The Note

by Hunt, Angela

  Lila leaned forward, parking one elbow on her knee and her chin in her palm. “I saw that man on the news this morning,” she said, abruptly changing the subject. “I’ve forgotten his name, but I heard him talking about the note from the crash. Then I heard them talking about you, so I jumped in the car and came straight over.”

  “Tanner Ford.” Peyton exhaled the name in a disgusted breath.

  “That’s it.” The girl’s polite smile faded, and a hint of tears glistened in the wells of her blue eyes. “He was lying. That note was mine, Miss MacGruder. I know it.”

  Peyton lifted her brows. Maybe the girl was deranged.

  She stared at the young woman for a moment as a hundred logical objections rose to the surface of her mind, then she selected the uppermost: “Your name is Lila. The note was addressed to someone whose name begins with a T.”

  The girl smiled, then thumbed a tear from the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry I haven’t said anything sooner. I mean, if you’ve explained all this in your articles—”

  “I haven’t, not really,” Peyton said. “And you don’t have to apologize for not reading my column. Just go on.”

  Lila sniffed. “Well, my mom and dad adopted me after they’d had four boys—biological babies, you know. They wanted a girl, so they adopted me. And when I was little, I was always trying to keep up with my brothers—I think I drove them nuts. Anyway, they called me ‘Tagalong,’ then ‘Tag,’ and finally, ‘T.’ They’ve called me ‘T’ for as long as I can remember. And I can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Well—there’s this.” The girl fumbled for a moment in her backpack, then pulled out a leather book. She held it out for Peyton’s examination—it was a Bible—then she opened it. On the presentation page an eerily familiar hand had inscribed, To T, from Dad, on the occasion of your sixteenth birthday.

  Peyton’s breath caught in her lungs as she read the date: September 2, 1998.

  The handwriting matched the note.

  And the date—

  Peyton felt her breath being suddenly whipped away. “Oh.” She reached out to steady herself, feeling the rough cement of the bench beneath her suddenly slick palms.

  “Miss MacGruder?” Lila’s voice went tight with alarm. “Are you all right?”

  “Just—” Peyton threw up her hand. “Give me a moment, will you?”

  She closed her eyes, unwilling and unable to look at the girl, the pond, anything. Thick darkness swirled behind her closed eyelids, a cloud that came rolling out of a vault she’d locked years earlier and hoped never to approach again. Who’d given this girl the right to open the door?

  Clutching her stomach, she leaned sideways until her head hit Lila’s backpack.

  “Miss MacGruder?” The girl’s voice took on a note of authority, though the pitch vibrated with uncertainty. “If you need help, I’ll run into the building and get someone.”

  “Just . . . wait.” Peyton forced the words over the boulder in her throat as a horde of memories came rushing back like unwelcome guests.

  New Year’s Day, 1982. Nineteen years younger and four sizes smaller, she’d been sitting in the living room on a rainy afternoon with a bowl of popcorn in her lap. On the television, Clemson was whipping on Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. The popcorn was salty and she had the thirst of all the devils, but Garrett had gone out to get some drinks from the convenience mart a few miles away. Two ice-filled glasses sweated on the old trunk that served as their coffee table.

  The doorbell rang right as a Nebraska running back sprinted for the end zone. Muttering under her breath, Peyton sprang up to answer it, spilling popcorn over the brown shag carpeting. Some part of her brain thought it odd that Garrett would ring the bell, but maybe his arms were laden with groceries. He had a habit of tossing anything that caught his eye into the shopping cart, and he’d been gone long enough to buy groceries for a month.

  Garrett was anything but predictable—she’d realized that the afternoon they met, when she’d been playing Frisbee with some friends on the grass outside UF’s O’Connell Center. Garrett MacGruder had come walking by, literally swept Peyton off her feet, and carried her away with no further comment than his confident smile.

  You had to hand it to a guy that self-assured. Though he’d put her down when she got serious about protesting, she never got over the feeling that Garrett MacGruder would be able to protect her from anything life threw her way.

