Chapter 23

“I want to leave my sneakers here,” Jenny said, stopping in front of The Sole Survivor.

“Fine,” her mother said, “I’ll run over to Nicholes, see if I can find that can opener.”

A young man, dark-eyed, sat at a sewing machine. “Yes? Hello?”

“I’d like these sneakers resoled, please.” Jenny put her packages down on the counter.

“Customer,” the young man called, and Nell Montana came out from behind a curtain. She was wearing a shirt that looked vaguely Indian and had big silver hoops in her ears and silver and turquoise jewelry around her neck.

“May I help you?” she said, then recognized Jenny. “Jenny?”

“How are you, Mrs. Montana?”

“Oh, just—I’m …” The sentence trailed off. Although dressed gaily, Nell Montana didn’t look good: a lack of color, her eyes unhealthily dark. She took the sneakers and handed Jenny a ticket. “Rob told me about you two,” she said. “You made him very unhappy. He didn’t want to tell me, he didn’t want to upset me, but I knew something was wrong. I got it out of him.”

Jenny twisted the ticket in her hand. Behind her, she heard her mother. “Ready, Jenny?”

“Yes, I’m coming!” She grabbed her packages, but then her mother was there, and Nell Montana was saying, “Your mother?” And to Amelia, “You’re Jenny’s mother?”

“Yes,” Amelia said pleasantly.

“You’re Mrs. Pennoyer? I’ve wanted to meet you.” She reached for Amelia’s hand. “Oh, how I’ve wanted to meet you. I’m Nell Montana.”

Jenny’s mother drew in a sharp breath. “You’re—”

“Yes.”

“Please. Let go of me.”

“Hear me out—”

“I don’t want—”

“Hear me out. I need to talk to you. I have needed to talk to you for a long time.”

Jenny stood frozen. Behind them the sewing machine whirred. The man looked up and smiled uncomprehendingly as if the two women, their heads so close, their hands joined, were having a social chat.

“Do you know that I can’t sleep?” Nell Montana leaned farther over the counter, her words tumbling out. “I used to go to bed at night and before I fell asleep I’d make up stories about things that were going to happen. Great things—for my son, my daughter, even me. I had silly dreams I’d be discovered, become famous, maybe a model, a country singer. I’d dream like that and fall asleep smiling, that was the sort of person I was. Then I went out one night …” Her voice faltered.

“Jenny, we have to go,” her mother said, but Nell Montana didn’t relinquish her grip.

“… and there was a party and it was raining and—and everything changed. I—oh, what happened was, it was—I couldn’t stop crying! No. And my whole life … nothing since then … nothing … it’s all changed, changed. Do you understand?” The dark, sunken eyes glowed feverishly.

Amelia’s lips were pressed together, splotches of color flushed her cheeks and forehead.

“I tell you, you must forgive me. I need that. I need your forgiveness. I am living in hell.” She said this quietly, as if exhausted.

“Not a day goes by,” she went on, “not a day, I swear to you, not a single day … I know. I know how you feel. You think I’m heartless. I read your letter. You think I don’t know. But I have a daughter, too. I know. I know how you feel.”

“No,” Jenny’s mother said, the color mounting and mounting in her face. She wrenched her arm free. “You still have your daughter. My daughter is gone.” She ran out of the store.

“Come back,” Nell Montana cried. “Come back!”

The man at the sewing machine looked up. “You called?”

Nell Montana walked past him into the back room and Jenny, heartsick, gathered up the packages and went after her mother.

In the car, going home, her mother wept. “What does she want of me? What should I have done?”

Driving, Jenny reached out, touched her mother’s knee. “Mom …” But she didn’t know what to say. She herself was overwhelmed by confusion. Who was right? Who was wrong?

Her mother pressed her face to the window. “I couldn’t forgive her. I can’t. In my heart, I don’t forgive her.”