Night Road

He couldn’t know what those words did to her. “Don’t, Zach. It’s too late. I can’t take it again. Just … let me go. Say good-bye. Throw the Thermos in the Sound. ”

“I miss her,” he said, and Lexi felt the start of tears.

How was it they had never had this conversation? She started to say how sorry she was, but he shook his head and said, “But I miss you, too, Lexi. ”

“Zach…” She could barely see him through her tears now, but she wouldn’t wipe them away.

“I don’t see how you could forgive me … I can’t forgive myself, and I’ll get it if you hate me. But Lex … oh, man … I’m so sorry. ”

“You’re sorry? I killed your sister. ”

He looked at her. She saw how uncertain he was, how afraid. “Could you ever love me again?”

She stared at this blurry version of him, shadows and moonlight, and remembered the first time he’d kissed her, the first time he’d held her hand, the day he’d stood up in court and said he was guilty, too, the day he’d taken their daughter in his arms. It was all between them in this instant—the good, the exceptional, the sad, the horrific. Everything that they’d been as kids and the adults they were trying to now be. She could no more deny loving him than she could carry weights into the Sound and drown herself. Some things simply were in life, and her love for him was one of those things. It didn’t matter that they were young or that there were a dozen reasons for them to be apart. It only mattered that his blood had somehow found its way into her veins and without him she was lost. “I do love you,” she said quietly. “I tried to stop…”

He took her in his arms and kissed her. At the touch of his lips, so sweetly, achingly familiar, she felt as if her soul, bound in chains for years, broke free, stretched and opened its wings. She was flying, soaring. She clung to him, crying at last for the best friend she’d killed and the years she’d lost in prison and the daughter whose babyhood would forever be hidden from her. This moment was more than she’d ever dared to hope for, and the love she’d tried so hard to extinguish overwhelmed her.

She drew back and stared at him in wonder. Tears spiked his lashes, made him look impossibly young again, like the boy she’d given her heart to all those years ago on a night like this, with the lights of the highway rushing past them. “How?” was all she could say, but she knew he understood. How could they go back, really?

“I love you so much, Lexi,” he said. “That’s all I know. ”

“So, what do we do? How do we start?”

He handed her the dirty Thermos as carefully as if it were an artifact from a lost civilization, which, in a way, it was. “We keep our promise. ”

Lexi held the time capsule in her hands, picturing the gold earrings, the Saint Christopher medal, and the fraying friendship bracelet within.

Lexi felt Mia with them—in the warm summer breeze, in the rustling of the trees, in the steady heartbeat of waves. She kissed the sandy curve of the Thermos and buried it again. When she was done, she patted the sand in place. “She’s here,” Lexi said, feeling her best friend beside her for the first time in years.

Zach finally smiled. “She always will be. ”

Then he took her hand and they stood up. “Come home with me, Lexi,” he said, and all she could do was nod. Home.

They walked quietly toward the house, and she thought: this is how we do it; this is how we talk to our daughter. Holding hands.

* * *

The next morning, Grace woke up early. In her footed pink jammies, she walked sleepily down the narrow hallway to her daddy’s bedroom, dragging her yellow blanket along behind her.

His door was closed. That was weird. She pushed the door open and started to say, Wake up, sleepy head, but all she got out was, “Wa—”

Mommy was in bed with Daddy. They were kinda stuck together, sleeping.

Grace got a little flutter in her heart.

Her mommy was here.

She shuffled forward and climbed up on the bed, squirming between them. Before she could say anything, her daddy started tickling her, and she giggled until she couldn’t breathe. Then she lay there, between her mommy and daddy, feeling like crying even though she didn’t know why.

“Are you okay with me being here, Gracie?” her mommy asked.

“I thought you were leaving. ”

“Your daddy changed my mind,” Mommy said. “Is that okay with you, Grace? Can I live with you guys?”

Grace giggled at that. She felt so happy she forgot to cover her mouth. “Of course it’s okay. ”

After that, Grace had a lot to tell her new mommy. She talked nonstop until the alarm beside Daddy’s bed rang; then she sat up suddenly and said: “I gotta go to school. It’s the last day. Will you drive me, Mommy?”