Life Intended (9781476754178) Page 22

  Silence for a moment. Then her response comes: What do u care anyways?

  Of course I care! I respond immediately. The dread is back. Something’s not right. Are you at home? When there’s no reply, I try again. Allie? Where are you?

  But there’s no response. I watch the clock as one minute ticks by, then two. Please answer, I type after three minutes have passed. I’m worried.

  But she’s gone silent. I try calling her, but it goes straight to voice mail. I sit there for another minute, staring my phone, before gently shaking Dan awake. “I have to ask you something,” I say.

  He rolls over, and when I turn on my bedside lamp, he blinks into the sudden light. “What’s wrong?”

  I tell him quickly about Allie and the cryptic texts I just received from her. “What do you think I should do?”

  “It’s not really your problem, is it, babe?” he asks, punctuating the question with a yawn.

  “Of course it is,” I insist. “She reached out to me. What if something’s wrong?”

  “She’s probably just messing with you,” Dan says. “You said she was sort of a brat.”

  “I never said that!” I exclaim, wounded on Allie’s behalf.

  Dan shrugs. “Well, I don’t know. Call that Andrew guy. He’ll take care of it. But this isn’t your job, Kate.”

  I don’t reply, and after a moment, he rolls over and mumbles, “Turn out the light when you’re done, okay?”

  I wait another few minutes to see if Allie will text back, and then I quietly get up from bed, go into the kitchen, and scroll through my phone until I find Andrew’s cell number.

  “Kate?” he says as he answers, his voice cloaked in sleep. “What’s wrong?”

  In the background, I can hear a muffled woman’s voice asking who it is. “Um,” I begin awkwardly, immediately flustered.

  “Kate? You there?”

  “Sorry to bother you,” I blurt out, “but I just got a few weird texts from Allie. I have a feeling that something’s wrong. Do you think you could call Rodney and Salma and have them check on her?”

  “Yeah, of course.” He sounds concerned and instantly awake. “Can I call you right back?”

  “Of course.”

  I hang up and stare at the phone. The seconds tick by, stretching into a minute. Finally, my phone rings again. I answer right away. “Andrew? Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice is grim. “Kate, she’s gone.”

  Twenty-Three

  Andrew and I agree to meet at Allie’s foster home in a half hour. In the meantime, I’ll continue trying to text and call her on the way there.

  “Should we call the police?” I ask before I hang up.

  “From what you’ve said, it sounds like she ran away,” Andrew says after a brief hesitation. “It’s against the agency’s rules, but let’s give it an hour. I don’t want to do anything that will affect her mom’s custody proceedings.”

  “Her custody proceedings?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure you know she’s been visiting with Allie a couple times a week and working toward getting her back. I’m on the fence about whether she deserves another chance, but if it turns out to be for the best, and if it’s on Allie’s record that she ran away, it could complicate things. So let’s cross that bridge in an hour, okay? We’ll see if we can track her down first.”

  I try calling Allie’s phone four times from the back of a cab on the way to Queens, and I text her another dozen times, but there’s no reply. I’m beginning to think Andrew’s making a mistake; Allie’s twelve years old and is out there all alone. Anything could happen to her.

  Andrew is already outside Allie’s foster home when my cab pulls up. “Rodney and Salma are out looking,” Andrew tells me, holding the car door open as I pay the driver and get out. “They went left. I told them we’d go right. There’s a strip of bars and restaurants in that direction that are open late.”

  “Okay.” We begin walking quickly up the street. After a few seconds, I add, “Andrew, I’m worried.”

  “She’ll be okay. She’s a smart kid. She’ll be fine.” The words come out in a rush, followed by a moment of silence. “Yeah, I’m worried too,” he concedes.

  We decide to split up at the corner, keeping in touch by cell phone. I head right on Thirty-First Avenue, and by the time I reach a long string of restaurants and bars, I’m almost running. I walk into the first place I come upon, a restaurant called Pace Caldwell’s, but it’s closing for the night, and there’s no one there.

  “Have you seen a twelve-year-old girl, brown eyes, straight brown hair?” I ask a busboy hurrying by with a stack of plates.

  “No, ma’am.”

  I thank him and head back out into the night. My luck is similar at an Italian restaurant called Prosecco and a twenty-four-hour coffee shop called Up Latte. I’m passing three darkened storefronts when I hear it: piano music wafting out of a restaurant up ahead. It takes me a few seconds to recognize the tune, but when I do, I break into a run. It’s the song Allie played the first day I met her, the song she wrote herself.

  The place is called Simond’s, and when I duck inside, the lighting is dim, the place looks seedy, and there are three middle-aged men sitting at the bar, each in various states of drunkenness. A couple’s making out in the corner, and a trio of men who look like they just stepped out of Duck Dynasty are hunched around a table, a dozen empty beers between them. No one seems to be paying any attention to the girl in the corner, who’s now playing “Hey Jude” on a piano that looks like it’s seen better days.

  I sigh in relief then pull out my phone. Found her, I text Andrew. Place called Simond’s on the main strip of 31st. Then I put my phone back in my pocket and cross the room. Allie doesn’t look up as I slide onto the piano bench beside her, but she finally stops playing when I put my right hand over hers on the keys.

