Page 19 of Love and Other Lost Things

“At least meet with Martin,” Mom urged. “See what kind of advice he gives you.”

Jane shook her head. “I can’t. It would never work.” There was no sense in entertaining these wild ideas that she could ever come home, ever live a normal life, ever stop looking over her shoulder.

“Think of Scarlett—” Mom began, but Jane cut her off.

“Stop.” Jane whirled on her. “Just stop.” The last thing she needed was Scarlett overhearing them and getting her hopes up. In the midst of pancakes and Legos, she’d only have her heart broken. “Did you try to leave Dad? Did you fight for the life you wanted? No.” Jane slapped the dish towel down on the counter. “At least I left. You stayed. You chose him.”

When I desperately needed you to choose me.

At age eighteen, scared and alone, all she’d wanted was for her mother to protect her. To save her. That’s what mothers are for. But Mom had said no.

“Everything I’m doing is for my daughter,” Jane snapped. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

And with that, Mom’s shoulders hunched, her head hung, and her arms wrapped around her midsection as if that would protect her from Jane’s words. It was as if she made herself smaller, maybe she’d become invisible.

Jane felt a shudder go through her. That posture was so familiar. She’d seen Mom shrink into herself just like that every time Dad had berated her for something. But this time it wasn’t Dad’s fault—it was Jane, and her self-righteous anger, who’d caused Mom to look like that. Anger that wasn’t justified. Because what right did she have to blame Mom for staying when she’d waited a decade to leave Matteo? Waited for the right moment, for it to be easier.

Waited to stop being so afraid.

To have something to do with her hands, Jane yanked open a drawer to look for a dry dish towel but, finding silverware instead, she slammed it shut and pulled open the drawer next to it. Two cartons of cigarettes slid to the front. They were the kind Dad used to smoke. The tobacco scent drifted up, taking her back to her childhood.

Jane remembered the faded square on Dad’s pants pocket, where those cigarettes had permanently lived. The way he’d slap them against his palm to pack the tobacco to one end. It used to make her jump, that sound.

“Why do you still have these?” She glanced up at Mom, who seemed to be turning an unnatural shade of red. “Don’t tell me you can’t even get rid of his cigarettes.” Jane slammed the drawer. “He was an abusive asshole. And he’s dead. How can you ask me to stay here when you can’t even get rid of his old cigarettes? He’s like a ghost, still lurking around here. You’re even holding on to his old things. The recliner in the living room and now these…”

Jane turned to look out the window. It had snowed again last night, and the sidewalks were covered. She couldn’t even flee like she had yesterday. But she couldn’t stay here, mired in all the pain in this house’s walls.

Jane pushed away from the counter. “I’m going to shovel the walk.” One more task Mom would have to handle on her own once she and Scarlett took off. Because Jane sure as hell wasn’t staying.

EIGHT

Nik didn’t know what he was doing, driving down Lancaster Road at nine in the morning. It was completely out of the way of his route from the hospital to his house on Sand Hill Lane. But when he’d pulled out of the hospital parking lot after his overnight shift in the ER, his hand had wrenched the steering wheel to the left instead of right, almost like it had a mind of its own. And before he knew it, Nik was cruising toward the west end of town.

Before I knew it.

Please.

Nik knew exactly what he was doing. He was heading to the McCaffreys’ street, and when he got to their house, he was probably going to slow the car and do a shady drive-by. Because that’s what Jane had reduced him to all those years ago when she left with no warning. A creeper on her life. And not even a very good one, because he still didn’t know shit about her.

How many times had he googled her, only to come up with nothing? How many times had he trailed her mom on the sidewalk or in the grocery store, hoping for the right moment to casually ask about Jane. Mrs. McCaffrey never had much to say. “Jane is just fine.” Nik didn’t know if that’s all she knew or if it was just all she’d been willing to share. One distracted day in the checkout line, when Mrs. McCaffrey couldn’t get her credit card to work properly, she’d muttered something about Jane and California. That was it. California.

Adding the state to his Google searches hadn’t helped.

Jane had disappeared.

Luckily, it had been a slow night in the ER because Nik hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the fact that suddenly, unbelievably, Jane was only a couple of miles away. She owed him an explanation. He deserved an explanation. But what would be the point in pursuing this? Nothing she could say would ever be good enough.

So, when he’d finally handed his patient files over to his colleague on the day shift, Nik had gotten in his car, fully intending to go home and sleep. Fully intending to put her out of his mind for good.

Except now, here he was. Coasting down Jane’s street, his foot gently tapping the brake.

Halfway down the block, he spotted a figure on the sidewalk in front of the McCaffrey house, snow shovel in hand. Slowing the car even further, he squinted to get a better look. Her enormous maroon parka and plaid pajama pants practically swallowed her up, obscuring the curves he’d spotted beneath the leggings and cropped sweatshirt she’d been wearing last night. She’d shoved her feet into a pair of oversized boots that probably used to belong to her dad, and she wore a pair of thick gloves on her hands. He’d never seen a more ridiculous outfit in his life.

And still, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

Jane shuffled forward awkwardly, likely from her choice of footwear, but also because it looked like she’d never held a snow shovel in her life. Which probably tracked if she’d spent her entire adult life in California.

Nik brought the car to a stop next to the curb, rolling down the window.

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