slowly, carefully, Ella threaded the gold hoops into her ear lobes, where they glittered like stars.
IT WAS THE end of August, and Ella was at one of the local markets buying groceries, at the very end of a long checkout line. She still hadn’t made a final decision about whether to leave, what to do. She saw Henry almost every night now, his bright hopeful face, but he never brought up her leaving or asked her to make promises.
He had found her a job, though, at a bakery in Kerrytown, which was both something to do and a much-needed source of income. She didn’t dare think about Marianna and Carla—well, not too often. Maybe she didn’t deserve them in her life. But still, she kept the drawing Carla had made, the one that said My Family at the Park.
In line, Ella was admiring the panache of an older woman in front of her, dressed gaudily in bright shorts and a red T-shirt, her hair punked up and white, when the woman’s groceries dropped from her hands and spilled onto the floor.
“My God, I’m such a klutz,” the woman said, crouching, picking up grapes and apples and a few lemons. She rose to smile ruefully at Ella. She was wearing huge, mirrored earrings that Ella admired.
Ella picked up a stray lemon and handed it to the woman.
“Thank you!”
“No problem,” Ella said, and smiled. “I like your earrings.”
“I just wear them to deflect from how old I am.”
“What? You don’t look old at all.” This woman is strikingly lovely, Ella thought.
“Oh my God, yes I do,” the woman said. “I worry that the first thing people think when they see me is why is that woman so old? Why doesn’t she take better care of herself? She could color her hair. But if I did color it, then they’d think, who is she fooling? It just goes on and on.” The woman hesitated as if she were making a judgment call. “I’m sixty-seven,” she said finally. “What a tragedy.”
“Okay,” Ella said calmly. “You’re sixty-seven. And you have beautiful skin.”
“What? Look at these lines. I would get those injections people keep telling me about, but I hate needles.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I do. I feel that people don’t respect me because of my age.”
“Do you have proof of that?” Ella said. “Did anyone ever, ever say that? Or hint at it even?”
“Well, no,” the woman admitted.
“That’s because it’s simply not true.”
Here was the kind of face-to-face moment that resonated, the kind that she hadn’t had since she was a peer leader in prison. Getting people to realize that what they were most afraid of just might not be real. The woman’s face relaxed into a smile.
“Maybe,” she said, and then, impulsively, she moved closer.
“Wait,” she said. “I know who you are.”
Ella grew rigid, but the woman touched her arm.
“You’re Ella Fitchburg, right?”
“I need to go—” Ella said, looking around, but the people in line in front of and behind her were lost in their own worlds. No one was listening. The woman touched her arm again gently.
“No, no, I don’t care about all that tabloid stuff,” she said, and Ella flinched. “I want to talk about your column! I used to read it religiously. Dear Clancy. Loved it! Just so appreciated your advice. You’re good at this. Have you ever thought of being a therapist?”
“Me? A therapist?” Ella said.
“Well, why not?” the woman said.
“I would need a license. A graduate program. It’s expensive.”
The woman shook her head. “Not always. There are scholarships, loans. If you’re a resident, it’s so much cheaper. Are you a resident? Been here a year at least? That’s all it takes.”
Ella wavered. “Yes,” she said. “I guess I am.”
“And there’s other cheaper colleges than U of M. I took courses at Eastern myself.”
“I don’t know if anyone would want to come to me,” Ella said.
“Why not? I would.”
This woman wasn’t frowning. She didn’t hum with that vibration Ella had grown to recognize, that excited wanting-to-know-every-sordid-detail she encountered so often in strangers now. This woman’s eyes were clear and focused on her.
“Why?” Ella said.
“Because you’ve been through so much and you’re still here. Because you never gave up. Because you just helped me a minute ago with a few casual words. And believe me, I have more issues than I can deal with. I can’t help thinking that someone like you would understand anything I might say. And that you wouldn’t judge me.”
Ella stayed very still, listening, thinking.
The woman stepped forward and Ella drew back as a reflex. But something about this person made her quick to relax.
“My name is Melody. Melody Strong.” The line had inched forward and suddenly it was Melody’s turn.
“Go do it,” Melody said. “I’ll be your first client.”
“You would?” Ella said, astonished. She felt her heart kickstarting, her breath quickening. Dizzy, she braced a hand along the checkout belt. She could feel Melody smiling at her, all that encouragement and warmth like a sun.
