What a laughable word that was for the lava spill of hot fury and pain cascading through him now! Like any volcanic eruption, it left only a blasted devastation behind.
“But if you’re gone,” he continued in that same stranger’s voice. “If you’re gone, Bonnie, don’t ever come back.”
She whitened, whiter than the moonlight, whiter than the sheet. She stood, the bedclothes trailing behind her, and moved toward him. “You don’t mean that, Mitch.”
“The hell I don’t.”
She was close enough now he could see her eyes were filled with tears. Well, so was every single goddamn vein in his body. Tears were for children. They didn’t solve anything. They didn’t change anything.
“You can’t play with my life this way. If you have to go, then go. But don’t ever show up here like this again, looking for a midnight romp—or whatever it is you were after.”
She flinched, and he had a sudden terrible thought. Had she run out of funds? Was she alone out there, on the run, without food or shelter, or—
“There’s money,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s in my dresser. Top drawer. You can take it all, if you—”
“Money?”
Without warning, she reared back and slapped him. Hard. The crack of her hand across his cheek rang through the room like a gunshot.
He stood there a second, feeling the stinging ripple across his skin, abnormal waves of heat against the frigid air.
Then, laughing blackly, he put his hand on the bathroom door.
“Goodbye, Bonnie,” he said.
* * *
“YOU OKAY, HON? Anything wrong with those eggs?”
The snub-nosed, friendly waitress hovered over Bonnie, metal coffeepot in hand, frowning down at her uneaten breakfast with a maternal worry, which was ironic, really. Even though the two were probably about the same age—mid-twenties—right now Bonnie felt about a hundred years older than anyone in the restaurant.
“No, no, they’re great.” Instinctively, Bonnie flipped over the paper place mat she’d been doodling on. Her Florentine morning-glory vines weren’t exactly great art, but they weren’t your everyday scribble, either. She knew it was paranoid, but she never wanted anyone to remember, later, that the nervous young woman had seemed talented, an art student, maybe?
She picked up her fork and smiled as brightly as she could. The woman’s name tag read “I’m EDNA! How can I help you today?” and apparently Edna took her mission seriously.
If only she could help, Bonnie thought, spearing a forkful of eggs, then trying to swallow them around the rock in her throat. If only anyone could.
Apparently unconvinced by the bogus smile, Edna let her gaze flick expertly over Bonnie’s face. Bonnie’s cheeks grew warm. She’d spent so long trying to avoid attention that even this kindhearted scrutiny made her heart pound.
“You coming in from the back shift or heading out to the day watch?” Edna raised the coffeepot, as well as her eyebrows. “Maybe I should top you off, unless you’re headed straight to bed. You look about done in.”
That was probably an understatement. Bonnie had stopped here not because it looked appetizing, but because she simply couldn’t make it another mile.
The old-fashioned diner squatted on the side of U.S. 24, just outside Colorado Springs. Judging by the crowd at 7:00 a.m., Bonnie figured one of the big defense employers must be located nearby. Or maybe one of the technology companies. She probably should be flattered that Edna considered her capable of holding down a real job like that.
She felt more like a piece of muddy flotsam tossed up by a river flood. She’d been driving almost all night, ever since she left Silverdell—and Mitch. The days before Mitch blurred, but for a week, at least, she’d known nothing but driving, driving, driving...and death.
Her mother’s serene face rose in her mind’s eye—Bonnie was so glad, so profoundly relieved, that, as her poor, troubled mother faced death, the woman had finally found peace. And Bonnie was so glad that she’d returned to Sacramento, that she’d sneaked into the nursing home that last night. She wasn’t sure how she’d known the end was near...but she’d felt the urgency, as clearly as if she’d heard her mother’s voice calling her.
She’d stayed only long enough to say goodbye. As she’d left, she’d taken—stolen—the silly quilted-calico mobile that hung in her mother’s window. “Heather,” the flowered cloth letters said. Her mother’s hands had made it, though probably one of the aides had helped, since her mother had no longer been able to spell her own name.
The lumpy letters were in Bonnie’s purse right now. She’d reached in and touched them, every hour or so, as she drove. Going back to California had been risky, but she was glad she’d done it. She couldn’t have endured learning of her mother’s death online...even though she’d been checking every day for two years.
Was she glad, too, that she’d driven to Silverdell afterward to see Mitch? Or had that been a terrible mistake? Had it been the final straw?
A month from now, she would have been able to come to him openly. She would have been able to tell him everything. She should have been strong enough to wait.
But she’d been so bereft, so desolate. Even though her mother had been as good as lost to her for years, there was something about the finality of death that hurt Bonnie in a way she couldn’t have imagined. Now she was truly alone.
She’d needed his arms around her.
She touched her fingers to her inner brows, shoving down both images—her mother’s empty face and Mitch’s cold, hard eyes. She was too tired right now to think about any of that. When she found a hotel, when she got some sleep...then she’d allow herself to grieve.
“Actually, I’ve just arrived in town,” she told Edna. “I was hoping to find a decent hotel, not too far off the highway. Reasonable, if possible.”
Edna, bless her motherly heart, looked relieved that Bonnie wasn’t trying to go to work in this condition. Or maybe simply thankful this bedraggled customer was only passing through and wouldn’t be a regular.
“Marley’s is just what you need,” Edna said brightly. “About a mile down the highway, toward town. Respectable, if you know what I mean. No frills but clean as a whistle.”
Bonnie nodded gratefully. “Sounds perfect,” she said. Smiling again, she forked another small lump of eggs and made sure her posture was upright enough to help Edna feel free to tend other customers. “Thanks so much!”
Slowly, the waitress moved away. Bonnie fought the urge to let her shoulders slump back down. It wasn’t enough to fool Edna into thinking Bonnie had adequate starch and courage to face this day. She needed to fool herself, too.
She turned her place mat over again. Inside the border of morning-glory doodles, she slashed quick crisscrossing lines, creating a grid of empty squares. Then she numbered the squares—one through thirty-one.
She
