Page 127 of The Hitchhikers
Alice stared at their neighbor’s maple tree. The colors were changing. Soon the leaves would fall into their yard, and Tom would rake them all into a tidy pile.
“We don’t have any baby stuff.” They’d donated most of it. She hadn’t been able to bear seeing it all in the room.
He took her hand in his. “We can get more.”
“We still have the crib in the basement.” The one thing she hadn’t been able to give away. She and Tom had put it together. Their son had never used it. He’d never made it home.
“We can repaint the room.”
Powder blue. She’d tried so many samples. Each one in different lights.
“I just started working at the daycare.”
“Yes.” He didn’t say anything else. He knew the daycare mattered to her, so he wouldn’t suggest that she give it up, but she knew it wasn’t a true problem. She was barely working part-time. She could easily take a leave. She might even be able to bring the child with her.
“What if Jenny changes her mind?”
“We’d need our own lawyer.”
“It’s just…” Her voice cracked. “What if the baby’s sick?”
He turned his head so he could look into her eyes. “That scares me too. I can’t say that everything will be fine, but I promise that we will face it all together. Good or bad.”
“It’s too big of a gamble. It’s too complicated.” She buried her face into Tom’s shirt. He used his foot to rock them back and forth in the swing.
“We don’t have to decide right now,” he said. “We can think about it.”
That night, long after Tom had fallen asleep, Alice was still restless. She got out of bed and pulled on her robe and slippers, then tiptoed down to the basement. She found the crib in the corner behind the Christmas decorations. She ran her finger on the edge, blew off the dust.
She dragged the crib up the stairs, banging it on the trim, the walls, gouging the plaster. She was overheating, pulled a muscle in her back, but she couldn’t stop. She finally got it up the last flight. The tiny wheels squeaked as she rolled it down the hall into the room. She wasn’t worried about waking Tom. He was a solid sleeper.
She pushed the crib against the wall. She imagined reaching in to pick up a baby. Soft hair, that dreamy scent of baby lotion and shampoo. Tiny fingers and toes, cooing noises.
She stood in the room for a while, thinking, then slipped back into bed with Tom, curled her cold body against his. She listened to the steady beat of his heart until she fell asleep.
That night she dreamed of a baby being placed in her arms, swaddled in a pink knit blanket. She couldn’t see the baby’s face, but it didn’t matter. Alice already knew who she was.
She was their daughter.
EPILOGUE
August 1991
Jenny took the early Greyhound bus over the border, stared out the window at passing cars and trucks, while her reflection stared back at her. She was thirty-three now, her skin still pale, her blond hair long, and her shape fuller from years of starchy prison food. She was learning how to eat better. She was learning a lot of things. She’d been working on her release for three years. First, day parole, then the halfway house. She’d be on parole for the rest of her life, but at least she’d been granted permission to move back to Vancouver. She had missed the ocean.
It was mid-morning by the time she arrived at the bus station in Seattle. She took a taxi to the address she’d memorized, asked to be dropped off on the corner, then waited on the opposite side of the street, sitting on the grass strip that separated the sidewalk and curb. She was hidden in the shade of a tree but had a clear view of the home through the gap between two parked cars. She sipped water from her thermos.
The house was smaller than she’d imagined, painted a soft yellow, and the front steps, the porch, and the iron gate were all a crisp white. The hedge that ran along the front was trimmed with a flat top. A pretty street, with leafy trees and well-kept houses.
It was afternoon when the door finally creaked open a few inches. Jenny held her breath, staring at the dark sliver of space, until the door widened. Tom, with a sports bag. His hair was streaked with gray, the sideburns gone, but he still looked fit, in shorts and a T-shirt.
He stepped off the porch, walked the brick path to a side garage, anddisappeared out of sight for a few moments. The garage door slid up. A blue car backed out and drove away.
Time passed. She stretched her legs, ate her snacks. Someone was mowing. Two teenage girls walked past, listening to Walkmans. They didn’t look at her.
The door on the house opened. Alice came out. Jenny froze, scared to move in case she broke the moment. It had been so many years. But there she was, unmistakably Alice.
Her hair was a lighter brown, longer, and styled in bouncy spiral curls. She looked casual, but elegant, with sunglasses, white shorts, and a gauzy button-down, left open to reveal a striped shirt underneath. A beach bag hung off her shoulder. A rolled towel poked out.
