Night Road

The alien princess trapped in a jar.

“So, how’s the clinical stuff going?” Miles asked Zach when he sat down.

“I love the clinical. Diagnosing is awesome, but pharmacokinetics? That stuff is kicking my ass,” Zach answered, scooping eggs onto his daughter’s plate.

Miles reached over to stab a waffle with his fork. “Pathology was my downfall second year. I don’t know why. You just have to get through it all with the knowledge. Third year is when you really get into it.”

Jude watched the way her son buttered Grace’s waffle while he talked to his father, how he cut it up into small pieces for her and put her napkin in her lap, and she was so proud of him that she thought, we’re all going to be okay. Someday we’ll be laughing again.

She found herself smiling at the unexpected idea of happiness, of a future together. She listened to one of Zach’s stories about diagnosing some terrible disease, and how he’d screwed up, and she laughed along with her husband and son.

After breakfast was over, the unanticipated sense of lightness remained. Jude sent Zach off to the UW with a kiss on the cheek and a hug that was so fierce he actually frowned at her.

“Go on. We’ll have fun today,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom,” Zach said.

“No problema,” she answered without thinking. At the silly reminder of who they’d been, she fell silent.

And then he was grabbing his backpack and heading out the door.

“Papa, can I go to my playhouse?” Grace asked when her dad was gone.

“Put on your clothes and brush your teeth first,” Miles said distractedly. He was looking for the TV remote. When he found it, the screen thumped to life and a baseball game filled the screen. Miles flopped onto their old sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table.

While Jude washed the dishes, she saw a yellow flash blur past her. “Stay away from the water, Gracie.”

“Ariel and me are just gonna play Barbies in the playhouse,” Grace answered, grunting to open the sliding glass door.

“Ariel and I,” Jude said automatically. “Miles, do the ordinary rules of grammar apply to imaginary friends?”

He said, “Huh? What was that, babe?”

Jude went back to washing the dishes. She heard the sliding door thump shut and she glanced to the left.

Outside, Grace ran nimbly across the yard, toward the pink and yellow Princess Playhouse Santa had brought her last year. It was positioned just beyond the deck, on a patch of grass that looked out over the gray sandy beach.

“Come on, hurry,” Grace was yelling to her imaginary friend.

Jude dried the dishes and put them away. When she was finished, she glanced out at Grace again. She could see her granddaughter through the plastic castle’s open window. She was talking to the air while she made Barbie dance.

“You going out to the magic kingdom?” Jude asked Miles.

“In a sec. I just want to see this play.”

“Okay. I’m going to make them a chicken casserole for dinner,” Jude decided on the spot. She didn’t want Zach to be hungry when he got home from studying.

She moved through the familiar family recipe with almost no effort. Every few minutes she looked up to make sure that Grace was okay, and then she went back to work.

When the casserole was in the fridge, along with a note about cooking it, she cleaned up the kitchen again and then headed into the living room. She was about to say something to Miles when a flash of movement caught her eye.

She opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the weathered deck. It was a beautiful June day, with sharp blue skies and no clouds. To the right of the property was a thick stand of evergreens that blocked the view of the neighboring house.

Grace was standing by the trees.

Beside her stood a girl dressed in faded shorts and a blue T-shirt. Was it Mildred’s daughter, from next door? Was she home from college?

Then the girl turned and Jude saw her face.

Jude reached out to the sliding glass door to steady herself and was about to call for her husband when pain exploded in her chest. It hurt so much she couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything except plaster her hand over her heart and fall to her knees.

Lexi rode down to LaRiviere Park.

As she got off the bike and looked out over the gray sandy beach, with its mounds of silvered driftwood tangled along the shore, she was assailed by memories.

She locked her bike into the rack and then moved past the driftwood, remembering the first time Zach had told her he loved her. They’d been right there …

She walked down to the pebbled beach. Here, the stones were polished to glassy perfection by the waves. Counting the houses, she knew when she reached her destination.

There it was: the old Tamarind cabin. There had been a party here once, back in her junior year of high school. Jude had never found out about that one.

Tall cedar trees ran in a thick line along one side of the property. To their right, on the lot next door, she saw a colorful plastic castle/playhouse, complete with a pointed gray turret and bright pink pennant. Beside it, perched like a baby bird at the end of the grayed deck, sat a little girl dressed in yellow. She was talking to her wrist again.

Lexi approached her daughter slowly, taking care to stay hidden by the trees. The last thing she wanted was for Zach to come storming out of the house like a Nazgul, telling her to get the hell away from his daughter.

Really, all Lexi wanted was to make sure that Grace was happy. Everything could go on as planned as long as Grace was happy.

She started to say, “Hey,” but her voice caught. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Hey, Grace.”

