Then she heard Noah’s screaming.
It seemed to come at her from far away, that high-pitched, hysterical sound. Somewhere deep inside, she reacted to that scream, wept for it, but her head was so fuzzy that she couldn’t make sense of it all.
“Mommy!”
With shaking hands, she undid her seat belt and unhooked his bumper seat. Noah launched himself into her arms, sobbing against her neck.
Slowly, slowly, she began to feel him in her arms, to realize what had just happened. She clung to him, breathing in his little boy scent. For so long, she’d held back from Noah, been afraid of him, but now her love for him came rushing back like water through a storm drain, almost drowning her. “Oh, my God,” she cried. “I’m so sorry . . .”
He looked up at her, sniffling, his eyes dark with tears. “Are you okay, Mommy?”
“I will be, Noah. I promise you.”
Vivi Ann put the truck in reverse and backed away from the scarred and dented tree trunk. The truck’s engine idled too fast, revved when she hit the gas, but it backed up, dropped down from the curb.
Her whole body was shaking as she drove; still, she tried to hide that from her son, who was back to playing with his dinosaurs as if nothing had happened. But he’d remember this; she was sadly certain of it.
She drove to the party and dropped him off, holding him so tightly he squirmed to be free.
“I love you, Noah,” she said, wondering how long it had been since she’d let herself say those three words.
“Love you, too, Mommy.”
Straightening slowly, she watched him walk up to the front door. In another life—the one she’d once imagined for herself—she would have walked up with him, held his hand the whole way, and then joined in with the other mothers inside, organizing games and handing out cupcakes.
Now she stood here, alone and separated from her own life.
It had to stop.
She went back to the dented, smoking truck and climbed into the driver’s seat.
What a joke that was: her in the driver’s seat. She’d been a passenger for years, but what was she going to do? What could she do? The answers seemed too big to grasp, too far away to see clearly.
The only thing she knew for sure was that she needed help. She couldn’t handle being alone anymore.
And Winona’s house was across the street.
She got out of the truck and walked to her sister’s property line, standing at the closed white picket fence. Rain pelted her, blurred her vision, but it couldn’t obscure the sudden knowledge of what needed to be done. Noah deserved more from her.
Finally, with a heavy sigh, she walked up to Winona’s front door.
“Winona? Your sister, Vivi Ann, is here to see you.”
Winona had been waiting for that sentence so long that when it finally came, she stood upright immediately, almost forgetting to tell Lisa to send her in.
She stood there, uncertain, hopeful, afraid, trying to think of what to say. Then Vivi Ann opened the door and walked in, and Winona was so taken aback that she couldn’t say anything at all.
Vivi Ann wasn’t just crying; she was sobbing. Great, gulping tears that shook her shoulders and ravaged her pale, drawn face.
Winona went to her, opening her arms instinctively.
Vivi Ann shrank away, stumbled over to the couch, and collapsed onto it.
Winona took the chair opposite her, sat stiff and erect, barely breathing, waiting. For once she needed to keep her mouth shut and not speak first. It was torture. She had so many things to say to her sister, words she’d hoarded for years, polishing like the bits of beach glass their mom had loved.
It seemed silent forever. Then, quietly, Vivi Ann said, “I almost killed Noah and me today.”
“What happened?”