  “Allie,” I say gently, “what are you doing?”

  She doesn’t make eye contact as she signs, Who cares?

  Me, I sign back.

  “Whatever,” Allie says aloud. “You didn’t even text back.”

  I stare at her. “Allie, I texted you like a hundred times!” When her eyes narrow, I add, “Check your phone if you don’t believe me.”

  Muttering to herself, she pulls her phone from her bag and pushes the Home button. Nothing happens. She looks up at me sheepishly. “My battery must have died.”

  “Boy, you really thought this running-away thing through,” I say.

  She glowers at me. “I wasn’t running away. I just needed to be alone.”

  I look around pointedly at the other restaurant patrons. “You’re not exactly alone.”

  “Whatever,” she grumbles. She reaches for the piano keys and plays a few notes with her right hand. “So I saw my mom,” she says nonchalantly.

  “On one of her visitations with you?”

  She shakes her head without looking at me.

  “Well? What happened?” I press. When she doesn’t answer, I say, “She came to see you at your foster home?”

  Allie laughs, a bitter sound. “Yeah, right. No. I went to go see her at her stupid apartment after school. But the guy who answered the door said she was busy. Said my mom had to be by herself for a little while and I should go home.”

  “So then what happened?”

  She shrugs. “I went around to the side window and looked in. And there she was. Not alone at all. She was talking to this other lady, and then she was laughing like the lady said something real funny.”

  “Oh, Allie.” I sigh. “So she didn’t see you?”

  “She totally did. I know she saw me, because she stared like she’d seen a celebrity or something. Then she turned her back on me. Like I wasn’t important to her at all. Like she’d rather be laughing with some stranger.”

  “Allie, maybe you’re wrong.
Maybe she just saw her own reflection in the window or something.”

  “She saw me!” Allie snaps loudly enough that the couple playing pool in the corner glance over at us. “She saw me,” she repeats more quietly. “She just didn’t give a crap.”

  I look surreptitiously at my watch, wishing Andrew were here. He’d know what to say. I’m at a loss, so I settle for speaking from the heart. “Maybe it’s true that she saw you,” I concede. “But it’s important that you know that adults just do the wrong thing sometimes.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  “What I mean is, it’s hard to realize a parent has flaws. But everyone has issues. So her seeing you and turning away, if that’s true, doesn’t necessarily mean she doesn’t care. You said she had some problems with addiction; maybe she’s just trying really hard to get clean, and she’s acting kind of weird. Lots of adults are a little messed up, and they do the wrong thing because of it.”

  “You’re not messed up,” Allie says.

  I think for a second. “Maybe I am.”

  “Whatever.” She looks at my hands then shakes her head. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Allie, no one’s life is perfect.”

  She snorts. “Oh yeah? Give me one example of how supposedly messed up your perfect life is.” She smirks at me, clearly certain that I won’t be able to provide any evidence.

  “This isn’t about me, Allie. It’s about you.”

  Her eyes get watery, and she blinks quickly a few times. “See? You’re full of crap. You don’t have any problems. You probably have a perfect husband and a couple of perfect kids and some perfect brownstone somewhere. People like you always have perfect lives and try to tell people like me what to do.”

  I’m not supposed to get personal, but it’s the middle of the night, and not only is my patience wearing thin, but I suspect it will help a little if I can blow Allie’s stereotype of me out of the water. So I take a deep breath and say, “I don’t live in a brownstone, and I don’t have kids, Allie, because I can’t get pregnant.”

  She stares at me then drops her gaze and mutters, “Yeah, well, I bet your husband is some perfect Prince Charming who has, like, a yacht or a limousine or something..”

  “My husband’s dead, Allie,” I hear myself say. I feel instantly guilty for the overshare, but her expression tells me it was the right thing to do. The triumphant look on her face is sliding away.

  “For real?” she whispers.

  My eyes feel damp now, and my heart is suddenly thudding too quickly. “For real.”

  “Well, when did he die, anyways?” Allie asks.

  “A long time ago.”

  When she doesn’t say anything, I elaborate. “It’ll be twelve years on September eighteenth.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Car crash.”

  “Oh.” She pauses and looks up, a guilty expression on her face. “I’m sorry. About your husband, I mean.”

  “Thanks.” We’re silent for a moment, then I add, “No one’s life is ever perfect, Allie. And most of the time, there’s more going on beneath the surface than you know. What if your mom is so focused on getting clean that she can’t process the big stuff—like you—right now?”

  Allie looks like she’s about to say something, but then there’s a commotion at the front door, and Andrew bursts into the restaurant, his face full of worry. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, and then he scans the bar and spots us. He looks relieved for a split second, but then his expression turns stern as he strides over to us, his fists clenched.

  “Allie!” he says, his voice sharper than I’ve ever heard it. “What on earth were you thinking?”

  She glances at me, and for a moment, I can see guilt in her eyes. Then it’s gone, replaced by something cold and defensive. She juts her chin out. “Like you care.”

  “Of course he cares, Allie,” I cut in before a fuming Andrew can reply. “Do you think he’s happy that he’s up in the middle of the night chasing after you?”

