“Want to knock back a few?” she asked me. One of her eyebrows arched up. It made her face look mischievous.
“It’s seven o’clock in the morning.”
“Seven o’clock in the morning is my version of after hours. But if it doesn’t work for you, no problem. I understand.”
“I have to pick Etta up at day care soon,” I said. “But I could knock back one.”
We sat at the bar together. I was staring at the image of the two of us in the mirror. Running my hand over the cold wetness of my beer bottle. Noting how confident she looked. And how lost I looked. Wondering why everybody seemed to have this life thing down to a science except me.
“I made such a mess of everything,” I said to her. Breaking a long silence.
“In what way?” She ran one hand back along her closely cropped hair as she spoke. As though it needed smoothing down.
“With Molly.”
“Oh. Right. That.”
“I owe her so much. I mean, think how different my world might be right now if she hadn’t been there for me that night. And then I went and let her down. I made her a promise, Grace.”
“When did you make her any promises?”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s right. You don’t know.”
So I gently unraveled the story. Brought her up to date. The trip back to Utah. Waking in the morning to find my mother had put her off the property. My efforts to locate her since.
Then I fell into silence, wondering if I had just put myself in any legal jeopardy. If I knew where this runaway teen was, which at one time I did, had it been my job to report it? Tell her social worker? I had no idea.
I waited, my heart thumping.
She ran her hand over her hair again. Let out a deep sigh.
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” she said.
I felt myself relax some. My heart slowed to a more normal pace.
“I don’t think I am. I think I let her down.”
“Well, I’m not saying there’s no way you could have handled it that would have been better. But you’re human, Brooke. You were trying, anyway. You met her at the worst time of your life. Your emotions were going every direction at once.”
“And after that?”
“After that, you had your baby daughter to think about. It’s counterintuitive to throw open your door for a relative stranger off the street.”
“I would have thrown my door open for her,” I said. “After I knew her a little. Problem was, I didn’t have a door. I only had somebody else’s door. It helps to have a door of your own.”
She smiled. But it was a sad-looking thing.
“If you came here to be absolved, you got it,” she said. “You meant her no harm.”
“Actually . . . I was hoping you might be some help in finding her.”
She shook her head. Without pause.
“Not really. She’s not wanted for any crime. If she were a younger child, she’d be seen as a danger to herself, and then the police could get involved. But she’s sixteen. Old enough to be an emancipated minor. But . . . more to the point . . . we don’t know where she is, either, Brooke. I mean, we find people based on things like credit card trails. You know. Living-on-the-grid kinds of things. The best I can really do here is let you know if she gets arrested.”
“She won’t get arrested.”
“What makes you say that?”
I took a sip of my beer before answering. I had said it so quickly. And so glibly. Now I had to decide how much I should stand behind what I’d said.
“She’s just a basically honest person.”
“Yeah. I get that. But need does things to a person. Makes them do things they never thought they would do.”
I drank my beer for a long time in silence. I was trying to decide if she was right. And if I wanted her to be.
I never could decide.
Two days later, on the last day I could before starting my new job, I strapped Etta into her car seat and took another trip to the jail. To make a liar of myself by seeing that Denver Patterson boy one more time. Because I had to know if Molly had gotten my message.
The only person behind the desk was the woman with the braided hair. She knew who I was. She knew who I’d come to see.
“He’s gone,” she said.
“Gone?”
I felt as though she’d wakened me out of sleep. I couldn’t seem to put a meaning to her simple words.
“Released.”
“Oh,” I said. “Released. Off to Kentucky.”
“Yep. Off to Kentucky.”
She rolled her eyes in a way that seemed to indicate she had heard about the Kentucky plans far too many times for her liking.
It struck me then. That I would never know.
Etta fussed on my shoulder, feeling the change in my mood.
I turned to walk out. But I stopped again. I couldn’t leave it alone. I had to know.
“Did he get another visit from his friend before he got out? That girl?”
“I’m sorry to have to say . . . ,” she began.
And, in her pause, I thought she was telling me Molly had not come. And I wondered how many times I’d have to hit the END sign on this dead-end street before I got it. Before I gave up and went home, both literally and figuratively.
But the finish to the sentence was not what I expected.
“. . . I’m not allowed to give out that information.”
“Got it,” I said. “So I’ll just never know.”
“Never know what?”
“I gave him my address to give to her. But now I’ll never know if she got it.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay. You’re just doing your job.”
Then I went home. Both literally and figuratively.
I was walking down the hallway of my new apartment building when Etta started in on me about Molly again.
“Molly, Molly, Molly,” she chanted.
I realized it was time to stop avoiding the issue and