  But Garrett hadn’t rung the doorbell. Two uniformed troopers from the Florida State Highway Patrol stood on the concrete slab outside the peeling front door. After asking her name, one fixed her in a somber stare while the other said, “We regret to inform you that your husband, Garrett MacGruder, was killed this afternoon when his car went off the road and hit a tree.” They went on, filling her ears with details that made no sense, then telling her she could ride with them to the hospital.

  The next few hours passed in a hushed blur as seemingly disconnected visions passed before her bleary eyes: a brick hospital, a pair of pale green double doors without handles, a narrow bed bearing her husband’s body. Garret’s skin was pale, his lips blue, but she bent and kissed him, then noticed the odd way his head jutted away from his body. A broken neck, someone said. He’d been killed instantly.

  She signed some papers, mutely nodded to several questions, and accepted a ride from the same two patrolmen who’d come to the house. When she got home she discovered that the day had died, too. Darkness cloaked the rental house, though gray beams from the television lit the front window with ghostly light. She stood in the living room without turning on a lamp, then sank to the threadworn sofa and slowly turned her life’s most recent revelation over in her mind. Beneath the surface of her life lay nothing—just a patch of lifeless earth. The only person in the world to whom she felt close had disappeared, leaving nothing but hollowed-out worm trails in the mud. Like her mother, Garrett had left her without a farewell or backward glance.

  From the television, a sports announcer called the end of the football game as fans spilled onto the field: Clemson 22, Nebraska 15. Happy New Year from the Orange Bowl.

  Peyton blinked at the screen, the words and images barely registering. Odd, how certain significant numbers seemed to appear in a life. She’d loved her mother for three years. And she and Garrett had just celebrated their third anniversary.

  Happy New Year.

  Tonight she did not want confetti or champagne or noisemakers or fireworks. She did not want friends or family. She was done with new years.

  Rising on shaky legs, she went to the bathroom and swept the toiletries from the counter to the floor. Toothbrushes, bottles of Halston and Old Spice, a container of Scope, and a discarded box from the drugstore fell to the tile in a crashing jumble. The heady scents of cologne rose up to assault her nostrils, but Peyton paid them no mind as she opened the medicine chest and began to rummage through a three-year-old collection of pharmaceuticals.

  NoDoz, the student’s friend—no friend today.

  Midol—useless now.

  She pulled out an amber prescription bottle and read the label. The white pills had been prescribed the time Garrett pulled a muscle in a pickup football game; after one dose he’d pronounced himself well.

  Extra-strength painkillers. Just the ticket.

  While the television announcers debated the game in the living room, Peyton poured the contents of the bottle into her palm, then moved to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  An hour later she was lying on the bathroom floor, her nostrils filling with the faint smells of toilet and cologne and mildew from the tattered rug. Her stomach cramped as it tried to throw off the poison she’d ingested, but she refused to surrender to its spasms. Her heart was beating heavily; she could feel each irregular thump like a blow to her chest.

  It wasn’t fair. Death had come instantly for Garrett—why was it taking so long to come for her?

  Summoning her strength, she pulled herself to the bathroom vanity.
Garrett’s old-fashioned safety razor sat on the sink, right where he’d left it. Grasping the razor, she twisted the knob to free the blade, then held it in unsteady fingers as she half-pulled, half-pushed herself toward the tub. Breathing heavily, she extended her left arm and made a swift slice across the blue veins, then convulsed in nausea as her stomach won the battle of wills.

  A few moments later, spent and slick with sweat, she leaned her head on her bent right arm and watched her life’s blood spurt into the tub. She’d made a mess of things, but no one would care except maybe the landlord. And he could always hire one of those cleaning companies who came in and swept every trace of a person’s life into a great gray garbage bag. It didn’t matter. In a few hours, she and Garrett would be together again, in the morgue or the funeral home, wherever they took people who died . . .

