Page 29

Shame burns me, makes me cringe in on myself. Suddenly, I can’t bear to look at her. It was bad enough for her to know I was pregnant, that I made a mistake, that the father was out there somewhere uninvolved in his child’s life. It’s worse, much worse, for her to know who the father is, to have met him and looked in his eyes and seen the similarities between him and his son.

I thought not knowing was supposed to be worse than knowing. In this one circumstance, it’s backwards. Because she knows me, and him, her judgment is all the more impactful. And I know she’s judging me. She thinks it’s terrible that I’ve lied to him all this time.

She’s right. It was a mistake. A mistake that I can never take back or fix. It’s a rotten foundation for the rest of my life to be built on.

She starts to say something. I just shake my head, my hair whipping and stinging my cheeks. I don’t want to hear it.

It’s the most awkward dinner I’ve ever had. Artie picks up on the tension and becomes sullen and fussy. Far from his normal agreeable self, he argues with me. He fights against his bath, then complains all through the rest of his nightly routine. I bite my lip and hold myself together from one minute to the next until he’s finally drowsing in bed after pouting through his whole bedtime story.

My body buzzes, my brain itching. I should use this time to bake now.

I walk right past the kitchen.

Mom sits in her chair in the living room, hands in her lap. I walk right past her too and go to stick my feet in my shoes. “I’m going for a walk. Can you listen for Artie, please? I’ll be back.”

“A walk?” She half-rises, concern in her voice. How can she know I’ve made such an awful mistake and still have such care for me?

If only the world wasn’t full of such gray areas and contradictions. Everything would be so much easier.

“It’s dark outside. Why not wait until tomorrow?”

“I need to clear my head. I’ll be back.”

She only watches me while I step out into the night. The air is cooler and wetter than during the day, little moist kisses on my face and neck. Insects thrum and chirp loud. They cluster around the lights on the houses and bask in the warm pools cast by the streetlamps. I walk down the sidewalk away from the house, skirting around the beetles and moths in the plentiful puddles of light. The moon high overhead lightens up the sky from pure black to gray, with little ripples of cloud.

It’s night, but it’s easy to see. There’s no one else around. I don’t feel any danger. All I feel is a blanket of peace as I experience a rare time when no one’s looking at me, expecting something from me, or judging me.

Walking farther, getting distance from the house, I calm more and more. Was Mom actually judging me? Or did I just assume that she was because I’m used to being judged? It started with Dad, and then it was all the people around town who saw me hanging around the motorcycle club. Then it was the people in the city who saw me pregnant while so young, and then being so young with a child. Malcolm came after that, the worst of them all.

I mull back through the conversation and can’t find the part that sounded so critical in the moment.

Just another mistake that I’m going to have to apologize for.

I sigh and slow my pace with a skitter of gravel. A shadow seems to briefly pass over the moon. For the first time in a while, I look around to see where I am. I recognize the side road that I must have turned on to, leaving proper paved sidewalks behind. There’s a couple houses that I’m not sure are occupied, spaced far between overgrown lots and stands of trees.

It’s darker there than it has been. Most of the lights are behind me. There’s a post further down the street that’s burned out. The breeze seems to be holding its breath and even the insects aren’t quite as loud.

Maybe my senses aren’t so sharp now I’ve calmed down.

I know I need to go back and apologize to Mom. I also need to talk to Wolf about a whole lot of things.

I take another step forward and there’s another crunch of gravel. Strangely, I felt nothing underfoot, and I don’t see any pebbles skittering out on the road in front of me. I shiver abruptly and laugh at myself, rubbing my arms.

Crunch.

The laugh lodges in my throat and sticks there like a swallowed bone. That wasn’t me. I didn’t move and there’s no gravel around me anyway.

That shadow from before, it wasn’t cast from overhead. Replaying it in my mind, I see it coming from behind me, slashing long and thin across the road.

There’s someone behind me.

I don’t have my phone.

I start walking again. It feels like a minute since my last step. It can’t have been more than a few seconds, which is still plenty long enough to be suspicious. Listening, I hear them, the hissing scrape of rubber shoe soles over concrete. I hear their breathing, heavy, fast. Or is that my own, pulsing in and out of my lungs?

Abruptly, my mind is empty. I can’t picture where this street is in relation to the police station or the fire department. I walk, feeling stiff, like I have forgotten how to do such a simple thing I’ve been doing almost my whole life. The world blurs around me, a haze of darkness and shadows.

I turn at the next corner, and in my peripheral vision, I see the person coming after me. Clad all in black, black jeans, black hoodie with the hood up, he’s moving fast and light. He’s so close. I see a hard glint, eyes in shadow. That glint lands on my face.