Page 34 of The Cost of Forgetting You

When he speaks, it brushes through a thick, white broom of a mustache and dissipates like fog in the air.

“Your mama’s looking for you.” He clears his throat. “You need to go to South Baldwin Regional. She’s waiting for you there.”

My gaze cuts to Lucy, still huddled in her corner of the cab. Our eyes meet, twin expressions of fear. I hear rustling behind me, and when I turn back, the officer is bent over and peering into my truck. He catches sight of Lucy, and his expression softens.

“Miss Barlow, I better take you on home.” He glances between the two of us. “I doubt the pastor knows you’re out this late, huh?”

Tears well in her eyes. They’re different from the ones the officer was fighting back a moment ago. She’s afraid. And in this moment, terror ripples through me. My mom is at the hospital. Lucy is about to get brought home by a policeman. I want to split myself in two and send each half in a different direction—one to take care of my mother; the other to protect Lucy from the consequences of my own terrible decisions.

The officer—Langston, according to the gold badge pinned to his pocket—shakes his head gently. “I’ll get her home safe. Your mama… Well, she needs you, son. Better go.”

He pats the roof of my truck and offers a solemn nod, then turns back toward his cruiser.

A hand, featherlight and impossibly soft, lands on my forearm. Lucy tilts her head toward the policeman’s retreating form. “This is going to be so bad.”

“I’m sorry.” I grab that hand. Hold it tight. “I never should’ve gotten you into this.”

Her eyes are wide and glossy. “What do you think happened? With your mom?”

“I don’t know.” That fist around my heart tightens. Wrings me out. A thought reaches me, almost against my will. “My dad…”

“He didn’t mention your dad.”

We stare at each other, both realizing what that could mean. A laundry list of things I don’t want to inspect.

A quick blip sounds from the cruiser. I squint against the bright lights to see the officer nod.

“You have to go.”

“Henry,” she whispers.

When I look back at her, her teeth are buried in her bottom lip. The blue and red dance over her blonde hair, distorting its color. I reach out to touch it. To remind myself this was real, if only for a moment. Because deep in the cavern of my heart, I know that everything is about to change.

“My dad… he’ll be so upset.” A tear slips from the precipice of her lashes. I swipe it away with the back of my index finger. “He already doesn’t like you.” She sniffles. “He won’t be able to forget this.”

“I know.” And I do. The moment the officer laid eyes on Lucy, there was only one outcome for all of us. “I’m sorry, Lucy. But I have to go. I’ll find a way to apologize. I’ll make your dad understand it wasn’t your choice; it was mine.”

“Henry—”

I cover her mouth with mine. For long moments after I release her, the feel of her tearstained cheeks against my palms remains. Eventually her eyelids flutter open.

“Be safe.” She finds the handle and pulls.

“You too.”

I watch her walk toward the cruiser like she’s approaching the gallows. In a way, she is. After the warning I’ve already received from the pastor, this night will not be easily forgiven. But I meant what I told her. I’ll make it up to her father somehow. I can’t lose her. Not now that I’ve finally had her.

I wait until the cop pulls away, then I flip a U-turn and head toward the hospital.

January 13th, 1997

“It was a massive heart attack.” My mom’s lips warble over the words. “A widow-maker, they called it. I suppose that’s apt.”

She folds in on herself, arms wrapped over her center, as sobs send shock waves through her body. A woman I’ve never seen as anything but invincible is slowly fracturing in front of me, and I’m useless to stop it. Pastor Timothy, face arranged in some hollow semblance of empathy, clicks his tongue. He reaches over the back of the pew he’s sitting in and settles his hand on my mother’s bouncing knee.

“Loretta, I know it hurts.”

Does he? Does he know that it feels like the entire world has been remade around us? That in the course of a night, our reality was completely distorted, no longer recognizable to either of us? Does he know that I held my mother in the sterile hallway of South Baldwin Regional as she wailed so loud the nurses even shed a few tears? Does he know that I had to be the one to hold my father’s hand as they removed him from life support, because my mother couldn’t force herself into that room?

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