I felt my heart clench. This child, who couldn’t possibly be a day over eighteen, had a baby? She’d had a baby with a drug addict who beat her?
Mary reached for her hands across the table. “What kind of life is that for Cody?” she asked. “Do you want him to grow up thinking that men push women around? Choke them? Hit them?”
“It only happens when he’s high,” Aubrey protested.
“But you told us he’s high all the time,” Mary said.
“Well, but maybe if he goes to rehab and takes it seriously this time . . .”
“Who’s got the baby now?” I asked.
“Justin’s mom. That’s who we were living with. Me and Justin and Cody.”
A recovery coach—I’d learned that’s what the khaki-clad teenagers who seemed to be running Meadowcrest were called—tapped Aubrey’s shoulder. “They need you in Detox,” he said. Aubrey cleared her tray. We watched her go.
“I’ll pray for her,” Mary said, and touched the gold cross around her neck before returning to her chicken. “Not that I’m judging,” she said, “but I’m not sure Aubrey has the equipment she needs to make better choices.”
Another recovery coach, a girl with elfin features and delicate, pointed ears exposed by a cropped haircut, tapped my shoulder. “Allison W.? There’s a phone free, if you want to make your call.”
I hurried out of the cafeteria, clutching the card Nicholas had given me, the bright, coppery taste of pennies and fear in my mouth as I dialed.
“Hi, Mom. It’s Allison.”
“Oh, Allie . . .” She sounded—big surprise—like she was going to cry. “Hold on,” she said, before the sobs could start. “Ellie’s been wanting to talk to you.”
I waited, sweating, my heart beating too hard, my lips creased into a smile, thinking that if I looked happy, even fake-happy, I would sound happy, too. Finally, I heard heavy breathing in my ear.
“Mommy? Daddy says you are in the HOSPITAL!”
My insides seemed to collapse at the sound of her voice, everything under my skin turning to dust. Keep it together, I told myself. At least “hospital” was better than “rehab,” even if it wasn’t as good as “business trip,” which was what I’d been hoping for. “Hi, honey. I’m in a kind of hospital. It’s a kind of place where mommies go to rest and get better.”
“Why do you need to REST? You sleep all the TIME. You are always taking a NAP and I have to be QUIET.” She paused, and then her voice was grave. “Are you sick?”
“Not sick like that time you had an earache, or when Daddy had the flu. It’s a different kind of sick. So I’m just going to stay here until I’m all better and the doctors say I can come home.”
“How many days?” Ellie demanded.
“I’m not sure, El. But I’m going to try very hard to be there for your party, and I’ll be able to talk to you on the phone, and I can send you letters.”
“Can you send me a present? Or some candy or a pop?”
I smiled. Maybe it was good that she didn’t seem shattered—or, really, fazed in the slightest. Or maybe this was just her typical compensation, the way she’d try to make my father, and Hank, and now me, feel better about our screwups.
My job, I decided, was not to scare her. Let her think Mommy had some version of an earache or the flu, something that wasn’t fatal and that the doctors knew how to fix.
“What dress are you wearing?” I asked.
“New Maxi.” New Maxi was a pink-and-white-patterned maxi dress, not to be confused with Old Maxi, which I’d bought her at the Gap last summer. “Grandma does NOT make my dresses FIGHT. She says they’re supposed to all get along. But I ask you, where’s the fun in THAT?” Ellie demanded.
I smiled and made a noise somewhere between laughter and a sob, then sneezed three times in a row. “Not much fun at all, really.”
“But she said we could get a pedicure. AND that I could get a JEWEL on my toes.”
“Well, aren’t you lucky?”
“Grandma is AWESOME,” Ellie said . . . which was news to me. “And she let me have noodles for two nights!” The recovery coach tapped my shoulder and, when I looked up, pointed at her watch.
“I love you and I miss you,” I said. “You are my favorite.”
“I KNOW I am,” she trumpeted. “I KNOW I am your favorite!”
“Is Daddy there?” I asked.
Ellie sounded indignant. “Daddy is at WORK. It’s the middle of the DAYTIME.”