  She glances at him and then back at me, but she doesn’t reply.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t call the police!” he continues. “Do you know what would have happened? They would have taken you away from the Greghors. And you’d be back in a group home until your mom got custody. If she got custody. Your little stunt here could have messed that up.”

  “Geez, sorry,” she mumbles.

  “I hate to say it, Allie, but all the apologies in the world aren’t going to change things if you get yourself into real trouble,” Andrew says firmly. “I know you’ve got some stuff going on. But this has to stop. The fights at school, the acting out against Rodney and Salma, and now this? I’m really disappointed in you.”

  Allie looks like she’s about to cry. “Well, why didn’t you call the police anyways?” she mumbles.

  Andrew glances at me, his expression softening. He looks back at Allie and says, “Maybe because everyone deserves a second chance.”

  Back at the Greghors’ house, Allie gets ready for bed, while Andrew and I explain to Rodney and Salma where we found her and that she was upset about her mom.

  “So it wasn’t something we did wrong?” Salma asks.

  “No, not at all,” Andrew reassures her. “Allie’s just struggling with some things. I don’t think this will happen again.”

  Salma clasps her hands together and looks up at Rodney. After a moment, he says, “We were assured this placement would only be for a few months. We can’t keep her any longer than that. That’s why we do temporaries.”

  “It’s not that we don’t want her,” Salma rushes to add as my heart sinks for Allie. “It’s just, well, we’ve recently found out I’m pregnant. And if this is going to be a continuing pattern of behavior . . .”

  “I don’t think it will be,” Andrew interrupts firmly. “And she should be going back to her mother within the next month or two. You know that.”

  “Congratulations on the pregnancy,” I murmur, and Salma smiles at me slightly before turning her attention back to Andrew.

  “I’m sure everything will be fine,” she says, and I know she’s trying to convince herself.

  Andrew nods and thanks them stiffly for their help tonight. Then he asks me to go check on Allie, to make sure she’s all set for bed.

  As I walk down the hallway toward her room, I feel like my heart is splitting open, and I wonder if part of the reason Allie fled was because she could sense the fact that the Greghors are ready to move on. I wonder if she knows they’re having a baby, if she feels pushed aside already by a little person who hasn’t even arrived yet.

  I find Allie in bed, in a pink T-shirt and pink pajama pants with hearts stamped on them. With her face freshly scrubbed, she looks younger than her twelve years.

  “You okay?” I ask, sitting down on the edge of her bed.

  She shrugs.

  “Allie, what happened tonight, I get why you did it,” I begin carefully. “But you have to trust us. We all care about you. No one’s going to let anything bad happen to you. If you feel hurt or mad or sad about something again, you just need to call me or Andrew, or talk to Rodney and Salma, okay?”

  She nods again and slides down in her bed so that she’s under the covers. I start to get up, but Allie grabs my arm.

  You’re wrong about my mom, she signs.

  “What do you mean?” I ask aloud.

  “You said she was probably trying to stay clean,” Allie says. “And that’s why she pretended not to see me.”

  “You have to give her the benefit of the doubt, I think.”

  “Well, then why was she smoking meth?”

  I blink at Allie a few times. “What?”

  “She was smoking something in a pipe,” Allie goes on, her voice flat. “Had to be meth. That was always her favorite. That’s why she looked away w
hen she saw me, Kate. Not because I’m so important. But because I’m not important enough to quit drugs for.”

  Before I can reply, she rolls away from me, takes her headpieces off, and pulls the sheets over her head.

  “Allie?” I say, and when I realize she can no longer hear me, I touch her shoulder lightly. “Allie?”

  “Go away!” she says, her voice muffled. “Leave me alone!”

  I stay for another minute, just in case she changes her mind, but there’s only silence, so I say, “We’re going to make this right, Allie.” I know she can’t hear me, but I needed to make the promise. I give her shoulder a comforting squeeze and turn away.

  In the hallway, I find Andrew waiting for me. “She okay?” he asks as we walk out into the warm night and head back toward a main street so that I can flag down a cab.

  I shake my head. “Andrew, she said that when she saw her mom today, her mom was smoking something.”

  His face falls. “I’m going to assume from your expression that you’re not talking about a cigarette.”

  “She said she thinks it was meth.”

  “Damn it!” Andrew rakes a hand through his hair. “I was hoping she could stay clean. I’m going to have to report this.”

  I nod. “How much longer can Allie stay here?”

  Andrew sighs. “A few months, at most. The Greghors are right; they’re only signed on to provide temporary care. And now with a baby coming . . .” He shakes his head and sighs again. “I just wanted Allie to have some stability.”

  I could take her. The thought is so immediate and so clear that it startles me. I blink a few times and tell myself it’s a silly thought. I can’t even get my own life in order. But then again, what if I could? What if I could become the stable person Allie needs? My heartbeat quickens a little as I consider the possibility that the dreams were leading me here, to Allie.

  “—about your husband?” Andrew is saying something, but I’m so lost in thought that I only hear the end of it.

  “What?” I can feel my cheeks turning red.

  “Allie said you told her about your husband?” Andrew repeats, looking concerned.