  Her ears filled with a fuzzy sound, almost loud enough to block the shrill ringing of the kitchen phone. She closed her eyes, willing the phone to stop, just as their answering machine kicked on. Her voice blended with Garrett’s in their silly little message, then another voice cut through the fuzzy noise with the sharpness of a knife: “Peyton? Dr. Morgan called me with the news. Honey, Kathy and I are here at the hospital, and the attendant told us you’d gone home. Are you all right? Are you home? If you’re there, hon, pick up. I really need to know you’re all right . . .”

  Peyton closed her eyes and let the darkness overtake her, leaving her father to talk to himself.

  She’d awakened in the hospital, zoned out and dense with whatever antidepressant drugs were in vogue at the time. Her father stood to one side and whispered with the doctor in charge, while Kathy pressed a crumpled wad of tissue to her nose and fluttered around the foot of the bed.

  Peyton let her heavy eyelids fall.

  For hours—or was it days?—the scene scarcely changed, but people moved in and out, like characters on a stage. At times she’d open her eyes to find a nurse adjusting the drips or fastening a blood pressure cuff around her arm; on other occasions she’d open her eyes and see an empty room. No flowers. No cards. Nothing and no one.

  Then she’d withdraw to the deep place where no pain throbbed and no one intruded. Often when she’d come to the surface her father would be there, and the doctor, and they’d be talking—arguing, really. One day her father saw her open eyes and rushed toward her, clutching the rails at the side of the bed. “Peyton, honey, you’ve got to meet us halfway,” he said, a pleading tone in his voice. “Talk to us, stay with us. You can’t keep pulling away.” As she retreated to the place between deep and shallow, one muffled phrase floated down to her like a sunbeam: psychiatric ward. She dived deeper and the words vanished, swallowed up by the wailing, anguished sounds of a weeping man.

  She went down again, deeper than before.

  The soft sounds of weeping brought her back to the present. Pressing one hand to her temple, Peyton sat up, blinking the memories away. She glanced to her right. Lila Lugar still sat next to her, but now tears were streaming down the girl’s face. She looked away when Peyton sat up, then pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose.

  “I’m sorry,” Peyton said, wincing. “Sometimes—well, I needed a minute to think. I hope I didn’t frighten you.”

  Lila shook her head, then stopped and gave Peyton an abashed look. “Well, you did, a little. I was ready to run for help because I thought you might be sick. But I’m not crying because I was scared. I’m crying because . . . I just seem to cry a lot these days.”

  “These last few weeks have been difficult for everyone.” Peyton scraped her hands through her hair, then pressed her fingertips to her temples and counted to ten. She could focus and get through this. Later there’d be time to sort things out.

  “Lila,” she dropped her hands as she turned to the girl, “tell me about your dad.”

  The girl smiled at her through tear-clogged lashes. “You believe me?”

  Peyton nodded. “Your story makes more sense than the others I’ve heard. I’d like to hear more.”

  Lila’s lower lip quivered. “His name was Jerry Lugar, and he was truly special.” She twisted the tissue in her hands. “I wish I had a picture in my wallet, but we could never get him to sit for a professional portrait. He coached basketball at Clearwater High School until a few years ago, then he retired.”

  “What was he doing on Flight 848?”

  “Both my parents were on that flight.” Her voice broke with this confession, but she managed to keep her emotions under control. “They were chaperoning those students from Largo Christian School. Since they retired, they’ve had time to do things like that.”

  Peyton remained silent as her mental images dramatically shifted. Jerry Lugar had not been a solitary businessman on Flight 848, but a husband traveling with his wife, half of a congenial couple volunteering to watch over a rowdy group of high school students who’d been camping out at the airport and hoping for a flight home.

  The plastic baggie fit this picture. Lila’s mother had probably baked cookies and snacks for the trip; perhaps she had been doling out the few remaining goodies as the group waited for their flight.

  Pieces of the puzzle were colliding in Peyton’s head like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, but at last they were beginning to form a recognizable image. Only a few unresolved questions remained.

