Lock and Key(89)
Author: Sarah Dessen

And now she was found, no longer lost. Like a bag I’d given up for good suddenly reappearing in the middle of the night on my doorstep, packed for a journey I’d long ago forgotten. It was odd, considering I’d gotten accustomed to her being nowhere and anywhere, to finally know where my mother was. An exact location, pinpointed. Like she’d crossed over from my imagination, where I’d created a million lives for her, back into this one.

“So what . . .” I said, then swallowed. “What happens now? ”

“Well,” Cora replied, “the initial treatment program is ninety days. After that, she has some decisions to make. Ideally, she’d stay on, in some kind of supported environment. But it’s really up to her.”

“Did you talk to her?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then how did you hear?”

“From her last landlords. The hospital couldn’t find anyone to contact, so they ran a records search, their name came up, and they called us.” She turned to Jamie. “What was their name? Huntington?”

“Honeycutt,” I said. Already they’d popped into my head, Alice with her elfin looks, Ronnie in his sensible plaid. Stranger danger! she’d said that first day, but how weird that they were now the ones that led me back not only to Cora but to my mother, as well.

I felt my face get hot; suddenly, it was all too much. I looked around me, trying to calm down, but all I could see was this clean, lovely foyer, in this perfect neighborhood, all the things that had risen up in my mother’s absence, settling into the space made when she left.

“Ruby,” Jamie said. “It’s all right, okay? Nothing’s going to change. In fact, Cora wasn’t even sure we should tell you, but—”

I looked at my sister, still seated, the phone in her hands. “But we did,” she said, keeping her eyes steady on me. “That said, you have no obligation to her. You need to know that. What happens next with you and Mom, or even if anything does, is up to you.”

As it turned out, though, this wasn’t exactly true. We soon found out that the rehab place where my mother was staying—and which Cora and Jamie were paying for, although I didn’t learn that until later—had a strong policy of patient-focused treatment. Simply put, this meant no outside contact with family or friends, at least not initially. No phone calls. No e-mails. If we sent letters, they’d be kept until a date to be decided later. “It’s for the best,” Cora told me, after explaining this. “If she’s going to do this, she needs to do it on her own.”

At that point, we didn’t even know if my mom would stay in the program at all, as she hadn’t exactly gone willingly. Once they resuscitated her at the hospital, the police found some outstanding bad-check warrants, so she’d had to choose: rehab or jail. I would have had more faith if she’d gone of her own accord. But at least she was there.

Nothing’s going to change, Jamie had said that day, but I’d known even then this wasn’t true. My mother had always been the point that I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she’d been gone, I felt like I’d been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn’t. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I’d left behind.

The fact that this had all happened so soon after Nate and I had fallen out of touch seemed ironic, to say the least. At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn’t capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut.

As the days passed, I tried to forget about my mom, the way I’d managed to do before, but it was harder now. This was partly because she wasn’t lost anymore, but there was also the fact that everywhere I went—school, work, just walking down the street—I saw people wearing Harriet’s KeyChains, each one sparkling and pretty, a visible reminder of this, my new life. But the original was there as well—more jaded and rudimentary, functional rather than romantic. It fit not just the yellow house but another door, deep within my own heart. One that had been locked so tight for so long that I was afraid to even try it for fear of what might be on the other side.

Chapter Sixteen

“So basically,” Olivia said, “you dig a hole and fill it with water, then throw in some fish.”

“No,” I said. “First, you have to install a pump system and a skimmer. And bring in rocks and plants, and do something to guard it against birds, who want to eat the fish. And that’s not even counting all the water treatments and algae prevention.”

She considered this as she leaned forward, peering down into the pond. “Well,” she said, “to me, that seems like a lot of trouble. Especially for something you can’t even swim in.”

Olivia and I were taking a study break from working on our English projects, ostensibly so I could introduce to her to Jamie, who’d been out puttering around the pond, the way he always did on Saturday mornings. When we’d come out, though, he’d been called over to the fence by Mr. Cross, and now, fifteen minutes later, they were still deep in discussion. Judging by the way Jamie kept inching closer to us, bit by bit—as well as the fact that Nate’s dad seemed to be doing all the talking—I had a feeling he was trying to extricate himself, although he’d had little luck thus far.

“Then again,” Olivia said, sitting back down on the bench, “with a spread like this, you could have a pond and a pool, if you wanted.”

“True,” I agreed. “But it might be overkill.”

“Not in this neighborhood,” she said. “I mean, honestly. Did you see those boulders when you come in? What is this supposed to be, Stonehenge?”

I smiled. Over by the fence, Jamie took another step backward, nodding in that all-right-then-see-you-later kind of way. Mr. Cross, not getting the hint—or maybe just choosing not to—came closer, bridging the gap again.

“You know, he looks familiar,” Olivia said, nodding toward them.

“That’s Nate’s dad,” I told her.

“No, I meant your brother-in-law. I swear, I’ve seen him somewhere.”

“He donated some soccer fields to Perkins,” I told her.