Two weeks later Nick was out.
Actually, since the bank had initiated foreclosure proceedings and no one had done anything to stop them, eviction was imminent, so Charity and the kids were out, too. Charity, however, didn’t want to be out with her husband. According to the order of protection, she didn’t want to be within five hundred feet of Nicholas Lavecki.
He’d hit her. She’d hit him first, but he’d hit her back, and that’s what finally did it. After a night out drinking with the Nicknames, Nick had passed out on the futon and Charity had gone through his cell, something she probably should’ve done months, even years, before. Nick didn’t lock his phone or try to hide it; she’d never looked because she didn’t want to see for herself what everyone else knew was going on.
While Nick was passed out, Charity cleaned house. She read the texts from the multiple women and saw the pictures. Then she went looking and found the gambling chits in his sock drawer, and the credit card statements from the Visa card she never knew he had – most of the charges were made at bars and strip clubs. They were drowning in debt.
When he came to, she had out the Louisville Slugger. She’d finished off a bottle of wine herself. She got in one round, and then Big Mitts got in his. Kamilla called the cops. Both of them went to jail – which is where Charity had called her from. It was the first time they had spoken since the birthday party. Charity got out first, thanks to Faith, who’d wired the bond money. And Charity got the first restraining order, thanks to Faith who’d hired the defense attorney. When she got back home from the hearing she saw the Notice of Eviction taped to her front door. That’s when she found out she was going to be homeless.
Her sister was in no state to put her life back together. All she could do was cry and count down the days she had left in the duplex while her three kids tried to figure out what to do about dinner.
Numerous times over the years Faith had asked Charity to come stay with her, but that was not an option now, for a number of reasons. In order for Charity to successfully break away from Nick and her life in Sebring she needed a long-term plan, not a short-term solution. Emotionally she was weak: Nick had gutted her self-esteem, so that she was unable to see a future without someone in it supporting her – that someone being him. So from the moment she stepped away from her old life she had to be invested in her future – emotionally, physically, and financially – not camping out on her sister’s couch, irritating her brother-in-law, wallowing in self-pity, biding time till Nick came calling. She needed her own life and she needed to see she could be successful at running it. With Vivian’s help, Faith found a modest, three-bedroom apartment in Coral Springs near the bakery and within walking distance of the middle and elementary schools. Their mom agreed to give Charity her old Jetta, as the bank was going to repossess Charity’s mini-van once they found it. She set Charity up to work at Sweet Sisters when the kids were in school, and found a low-cost daycare down the street from the bakery for the little one.
And she footed the bill for it all, on the understanding that Charity would be responsible for at least a portion of her monthly bills until she got on her feet, however long that took. All she had left to do was physically get her sister down to South Florida before Nick came back around. The day after wiring the bail money, she drove to Sebring, rented a small U-Haul and in a single morning she and Kamilla packed up the kitchen, the kids’ stuff, and Charity’s closet, loaded everything in the U-Haul, and headed back down to Coral Springs, with Charity following right behind her. She took the Turnpike up and back, avoiding 441 and the rural back roads. With any luck, she would never have to drive on them ever again.
Faith was a month shy of her nineteenth birthday when she’d left home for college. She had never returned. Oh, she’d gone back for Thanksgiving and Christmas and summer breaks, but she never boomeranged back to the nest after graduation, like most of her friends had. But when she’d walked out the door of her childhood home in Miami Shores that sweltering August morning in 2001, she had no idea that she wouldn’t be back. She probably wouldn’t have left if she had, because the thought of leaving her home and her family forever would have been too overwhelming; even though she was aching for independence at that age, she was still a homebody. On that day Charity was sitting at the breakfast bar in sweatpants and a Nirvana T-shirt eating a bowl of Captain Crunch, watching Faith load the car. Their mom couldn’t get off work, so Vivian’s parents were taking them both up to UF. Once the last bag had been thrown in the trunk and she’d reclaimed her favorite jeans from the back of Charity’s closet, she’d returned to the kitchen, patted her sister down for anything else of hers that she might’ve tried to ‘borrow’, kissed her goodbye, and … that was it. There was no fanfare. No mopey tears or drawn-out clutching, lamenting when the two of them would be together again. She’d just driven off, hand waving out the window, watching in the side-view mirror as her house and her mother and her sister got smaller, never understanding at the time how nothing would ever be the same. Because she had no idea she wouldn’t be back. She was looking forward to the future, not missing the past as it waved goodbye to her.
Now here was Charity, back in her rearview, behind her in the U-Haul, a sullen Kamilla beside her in the passenger seat, staring out the window. Torn from her home and her friends without notice, it might be years before Kammy smiled again. Faith couldn’t see the tears rolling down Charity’s face – just as she couldn’t that day she’d left for college – but she knew they were there. Because unlike Faith – who, when she’d left, had always thought she would return home – Charity knew she wouldn’t. This part of her life was over.
‘I’m hungry, Aunt Faif,’ said a small voice in the back seat. It was her niece, Kaelyn, who’d been so quiet, Faith had almost forgotten she was in the car. Strapped in another car seat beside her was a sleeping Kourtney – or ‘Mistake’, as Big Mitts liked to affectionately call her. Charity called her Boppy.