“Do it,” Melody repeated, and then she picked up her groceries and was gone.
ELLA WALKED HOME in a daze.
“Hey, smiley!” a random guy called out to her, and she laughed, realizing what she must have looked like. She felt as if a sparkler had been lit inside her. As soon as she got inside her apartment, she dumped the groceries on her chair and began to research graduate programs. Eastern Michigan had some. So did Wayne State. Her hands trembled over the keyboard. Both had two-year programs, and then training. Both had scholarships. She could take one course at a time, as she could afford it. She could get work-study, too, to help her finances. Maybe it would take forever, but it wouldn’t matter because she’d be working toward a goal. An extraordinary goal.
I can do this. I can be this.
Clancy was a costume she had put on every day to pass. But this—this was truly her.
HER HANDS GRIPPED the edge of her chair. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe. It was just an application. She could do this. She could stay in a place she loved. She could eventually even set up a practice here.
I can do this. I can be this. This is who I want to be.
Everything now was a leap of faith, she thought, including Henry. How she needed him. How she might love him. How she owed it to herself to find out.
Her hands reached for her cell. He answered on the first ring and she instantly felt his sense of calm washing over her.
“Hey,” she said. “Remember you said I should consider not leaving—”
“Oh my God, you’re staying?” he said.
“I’m coming over.”
And then she did.
THE FRIDAY AFTER Ella had made her decision to stay, to go back to school, she went outside, feeling restless. Shouldn’t she be happier? Maybe she could be if some things didn’t still tug at her, things that felt unfinished. She didn’t know when, how, or even if she’d have a deeper relationship with Marianna and Carla, though she desperately hoped she would. She was anxious about going back to school, too: how she’d do there, if she’d fit in and have friends, and if she did, what she’d share with them about her past.
She told herself she had done the tough stuff already. She’d earned a degree from Bard while in prison. She had held a job that people respected. And, at long last, she’d found out the truth—discovered her innocence. If she could do all that, she could do anything.
Her hand unconsciously moved to the tattoo on her arm, circling the hummingbird she had gotten all those years ago with Jude. It had faded, the wings blurred, as if the bird had dropped all thoughts of flight and had given up. When she had seen Jude, she had spotted his arm, bare of his tattoo, and she’d felt the absence like a slap. She hadn’t needed to ask him why he removed it. She knew. Getting those tattoos was the kind of reckless thing crazy kids do, but they were both older now. Jude had lasered his off, along with his past. Maybe it was time for her to get rid of hers, too.
Determined, heart thudding, she headed over to Rose’s Tattoo. Rose was there alone, and she smiled when she saw Ella. Her eyes gravitated to the tattoo.
“I want to get rid of it,” Ella said emphatically. “Laser it off.” She couldn’t wait now to get it removed, to be free of it.
Rose arched a brow. “Really?” she said. “You sure? It’s so beautiful.”
“It doesn’t belong on me anymore.”
“What a shame.”
“I need it gone,” Ella emphasized. She couldn’t bear the imprint of it on her skin anymore. She wanted her arm bare and clear, the final piece of her past zapped away so that she could move forward.
Rose patted a leather chair. “Sure. Have a seat.”
Ella sat, but instead of feeling relieved, she felt a flutter of panic. At first she wasn’t sure why, but then she looked around the tattoo parlor, at the photographs of people and their tats. Some people had commemorative dates on their skin. Others had hearts or words, like Mary, Forever.
Rose pointed out a picture of a young woman with two tiny stick figures. “See that? At first it was just one, for her baby. Then she had another three years later! Tattoos can always be adjusted.”
She looked down at her tattoo again. It was hazy, as if the bird didn’t really know what it wanted to be yet. It represented her past. But maybe she could clarify it, see it in a new way. Maybe she could even make it beautiful. Maybe she wouldn’t have to hide it anymore.
Something was happening. She felt it rising up inside her.
“Maybe you could change it,” Ella said. “Could you make it fly again?”
“Attagirl,” Rose said, and picked up the needle. She winked at her. “Let’s see how big and beautiful it can be.”
A wave of excitement washed over Ella. She sat up straighter.
“I’m ready,” she said.
And now, finally, she was.
Ella sat still, alert, oxygen rocketing through her. I’m doing this, she thought.
And then, just for a moment, before Rose’s needle even touched her skin, she swore she heard the flapping of wings, like a new, glorious life, ready to take flight.