We met with various authorities numerous times, but always by choice. I still don’t know what handcuffs feel like.
All because of Laura, my father’s widow.
And Grace.
It was a big news story when our grandmother died and the manhunt for Derek’s accused killer came to an end. Unlike my mother, Laura didn’t try to hide the truth from her daughter when she asked. Grace remembered meeting me, and to everyone’s surprise, she didn’t view me with anything close to animosity. She came to visit me in the hospital to thank me for giving her our great-grandmother’s ring.
I cried when she said she made her mother come forward with the truth of what happened the night our father died.
I sobbed when she hugged me.
And I completely broke down when she told me she’d rather have a sister than keep an inheritance all to herself.
She did, though. I’ve never touched a cent of our grandmother’s money.
Our grandmother was buried beside her husband and son. I see her grave whenever Grace and I visit Derek’s, but I always keep my distance. Grace is fond of sticking her tongue out at it, but I didn’t endure the lifetime of callous cruelty that she did, so I don’t feel much of anything when I think of my grandmother. Which I rarely do.
I kept the last name Reed. So did Mom. She did go back to Tiffany, but that didn’t change much for us, since I still call her Mom.
I learn more about my father, my birth father, every day. I still don’t think of him that way, but Mom gets to, finally.
We also went back to New Jersey. Not to the same house, but near enough that I got to keep my job and I didn’t have to change schools. Regina and I are already planning to take graduation photos together in the spring. Mom and I also bring cookies to Mr. Guillory at least once a week, in lieu of paying off the damage done to his car—his request. He’s not my actual grandfather, but I find myself pretending sometimes.
Mom has gone to visit her dad a few times now. I can tell how hard it is for her, both because of the deeply damaged relationship they had while she was growing up and because he doesn’t remember all the ways he neglected and mistreated her. She’s not ready to let me go with her yet, but she promises it will happen one day soon.
These days her promises mean everything.
I also got to see Aiden. It turns out he did interpret my absence as an answer about our relationship and didn’t even know anything was wrong until the whole story made the news. We went out a couple more times, and he kept apologizing even though the reality was he couldn’t have done anything. In any case, seeing him wasn’t the same—few things were—so we ended it. I see him around sometimes, and it makes me miss my old life, if not exactly him.
Malcolm is back in college, and his grandmother is hanging on. We’ve kept in touch through the occasional email—mostly him giving me advice about which colleges I should consider, since I confessed an extremely late-in-life interest in computers, now that they’re no longer off limits to me in any way. There’s a veneer of awkwardness to our writing, though. We got to know each other only in the most extreme circumstances, and only for days, at that. I can rarely think of what to say to him, so I end up saying very little.
It’ll have to be better in person. I refuse to participate in an anemic conversation once he’s standing in front of me. Which he’s about to be.
One of the new changes in my relationship with Mom involves her learning to act less like a secret service agent and me learning to make my own decisions. Right now, I’m making the four-hour drive from New Jersey to Penn State to see Malcolm for the first time since he was released from the hospital. Mom probably won’t breathe until I’m back home, but I keep telling her to consider it a trial run for when I head to college.
The little billows of steam have long since faded from my coffee. It wasn’t great to begin with, and now that it’s cold, every taste on my tongue is an insult.
I keep sipping it, though, no longer disguising the eagerness on my face when the door chimes with the arrival of a new customer to the café.
“You should go freshen that up, hon.” A plump woman walking past my table with a sweet smile nods at my mug. She frowns, seeing how little I’ve drunk, and leans forward. “Who’re you waiting for?”
“A friend,” I say, twisting to see around her when the door to the coffee shop opens.
“Your friend is pretty late. Sure he’s coming?”
I don’t answer her. Because suddenly, he’s there.
Malcolm.
He’s leaner than he used to be, and he kept some of the facial hair, but it’s him.
He scans the room, spotting me when I stand, and freezes in place, half inside, half out. I can tell he’s holding his breath, because I’m holding mine.
“Now, that’s a look worth waiting for.”
I turn to acknowledge the woman with a thank-you, and the moment of indecision breaks. When I turn back, he’s walking toward me. Then he’s right smack-dab in front of me.
“Hi.”