“I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger, Gracie. I’ve known you all your life.”

“Oh.” Grace cocked her face to the right, studying Lexi. Her lips pursed. “I saw you at school.”

“Yes.” It took everything Lexi had inside of her just to stand there. She wanted to fling herself at Grace and hold her in her arms and beg for forgiveness. Still, she took care to stand in the shade of the trees, out of the house’s view.

“You waved. How come?”

Lexi took a step closer. Her heart was taking flight. “I knew you when you were a baby.”

“Do you know my daddy?”

She nodded.

Grace’s face scrunched up. “Prove it.”

“Does he still like chocolate-chip-mint ice cream and hate anything that looks like a comb?”

Grace giggled and immediately covered her mouth to stifle the sound. “Nana says his hair looks like a beetle, which is funny cuz beetles are gross. Especially the ones who live on poop.”

Lexi battled a smile. “Can I stand by you?”

“Sure.”

Lexi moved closer, stood beside a huge tree. “How come you’re out here all alone?”

Grace’s little face drooped. “My daddy is gone. Again. Nana’s in the kitchen.”

“Does your grandma still dance while she cooks?”

Grace frowned up at her. “She hates me.”

“Your Grandma Jude hates you?”

“I look like her.”

A chill crept down Lexi’s spine. “Her?”

“Daddy’s dead sister. That’s why Nana never looks at me. I’m not s’posed to know that, but I do.”

“Really?”

“She was murdered by pirates. That’s why no one talks about it.” Grace sighed. “My daddy sometimes cries when he looks at me, too.”

“You do look like Mia,” Lexi said quietly.

“You knew Daddy’s sister?”

“I did,” Lexi said quietly. “She was—”

“Hey, do you have a dog?”

Lexi was startled by the change in subject. “No. I’ve never had one.”

“I want a dog. Or maybe a chipmunk.”

“Have you asked your dad for a pet?”

“We had rattlesnake for dinner last night. With peanuts.”

Something was going on here; Grace was throwing stuff at her, but why? Had the talk of Zach’s emotions scared her? Lexi said the only thing she could think of. “I ate ostrich once.”

“Wow.”

“So, your daddy’s not here?”

“Nope. I’m a big girl. I get to stay home alone all the time. I can take my own bath and everything. Last night I made dinner all by myself.”

“Does he go out a lot?”

Grace nodded.

Lexi studied her daughter’s gorgeous face, with its sad green eyes and pale skin, and wondered if she’d left any mark on this girl at all. “Do you have any friends at school?”

“F-friends?” Grace said, then grinned. “Tons. I’m the most pop’lar girl in the class.”

“You’re lucky. I was lonely sometimes in school,” Lexi said, watching her daughter closely. She couldn’t help herself; she took a step closer.

Grace’s lips trembled a little. “I really don’t have—”

“Grace!” someone yelled sharply. “Get in here. Now.”

Lexi jumped back into the trees. Peering around a shaggy green branch, she saw the cabin. The sliding glass door was open, and Miles stood there, frowning. He hadn’t seen Lexi, she was sure of it. So why did he sound so pissed?

“Grace, damn it,” he yelled again. “Get in here. Now.”

“Gotta go.” Grace popped to her feet.

“Does he always yell at you like that?”

Grace started to turn away, but Lexi dared to reach out and take hold of her girl’s hand. “I’d like to be your friend,” she said softly. It was hard to stop there. Suddenly there was so much more she had to say. She’d been a fool for thinking she could walk away from her daughter.

A smile broke over Grace’s face, its brightness warming Lexi. “Okay. Bye,” Grace said, waving. Then she turned and ran back for the house.

Lexi got up slowly. She understood at last how it felt to stop running.

She walked back to her bike, climbed aboard, and pedaled up the hill toward town.

An ambulance passed her, lights flashing, siren blaring, but she hardly noticed.

She was on her way to see Scot Jacobs.

Twenty-one

Jude was in the emergency ward of Seattle Hope. She lay in a narrow bed, connected to all kinds of monitors and machines and alarms, but it was all unnecessary. She hadn’t had a heart attack.

She looked up at her husband, feeling foolishly fragile. She’d broken so easily, again. “I thought all of that was behind me.”

He stroked the sweat-dampened hair away from her face. “So did I.”

“A panic attack.” She practically spit the words out.

Grace climbed up the metal bed rails. She slipped and plopped back to the floor, then climbed up again. The rattling clang reverberated through Jude’s tense body, made a headache blossom at the base of her skull. “What’s panic?” Grace asked, banging her chin against the bed rail.

“It means you’re scared,” Miles said.

“I saw a beach rat once. It was scary,” Grace said. “And those big hairy black spiders are scary. Did one crawl up your leg?”