Page 108 of Gone Tonight
What comes to mind is an image of my father, laughing as he chased after the kite we flew on that long-ago summer day.
When I was with Mr. Damon, it felt as if my dad was sending love across space and time, channeling it through a stranger, surrounding me with it during one of my darkest days.
This has happened before.
Such as on the night when the trucker with the sleepy old chihuahua let me ride in his cab. As we drove farther away from everything and everyone I knew, a panic attack tore through me. At the precise moment I began to hyperventilate, the trucker reached for the radio knob and a song my father used to sing to us—Cat Stevens’s “Wild World”—came across the radio. It soothed me.
There was another time when Catherine was four years old, a few nights before Christmas on a bitterly cold evening. I had no money to buy food for us, let alone presents for my little girl. I was desperate enough to go into a restaurant that set down free bread baskets on the tables, hoping to fill our tummies and flee.
The restaurant was busy that night, but the hot bread still arrived via a busboy a moment after the waiter handed me an adult menu and Catherine a kiddie one. I set the menus on the table and quickly grabbed the basket and buttered the thickest slice of bread for Catherine, then I shoved a piece into my own mouth and washed it down with ice water.
I tried to get us out of there before the waiter approached to take our order, but I was too slow.
The waiter caught me just as I was standing up and walking around the table to grab Catherine. He knew exactly what we were doing. We hadn’t even taken off our coats. Even though it wasn’t a fancy place, I guess we looked like we didn’t belong. Catherine was in a jacket two sizes too big for her because it was a hand-me-down I’d gotten from a former neighbor, and my outfit was a little ragged.
The waiter pointed toward the door and told us to get out as my cheeks flushed hot with shame. But we’d only taken a few steps when a man at the next table drew himself up. His black mustache matched his glossy hair, and his accent reminded me of my father’s.
“These ladies are my guests,” the man told the waiter. He wasn’t wearing expensive clothes, and he didn’t have a commanding voice, but something in his tone left no room for argument.
The man with the mustache came over to our table and pulled out Catherine’s chair, treating her like she was somebody important.
She sat back down, and so did I.
“Order anything you wish,” the man said before he returned to his seat.
I got Catherine chicken tenders with a side of green beans and another of roasted potato wedges with extra ketchup and a glass of apple juice, trying to get as much nutrition into her as possible. I ordered minestrone soup for myself because I didn’t want the man to think I was trying to take advantage of him.
The whole time we were eating the hot, delicious food, I kept ducking my head and pretending to wipe my mouth, hoping no one could tell I was really wiping my eyes.
The stranger stood to leave before we’d finished, and when he passed our table he put down forty dollars. Enough to cover our meal, with some left over to buy food for the next few days.
When I saw all that money, I wanted to drop my head onto the table and sob.
I walked by that restaurant many times afterward, but I never saw the man again.
A sharp cry jars me from my reverie, making me look up. A crow is sitting on a nearby branch, staring at me and cawing.
Some people believe crows are bad omens, but I refuse to buy into that. Crows are intelligent, playful creatures who get a bad rap.
Still, as another shrill cry cuts through the air, goose bumps rise on my skin.
By now James is sitting in a jail cell with his hands cuffed, I promise myself.
Which also means that by now he realizes how completely I’ve betrayed him.
I force my mind away from the horrifying thought.
Because Catherine hasn’t returned with our food yet, I pull out my journal and a pen. There’s a particular entry I want to write down, one that reminds me of my father’s love.
For one amazing evening when you were two-and-a-half years old, we were wildly rich.
It was one of the best and most terrifying nights of my life.
We’d just been evicted from the small room I’d rented in a rundown town house that was owned by another single mother. I didn’t blame her. Even though the rent was cheap, I couldn’t keep up with it. I’d already had to move twice by that point, and I’d burned through several jobs—first as a nanny for a little boy (I got fired when the parents decided they didn’t like me bringing you along, after all), then as an overnight front-desk clerk at a cheap hotel. Even though you quietly slept on the floor beneath my desk, cozily rolled up in a blanket, my manager came by unexpectedly once and saw you and that was it.
The single mom wanted to help me, but she had bills of her own to pay. We both had tears in our eyes when she told me I needed to move out.
Since I’d rented the room furnished, I didn’t have much to take: my gray duffle bag with my clothes and toiletries, and a backpack filled with your clothes and supplies.
