chapter 31

LAINEY MCKAY

 

 

 

I’d already died inside, wondering how I would live with two great disappearances. How I would ever take another breath. My head rested on top of Daisy’s and my eyes were closed when Piper called to say she’d found him.

The broken weep that came from me must have scared her on the other end. “Where?”

Piper was crying in the same jagged sobs. “A friend’s house. I’d taken him here before to play. We’re on our way back.”

Sirens squealed in the background and I knew they were in a police car. “George has always wanted to ride in a police car,” I said so foolishly, with such abandon.

“Loretta had already called them before we got there,” Piper said.

“Loretta?”

“The house he wandered to . . .” Piper’s voice trailed off with a sob.

“Let me talk to him,” I said and then I heard his voice, his precious voice.

“Mommy?” George’s cracked voice came over the line and I collapsed inside with relief.

“My big boy,” I said. “I’m waiting for you. Hurry . . .”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” he said. “The policeman even put on the lights and siren.”

“That’s still not fast enough,” I told him and I heard his laughter. God, his beautiful laughter.

I shook Daisy awake. “He’s okay,” I told her.

“What?” She lifted her face to mine and wiped at my tears with her hands. “I dreamed he was okay.” She closed her eyes again. “Piper found him.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, she did.”

I lifted my phone to call Tim, but it went straight to voice mail—he was probably halfway here on a plane.

Piper and my son were on the way, and did it matter where they’d found George? We would learn all the facts; we would find out how and where in time. What mattered—the only thing—was that my son was safe.

Out in the bookshop the crowd must have been told because I heard a cheer. I lifted Daisy onto my hip and walked into the main area. People hugged and high-fived and we watched the jubilation without yet being seen. Mimi, in one great act of triumph, tore down the map and posters. My dazed expression must have made me appear as though I’d come from a dream, or a long trip. I smiled out at everyone, but my eyes weren’t focused on anything but the front door.

Bonny and Owen came through the door first and her steps toward me were slow and unsure, but then I covered the ground with a run, threw my arm around her.

“Oh, God. I was so awful to you. I was scared out of my mind. Of course it wasn’t Piper’s fault. I’ve lost him so many times—in clothing stores, in the mall, at the park. He does that. He wanders off. Forgive me.”

“Oh, Lainey. There’s nothing to forgive.” She took Daisy from my arms and set her on the floor.

“Uncle Owen,” Daisy cried out.

He leaned down to her. “Hey there, bunny.”

Daisy yanked at Bonny’s T-shirt. “Look! It’s my uncle.”

“I know, Daisy. Isn’t it great?” Bonny said.

Owen picked her up and she wrapped her little arms around his neck. “Are they almost here?” he asked.

I stared at the front door. “They can’t get here fast enough.” I wiped at my face, at the leftover tears. “I want to kill him and smother him with kisses. I’m going to tether him to me with a rope forever. He’ll have to take me to college with him.”

Then we heard the police car. I ran out to it, opening the back passenger door to see George’s face burrowed in Piper’s shoulder. She held her hand over his head, protecting him. I grabbed my son from Piper and took him in my arms. He squealed in fright and twisted away from me, reaching for Piper, calling her name.

Piper leaned toward him and kissed his face. “Look, George. It’s your mommy.”

George’s hair was tangled, a white mass of curls. His cheeks red with sunburn and heat, his chubby hands and round feet crusted with sand. His sweet face swiveled around to see me and he cried out, “Mommy!”

Fresh tears started. He wept in that hiccuping way of a small child, without reservation, so full of relief and pent-up fear. I sank, slowly and with care, to a bistro chair outside the bookshop on the sidewalk, held my son against my chest and rocked back and forth, uttering his name over and over.

An older woman stepped out of the back of the police car, blinking in the sunlight and walking toward the bookshop. Slowly, one by one, the crowd moved outside. This was the exact moment they had worked toward for hours and hours. This was what they had whispered about and prayed for. There were tears and hugs and I absorbed it all. Bonny sat next to me. The older woman who had stepped out of the car stood there staring at us, her eyes filled with tears. I took stock of her: I felt like I knew her—but how? Piper stood next to her, holding Fletch’s hand, collapsed against him.

The old woman was tiny, a hummingbird. Her eyes were blue; her hair both platinum and curly and pulled back into a knot at the base of her neck. She wore a sundress, flowered and old-fashioned, a fifties throwback. Flat ballet shoes on her feet. I wondered why she stared at us with such a fixed gaze, unwavering even with the tears.

My breath hitched and stayed right there in that space under my heart with stubborn resolve.

The old woman took a few steps toward us and I saw Piper glance from her to me and then back again. “Ms. Loretta?” Piper asked. “Are you okay?”

Loretta, the woman, didn’t answer but stood before me.

“Lainey?” she asked.

