“And I don’t want to add to it—”
“Then why are you here?” I stare at him, my gaze unforgiving.
He looks down, touching his forehead with his fingers. “Now isn’t the best time to tell you this considering everything going on with Eileen, but I thought you’d want to know I’m moving back to North Bay.”
“Moving back?” I suspected a few reasons he might want to talk, but his moving back wasn’t one of them. “When? Why?”
“This is my home.”
That’s not what he said when he left me. That same argument that died ages ago has been resurrected. “I thought you weren’t happy here?”
“Sometimes things change.”
They sure do. The life I have now seems forever away from the one I was living two days ago, or the one from before when Evan was still my partner. My mind scrambles as I try to envision what this means, how the life I’ve worked hard to create will crumble knowing Evan is just down the street. I’d accepted him being gone. Now suddenly, he’s back. It takes a few seconds to register how rude my reaction probably sounds.
“My mind is all over the place right now. Maybe I’ll talk to you later. After I find out what is going on with Mom.”
“Yeah, I’ll go. Des told me to stop by. I wasn’t sure about it, but you know how Des is.”
He laughs. We both know how Des can be. No isn’t in her vocabulary. The sound of his laugh makes me hurt in a place I didn’t know was still there.
“Give me a call if you need anything,” he says, walking past me to get to his vehicle. “I’ll be around.”
I remain leaning against the car, watching as he drives away. It’s a strange feeling, knowing how much our paths have divided in such a short amount of time. Now, it seems they’re intersecting again. I unbuckle Ava from her car seat. She’s still asleep, so I scamper down the hallway into her room, placing her little body in the crib as gently as I can.
I watch her sleep. Her chest rises and falls. Her arms are outstretched, her fingers coiling and relaxing rhythmically. Sometimes in these moments of calm and quiet, it hits me. Just how much this tiny person is now the center of my world. How I’d do anything to protect her.
13 MarionNow
My phone rings. The sun burns orange across my eyelids, announcing a new day, but I don’t feel rested at all. My body aches for more sleep.
The phone continues vibrating. I slap the covers, trying to find it.
It’s Carmen.
“Marion, you need to get to the hospital. There was an incident at the jail.”
My body jolts forward. Just like that, back to that adrenal state it’s occupied for the past two days. “With Mom? Is she okay?”
“Eileen was stabbed by another inmate. She’s going into surgery right now.”
The phone slides down my hand, landing on the tangled sheets. I’m motionless, thoughtless, trying to catch my breath. I’ve gone from losing Mom as the woman I thought she was to, possibly, losing her entirely.
Ava is cranky when I wake her. I rush to put her in a clean onesie, throw the diaper bag over my shoulder and get in the car. Before leaving the complex, I text Des and tell her to meet us at the hospital. Hopefully, she can take Ava if I need to stay. Waiting for her to get here feels impossible. My need to get to Mom is urgent.
Just last night, I was bruised by her deception. I’m still angry. But buried beneath that fury is the love I still have for her, regardless of what lies she might have told and horrible deeds she might have committed. She might be a kidnapper. A murderer. A liar. But she’s still the woman who raised me, and that’s the woman I’m racing to see.
The process of parking and finding the right floor takes forever, but now I’m standing at the hospital check-in desk, trying to find information. The lobby is too big, too bright with the morning sun shooting in through the windowed walls. There aren’t many people here to help fill the space this early in the morning. The receptionist seems annoyed, if not by the muddled details I provide, then by Ava’s wailing.
“Her name is Eileen Sams,” I say, failing to calm Ava by bouncing her on my hip. “Or Sarah Paxton.”
“Which is it?”
“I… I don’t know. I’m not sure what name they admitted her under.”
The woman continues typing, the computer screen reflecting off her round spectacles. Her eyebrows arch. “I see who you’re trying to find. What’s your relation?”
“I’m her daughter.”
That much is true. No matter what information is yet to be uncovered, our relationship to one another can’t be erased overnight, and in this moment, I’m the person who cares most about her recovery.
The receptionist’s eyes wash over Ava, whose face is red and splotchy. My methodical bobbing does little to soothe her.
“You can’t take a child back there.”
“I have someone coming.”
Her eyes fall across my hands, bare of any rings. “Is it the father?”
I get this all the time. Nosy people with their assuming minds. They like to write my story without knowing it. I’m a careless girl who found herself in trouble. Some miserable woman who couldn’t keep a husband, let alone a father for her child.
“Does it matter?” My eyes narrow at this judgmental stranger. “Tell me what happened to my mother.”
“I can’t release any information. You’ll have to speak with a doctor. Someone will come out shortly.”
I sit by the far wall, the sun at my back casting shadows on the floor. I rock Ava, trying desperately to calm her. She must sense my own agitation and it’s upsetting her, that and the fact I woke her so abruptly. After a few minutes, she’s no longer crying. Her head rests on my shoulder, and I can feel her breathing begin to mellow.
“Everything is okay,” I tell her,
