It’s not really a very good way to live, in my opinion, but I guess it helps people get to sleep at night.
“Because then it could never happen to Etta,” she said.
“It could never happen to Etta. You’re not like that.”
“Thank you. Even thinking about it scares me, though.”
Then we didn’t talk, either one of us, for miles and miles.
And then, just out of nowhere, she said, “Think you can forgive me for that?”
I said, “I think I already did.”
And then we rode most of the rest of the way back to LA without talking.
Chapter Twenty-One
Brooke: Wrong
We were about thirty miles outside of LA when the silence broke. Molly broke it. She had a question.
“So, do we have a plan?” she asked.
I immediately felt the sense of pressure it placed on me. I’d told her I was going to find her some kind of solution. But I couldn’t do my promised research and drive home from Utah at the same time. Still, I felt the weight of the big promise I’d made.
“I need time to put a plan together, Molly.”
“I meant tonight.”
“Oh. Tonight.”
That was a reasonable thing to ask. We were almost home. My home, that is. She wanted to know her immediate fate.
I could hear the edge of tension in her voice. It wasn’t overt. In fact, she might have been doing her best to keep it to herself. The fact that I recognized it probably meant I was getting to know her a little.
It struck me that the trip had changed something about her situation. It had removed her from the jaws of the unpredictable streets, if for only a few days. I had been in similar situations, only with much smaller fears. When you’re immersed in them, and treading water every day, it feels just barely doable. But step away for a time, and it’s hard to imagine you ever successfully navigated those waters.
I had given Molly a few days of feeling found, and now she was dreading getting lost again. Hard to blame her for that. I had told her I wasn’t throwing her back to that terrible crate on that vacant lot full of trash. Now she was ready to find out if that was just talk. Or if she could really depend on me.
I’d been thinking about a plan for our first night back. Of course I’d given it thought. And I did have one idea. But it felt wrong.
“I had a thought,” I said. Trying to ignore how wrong it was.
“Okay. I’d like to hear it.”
“It doesn’t feel right to me, though.”
“Still want to hear it.”
I looked in the rearview mirror to see if there was any movement from Etta. I was pretty sure she was asleep. But I wanted to know for a fact. I’m not sure why it felt important in that moment.
“I can’t bring you into my mother’s house,” I said. “She’d have a fit.”
“Right. You said that.”
She was staring out the window. Her face was turned fully away. Maybe so I couldn’t see what was happening in her eyes.
“I could put you up in a motel for the night. Problem is, it would have to be a really long way away. I’d have to drive a long way to find the right one. Because the ones within a few miles of my mother’s house would be a lot more expensive than I could afford.”
“Was that the idea you said was wrong?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. What was the idea?”
“I’m not comfortable with it,” I said.
“Can I please just hear it anyway?”
“I was thinking . . . my mother has a rollaway bed. And I was thinking maybe I could move it into the garage for tonight. There’s no real need to put the car inside. It’s just about to be repainted anyway. Although my mother will want it in the garage all the same, because she thinks it’s an eyesore for the neighbors. But anyway. It’s a terrible idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Why is it a terrible idea? Because then the neighbors will have to look at the weird car?”
“No. Because it’s a garage. You deserve better than a garage. People make their dogs sleep in the garage. It’s not for human children. I think you’d be better off if I drove you to a motel.”
She turned her head to look at me. But I had to keep my eyes on the road in that moment.
At least, I think I did.
“I’d rather be closer to you and Etta,” she said.
There was a lot to unpack in that simple sentence. A bunch of hopes. A boatload of emotion. I think that was the moment it struck me that Molly had latched on to us as her family. Or was trying to, anyway. She wanted to be part of what Etta and I had together. She wanted in. I couldn’t see what I had to give her except disappointment.
I talked over all that.
“A garage, though. It doesn’t seem good enough.”
“Seems good enough to me. It has four walls. And a bed. Whatever kind of bed you said your mother had. I don’t know what that kind of bed means, but it’s a bed, so it’s better than what I’m used to.”
“A foster home would have to give you more than a garage.”
“When I was in that foster home I had to sleep in a closet. Locked in.”
I said nothing for a minute. I was digesting that. Trying to make my peace with what that terrible foster home had offered Molly. And what another placement might offer her again when I entrusted her to someone else.