‘Hey there, sugar,’ Faith said into the rearview. ‘I was thinking that I need to get gas. Did you have any lunch?’
Kaelyn shook her head.
‘Then let’s get you and Boppy something to eat. I bet Mommy and Kammy are hungry, too. How about a burger? Do you like McDonald’s?’ Crazy question. Charity wasn’t much of a cook. Her idea of a balanced diet was Burger King for lunch and McDonald’s for dinner. She followed a semi off the Turnpike and into a Shell station.
Kaelyn nodded. The little girl was so polite and sweet. Just about the same age as Maggie, they were buddies whenever they got together. Her front teeth were missing, and she had chubby, freckled cheeks and a mop of light brown hair that ran halfway down her back. Unfortunately, she looked a lot like her father.
‘All right. Let’s gas up first and then we’ll grab some grub.’
‘I don’t want that. I want a burger,’ Mini-Mitts said softly. ‘Please.’
Faith smiled. ‘Grub is another word for food. Aunt Faith was trying to be funny.’
‘Oh,’ replied Kaelyn, rubbing her nose. And obviously Aunt Faith wasn’t succeeding.
Faith pulled the Explorer alongside a pump and Charity pulled the U-Haul in behind her. ‘Let’s gas up and then get the kids some food, OK?’ Faith said, walking up to Charity’s open window. ‘Boppy’s still asleep. Will she get up soon?’
‘Not if you keep driving,’ Charity replied absently. Now Faith could see the tear streaks and the swollen, bloodshot eyes.
‘You OK?’
Charity nodded.
‘Well, I saw a sign for a McDonald’s up ahead. I know the kids didn’t have lunch. Viv is stocking your fridge at the apartment, so you’ll have stuff for the morning. We can grab a pizza tonight. I doubt anybody wants to cook.’
She nodded again. ‘Whatever. I’m not hungry.’
Faith squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘It’s not an ending, it’s a beginning.’
Charity wiped away another tear as it slipped down her cheek. ‘Thanks.’
‘How’s Kammy doing?’ Faith asked. ‘Kammy, are you doing OK?’
Kamilla didn’t reply and Charity rolled her eyes. Faith was happy she wasn’t in that car.
She gassed up both cars and headed into the station. On her way in, she held the door open for an old guy in a battered coat and high-top sneakers. She could smell the beer as he passed. ‘Watch out,’ he mumbled angrily as he shuffled past. She wasn’t sure whom he was talking to. Then he turned around.
‘They know what you did!’ he yelled at her. Bits of spittle sprayed the air.
‘Excuse me?’ she asked, taken aback. She still didn’t know who he was talking to.
He squinted at her. ‘You better run, young lady. Better get in that car of yours and get the hell out of here!’ He sniffed at the air and nodded his head, as if there were a person standing beside him. He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. ‘Your fear gives you away; I can smell it. You stink of nasty secrets!’
‘Skipper …’ yelled the clerk from across the store. ‘Come on. Leave the lady alone.’
‘When you give them the pound of flesh they come for, it’s gonna hurt.’
Faith shook her head as the man stumbled out, still mumbling. ‘Everybody pays. We all pay. Can’t get out of paying when the devil wants his due …’
She watched through the glass doors as he made his way across the lot, muttering to himself and gesticulating as if he was in a heated argument with someone right beside him. She wanted to make sure he didn’t walk over to the cars.
‘Don’t listen to him,’ said the clerk. ‘He’s an old, sick geezer. Drinks too much. I think he’s got something mentally wrong with him. Comes around all the time, telling us how we need to be preparing for the end of days. He’s harmless – really.’
Faith nodded uneasily. She picked up a pack of gum and a couple of candy bars for the kids, searching through her purse for her wallet as she walked to the counter. ‘I need a pack of Marlboro Lights, too. I’m on pumps five and six,’ she said as she dug out her AMEX card. ‘The U-Haul and the black—’
When she looked up to hand her card to the clerk, she froze. Everything – her hand, her words, her thoughts. Everything stopped in its tracks. She stared at the poster behind the clerk’s head.
‘We don’t take American Express. Do you have another card?’
Faith looked at him blankly. She didn’t understand what he’d said. Not a word. Her knees began to shake.
‘Another card?’ he asked, pointing at the AMEX in Faith’s still-outstretched hand. ‘Do you have another card, ma’am?’
It was a handmade poster, like one you might see stapled to a telephone pole or a tree, advertising a garage sale or a found cat. But it wasn’t anything as innocuous as that. On this poster was a smiling photo of a girl with dark brown eyes and long, dark hair.
‘Do you want to pay with cash?’
On her neck was a tattoo of a pink heart wrapped in chains.
‘Ma’am? Hello there? I can’t take this card. I told you.’
It was not just any girl. It was not just any poster.
Handwritten in block lettering above the smiling face of the girl who had asked for her help weeks ago in the rain was the word MISSING.