“Okay,” I said. “I think I can do that.”
Actually, it worried me. It might be against the law to know where a runaway foster teen is living and refuse to say. And what if something terrible happened to Molly in the meantime? But I agreed to try because I had to do something. After everything she had done for Etta and me. Even if I did think she’d done it too slowly.
I caught the waitress’s eye, and she came to our table, pulling two dessert menus out of her apron pocket.
She held a menu out in my direction. I waved it away.
“Nothing for me,” I said.
Molly grabbed hers and ran her finger down the items. If she was really absorbing all those dessert choices, she was a lightning-fast reader.
“I’ll have a piece of the chocolate peanut butter pie to go,” she said. And she handed back the miniature menu.
“Coming right up, hon.”
The waitress retreated, and I sat frozen in my own thoughts. Or lack of thoughts. And my own sense of inadequacy.
“I’m back living at my mother’s house for a time,” I said.
“Okay.”
It was clear from her tone that she had no idea why I was telling her this.
“If I had my own place, you’d be welcome on my couch for a couple of days.”
But my face burned with shame when I said it. Because it might have been a lie. I didn’t mean for it to be. I wanted it to be true. But I’m not sure it was true.
“Right,” she said. “Got it.”
“It’s just . . . if you knew my mother. She’s so negative. She’s just against everything. I couldn’t even ask an old college friend to stay for a few days without her pitching a fit.”
“Right,” she said again. “I get it.”
I got a sickeningly uncomfortable sense that she did get it. All of it. All the subtext. All the parts I was trying to keep under wraps.
She was not a stupid young woman. Not by any means. She got me. And that was an unfortunate turn of events.
We sat in my car. In the dark. Near the trash-filled vacant lot where she had been living.
She was holding the little Styrofoam to-go container on her lap. Running her finger back and forth along the edge of it. It made a strange squeaking sound.
I knew she didn’t really want to get out of the car and go back to that awful place. Who would? I felt like a beast for even bringing her back there.
“Maybe I could take you to an inexpensive motel,” I said. “Pay for a night.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “You’ve done enough. Just talk to my social worker for me.” But still she didn’t get out of the car. “There’s just one thing, though. You said you wanted to take me out to eat so you could talk to me. You know, tell me all kinds of things about that night when I had your little girl, and how you felt about all that. But then you sort of . . . didn’t.”
“True,” I said.
We sat in silence for an awkward length of time.
“I guess the truth is . . . ,” I began. Then I paused. And wondered if I even knew. “I guess I really said what I needed to say in the note. How thrilled I am to have Etta safely back and how much I appreciate the fact that you kept her so comforted. And how that was the answer to something almost like a prayer for me. And that I’m sorry I got it so wrong that first night at the police station. That was what I wanted to say, but I said it all in the note. But it didn’t feel like enough somehow. I needed more. I guess I wanted to talk to you in person to see how you felt about all of it.”
“Oh, I get it,” she said. Her voice sounded more sure of itself. Suddenly. “You want me to forgive you.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“That’s just so typical. People always say they’re sorry for what they did to you, and maybe they are, but they just want to tell you so they’ll feel better, not so you will. Fine. I forgive you. There, are you happy now?”
She opened my passenger door and stepped out into the night.
I jumped out, too. Called after her.
“Molly!”
I didn’t think she would stop. She was stomping away fast. Very determined to get me out of her life again. But I was wrong. She paused. To see what else I had to say, I suppose. I walked closer.
She was standing in the vacant lot, in the dirt. Next to a discarded sofa. A massive thing with no cushions. I got as close as I thought she’d let me. In other words, I stayed a few steps back.
“I guess I’ve got no right to ask you this,” I said.
She was still facing away. As if just about to resume stomping off.
“Probably not,” she said.
But if I could just break through that one brick wall. If I could just understand why she was out there. What she had done to bring it on. Then maybe the idea of inviting her closer into my life to help her wouldn’t feel so terrifying.
“What?” she asked. When she got tired of waiting.
“Why did your mother make you leave? What happened?”
“What difference does it make? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Something must’ve happened.”
“You think it’s my fault, don’t you? You just don’t get it at all.”
“No. I don’t get it. So tell me. Help me get it.”
She breathed out a sigh that was almost more of a snort. I could tell she was angry. “My mother just has these things she’s prejudiced about,” she said.
“I don’t understand that. That doesn’t make any sense. What kind of mother throws her kid out on the street because of prejudice?”
“You’re going to have to tell me,” she said. “Because I have no idea.”
Then she walked away into the