“Yes?” I stared at her with a shuddering sense of familiarity. A dance at the square. A card game at the river house. A birthday party with other girls. What was it? My mind, already jumbled and scattered by the day’s events, couldn’t find a name.

“I’m Loretta Rogers,” she said.

I grasped onto the name like a life preserver, something to keep me afloat in the confusion. “Mom’s friend,” I said. “You were . . . Mom’s friend that last summer.”

“Yes, I was.”

I grabbed on to her arm with my free hand, still not releasing my son. Deep in my weary bones, I knew this woman knew where my mother was. “Where is she? Where is my mom?” I asked. “Tell me.”

She lowered her gaze. “Lainey Greer, not now,” she said. “Not now.”

“What?” I wrapped both arms around my son, pulled him closer. No one called me by my full name, not since Mom left.

“Go home with your son. We can talk another time.”

This wasn’t right. Mom was in Texas. Had I made a fool of myself? A crazy old lady and a horrible day. The fight with Owen; my lost son. I was going insane.

But I wasn’t. This woman knew my mom.

“I don’t understand,” I said. My hands shook. I came undone inside, traveling through time. “Who are you?”

Bonny’s voice joined the confusion. “You know Clara?” she asked Loretta.

Then Owen repeated me. “Our mom? You know her? What’s happening?” he asked.

The woman turned to Bonny. “Oh, look at you, Bee Moreland, a mom now yourself. It’s your daughter I’ve come to love so much.” Her gaze wandered to each of us one by one in slow motion. “Yes, I was Clara’s friend all those summers ago.”

Bonny reached for Piper behind her, took her hand.

“Mom?” It was Piper’s voice. “What’s happening?”

No one answered Piper and I asked again, “Where is she?”

“I can’t tell you everything now, Lainey. Get some rest and be with your son. Let’s meet tomorrow,” Loretta said quietly.

I clung to George even tighter. “Tomorrow. Where?”

“Right here.”

“Mommy, that’s Ms. Loretta,” George said in my ear. “She has a million crayons in her house. And juice boxes with dancing apples on them. And she plays pretty music. She gave me the big yellow flower . . .”

Loretta placed her hand on George’s chapped cheek and then withdrew it before speaking. “I wanted to find the right time to tell you about your mom, Lainey. But the longer I waited, the harder it became. When I met Piper I knew the time had come. I knew that it was finally the right time to tell you everything.”

“The time?” My voice wasn’t holding steady; I wasn’t holding steady. I fought two urges—one to shake this woman and make her tell me everything, force her to set the world aright, and the other to run. “Is she in Texas?”

“Texas?”

Just by her question I knew it was wrong. “Is she here?” My gaze shifted left and right, scanning the crowd.

“No. I have a lot to answer for, but there is time for that. Please just take care of your son right now.”

“Mommy.” George snuggled into my shoulder.

Bonny came to my side. “Let’s get you home. Okay?”

“Let me drive you.” Owen stepped up. “Please.”

But I still had more questions. “How did this happen?” I asked Piper. “How did George find this woman?” My mind moved and twisted, trying to find a landing spot.

“He walked for miles. He must have gone up to the road or behind houses for no one to see him. When he saw Ms. Loretta’s house he went there because we’d taken him there when we were delivering groceries, and before we went to the beach.”

“What were you looking for?” I asked George, running my hand over his body just to make sure he was really there.

“Treasure.” His little voice so scratched with fatigue.

“We’ve been hunting treasure all summer,” Piper said, and her voice broke again. “It’s my fault. It’s all . . .”

“I told you he runs away. It could have been any of us.”

“What if he hadn’t gone to Loretta’s?” Piper shook her head, imagining the worst, as I knew she’d do for a long, long time. As I’d done before.

“You know,” I said, empty and exhausted, turning back to the woman named Loretta, “yesterday, I would have given anything to find my mom. I’ve looked and looked for her all of my life. But to almost lose my son to find her, it was not worth the price. Wherever she is, you tell her that.”

The meanest part of me hoped I’d hurt her with my words. But she stood there prepared to take it. “All I ask,” Loretta said, “is that you let me try to tell you the story, to explain it all to you. Please.”

I nodded. Piper then sank to the curb and Fletch with her. She dropped her head on his shoulder and they sat there in the heat.

“I’m so tired,” Piper said. “I could die.”

“Let’s just all get home,” Bonny interrupted. “This has been a . . . day.”

Loretta touched my arm. “I will meet you here tomorrow at noon.”

I nodded and then glanced at my brother. “Please take us home.” We all moved toward the car, except Piper, who stayed seated on the curb.

“You all go on,” she said. “I’m going to stay with Fletch for a little while.”

Bonny spoke up. “You need to come back to the house with us. Get something to eat and drink. Some rest.”

“I will make sure she’s okay, Mrs. Blankenship,” Fletch said. “I promise.”

“This day does not seem real. Nothing about it seems real at all,” I said before I walked away.

“It is,” Loretta said. “It’s all very real.”