“I hope the power will be back on by this afternoon. I can’t get ahold of Jonathan. Weird he’s gone so early.”
A puzzled look crosses my mother’s face. “Oh my God, honey, I thought that’s why you came over.”
“No, we have no heat.” I grip the cup in my hand. “This fire feels amazing.”
“I’m sure he’ll be calling you soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was on the news.”
I go completely numb. “What’re you talking about, Mother?”
“There was an accident.”
Paralyzed with fear, worried my boyfriend has been gravely injured, I start uncontrollably shaking. “What’re you talking about, what kind of an accident? Speak!” I command her. “What is going on?”
“He’s alive, but he injured someone—pretty badly, from what the lady on TV said.”
“How?”
“He was drunk, Charlotte.”
“Mother, you always say that.”
“Charlotte Rose, this isn’t my opinion, this is a fact. He was drunk driving and hit a woman.”
“When?” The earth starts to sway beneath me. Could Kansas have earthquakes, I wonder, and in the middle of winter? “Is he hurt?”
“Early this morning.”
“But the storm, there was a bad storm, it could’ve happened to anyone.”
“Charlotte, he’s in jail. He has a broken arm, but she’s . . . they aren’t sure she’s going to make it.” My mother reaches for my hand, holding it in a viselike grip. “And Charlotte, the woman he injured, she’s nine months pregnant, and they don’t know if either her or the baby are going to make it.”
Trembling, I pull myself out from under the heavy weight of this memory, inadvertently rubbing a hand over my own stomach, and the weight of bringing a child into this unforgiving world gives me pause. Ruminating on these thoughts, I warn myself not to go down the rabbit hole to my previous life again.
When I sit up and touch my laptop, the screen flickers from dark to light, forcing me to read the headline of an article I dread. “Man Charged with Manslaughter in Unborn Baby’s Death.”
Unsteady on my feet, I feel a rattling sensation underneath me. In a hampered state, I walk to the kitchen, fumbling at the tap with a glass of water to down some headache medicine with.
A strange throbbing pulsates through my body as if Jonathan’s inside my very being, shaking me like a rag doll. When I realize the groaning protest is coming from below the polished concrete, I shift my weight over the sink in apprehension.
It’s coming from the basement.
Tentatively, I close the gap between the kitchen and basement door and fumble with the padlock, whose key is attached to my cross necklace. After managing to open the door, I stare down the steep, threatening stairway. The rest of the house is lived in, carefully decorated, and tasteful. But the basement . . . the basement is unfinished, uncultivated, and bare.
Agonizing over what to do, I fling the door shut and frantically lock it.
I need to go down there, but the memories . . .
I stand back from the door as if it will swallow me whole and press my eyes shut, trying not to collapse into a heap.
“I can do it, I can do it, I can do it,” I repeat, over and over.
But I’m not ready, and, leaning against the wood, I breathe heavily as I repeat the opposite, over and over.
“I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
CHAPTER 11
Elle
Tonight’s my last night dog sitting Benji before his family gets home from vacation. I think they said the Caribbean, but it makes no difference to me, because an island is surrounded on all sides by water, and from my place in the Midwest, it’s just a dot on the map. It’s somewhere I’ll never visit.
I give Benji one last belly rub and dog biscuit before I close the door and then slide the key into a lockbox out front. Touching my face, I trace the outline of the nasty scratch I got from a monster-car rally the boys and I had last night. One got too rough with his vehicle and rammed it into my cheek, along with his grubby fingernails. I thought the point was to drive on the makeshift track I’d made from construction paper and designed to look like a raceway, but he went off-roading, as he called it. It didn’t help that Justin had encouraged them to pick their own paths to the finish line, and therefore, since he was a god to the boys, they decided that there was no set track.
When the race ended, we had a long talk about being respectful of other people’s personal space, and I was forced to use a bag of frozen peas as an ice pack.
As I walk down the street, I ignore the bus stop and the fact that there’s only one last coach running in this subdivision tonight. For some reason, the route ends earlier in this part of town. Probably to keep out the riffraff like me.
I put my hand in my pocket, closing it around a metal clasp.
It’s now or never.
I can’t lose my confidence.
Jogging down the street, I feel my heart pound with exertion as I run a couple laps before I make my way up the steps to Charlotte’s porch. I pound hysterically on the door, screaming, until I hear timid footsteps.
“Help me, help me, Charlotte, please . . .”
A light flickers on inside as I heave, doubling over to catch my breath.
“It’s me, Elle, help me, open up,” I cry, slamming my fist against her heavy door. My knuckle cries out in pain. The porch light beams a slight glimmer of illumination.
She cracks the door open an inch, her hands pressed against the screen. “What’s going on?” An edge fringes her voice. I can understand why. It’s after ten on a Friday night, and it’s me again.
“Elle.” She rubs a hand over her eyes. “What is it?” She looks past me, as if anticipating bad weather or a gang of thugs. Standing up straight, I yank a red leash out of my pocket.
“Benji, he . . . ran . . . oh my God, he ran . . .” I grab the column on the porch for steadiness, as if it can hold me together.
“Who?”
“The dog,” I stammer, “the one I’m watching. His owners come home tomorrow, and he got away from me.” I thrust the leash in her face. “He ran off, down by the lake.” I gasp in disbelief. “Another dog came up to us, a shepherd mix of some sort, and I had to let poor Benji go . . . he was going to be attacked.”
Looking startled, Charlotte asks me to describe the vicious dog. “I wonder if it’s the O’Connors’ down the street in the white house. They have a German shepherd.” She unlocks the screen door and steps out barefoot, pausing on the welcome mat.
“No, I’ve seen that one before.”
“Did he get your face?”
“This?” I rub my hand over my cheek like it’s nothing. “Yeah, but who cares? I just want to find Benji. He means the world to those kids.”
“Did the other dog chase after him?”
“At first, but a man started calling for him, and he ran back up the hill. I couldn’t catch Benji; he was already gone.” Trembling, I sniffle, “His owners are going to kill me, and what if something happens to him? He’s only a year old . . .”