  “The note”—she pressed her hands together to keep them from trembling—“said, ‘I love you, all is forgiven.’ But if there were five children in your family, why’d your dad write the note to you alone? And if he was traveling with your mother, why didn’t he say ‘we love you’?”

  Lila smiled at the lake, but she had shifted the focus of her gaze to some interior field of vision beyond Peyton’s reach. “My brothers and I got along fine with my parents—until I had an argument with my mom. I told her I wanted to search for my real mother.” She glanced at Peyton, then smiled ruefully. “I know how that must sound—like I don’t appreciate anything my mom did for me. That’s what my dad thought, too, so we had a big argument right before they left for New York. I felt bad about it, though, and would have apologized, but I never had the chance.” Her voice softened. “I think Dad knew how terrible I’d feel—and he was right. I didn’t get the chance to tell either of them how sorry I was.”

  Peyton took a quick, sharp breath. “Did you mean it? Do you still want to search for your real mother?”

  Lila exhaled softly. “Martha Lugar was my real mom. I can’t help being a little curious about my biological mother, but I wouldn’t want to upset her life.”

  Peyton looked away, her senses floundering in an unexpected sense of loss. “So it was just an idle threat.”

  Lila fell silent a moment. “Yes and no. I don’t need to know my biological mother, because my mom gave me everything I needed. Even though I’ve lost her, I still have the memories of all we did together. But if I ever did meet my bio mom, I think I’d like her to know how much I appreciate what she did for me.”

  “What she did?” Peyton looked away, a new anguish searing her heart. “But she didn’t do anything. She gave you away.”

  Lila shot her a quick, denying glance. “I don’t see it that way at all. She gave me life. She didn’t have to, but she cared enough to be sure I was placed with a wonderful family who loved me. They weren’t perfect, but neither am I. But they loved me. And that’s worth everything.”

  As Peyton watched, two tears welled up in Lila’s eyes and overflowed, rolling down her cheeks. Her lips parted as if she would say something else, but no words came.

  “So that’s why your dad wrote the note,” Peyton finished for her. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”

  Lila’s face twisted, her eyes clamping tight. She wept aloud, slowly rocking back and forth on the bench, until Peyton awkwardly put her arms around the girl.

  “There now,” she whispered, her own heart twisting as she held the young woman in her arms. “It’ll be all right. You are forgiven and you are l
oved. That’s all that matters.”

  Mandi’s shrill voice greeted Peyton as she threaded her way through the newsroom. “Only half an hour until your deadline,” the intern called, her eyes wide with alarm. “Nora’s already been snooping around here, hoping for a peek.”

  “There’s nothing to peek at,” Peyton said, moving to her desk. “I haven’t written the column yet.”

  Mandi sat down with a solid thump, her eyes widening still farther. “Oh, wow. I’m going to see the famous lightning fingers in action.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.” Peyton lowered herself into her chair, then bent to pull the blue folder from the desk drawer where she’d stuffed it with a dozen others. Taking a clue from Sherlock Holmes, she’d hidden the original copy of the note in plain sight, knowing no lockbox would be safe in the newsroom. Just last week, the maintenance guy had to put the sugars and creamers for the coffee station under lock and key.

  After flipping through several clippings, Peyton came to the note, still encased in its plastic sleeve. After so recently seeing the same handwriting in Lila’s Bible, the message hit her with renewed force.

  I love you.

  All is forgiven.

  She still had no idea why she’d been given the note, but she knew the time had come to pass it on.

  Without a word she closed the notebook and stood, leaving Mandi gasping. “But what about your column?”

  “It’ll keep,” Peyton answered, moving toward the elevator.

  Downstairs at the reception desk, Lila Lugar’s eyes filled again when Peyton pressed the note into the girl’s open palm. “It’s yours,” she said simply, her hand lingering in Lila’s a moment longer than necessary. “You and I both know it.”

  Lila wept again, but these tears were quiet and subdued, nothing at all like Tanner Ford’s animated, shiny weeping. She simply leaned on the reception desk and bowed her head, her heart silently overflowing.