Never Let You Go

by Erin Healy

  The girl matched the description of a child featured in an Amber Alert earlier that day . . .

  Alice started sobbing. “No, no, no . . .”

  Grant knocked over his chair trying to get out from under that mountain of paperwork. He leaped toward the dispatcher, a petite woman who barely looked out of her teens. The secretary yelped. Richard jumped out of the way.

  “Is she hurt? What happened to her?”

  A sheriff grabbed Grant’s arm. He wrenched it free but gave the dispatcher some space. She was scrambling away from him with wide eyes. “Please! What are they saying?”

  “I—I don’t have that information, sir.”

  Grant ran toward the door, then scrambled back to the desk when he realized he’d left the “personal effects,” including his car keys and wallet.

  “Dah! My car’s back at Lexi’s!”

  Alice was light years ahead of him, already out the front door.

  “I’ll drive!” she shouted.

  Sheriff Dawson was putting on his hat as fast as an astronaut puts on a space suit. “We’ll meet you there,” Grant said to him.

  Richard hardly knew what to do.

  Grant grabbed him by the hand. “C’mon!” At the front of the office, Grant turned around and said, “Wait! Dawson—talk to them for us. If Molly doesn’t need to be transported, have them keep her there?”

  The sheriff nodded.

  “And ask your cruisers to give us an open road?”

  Dawson chortled. “You’re on your own with that, buddy.”

  For a woman in her late fifties, Alice Grüggen could move. Richard and Grant were no slowpokes, but Alice had the engine revved and her sedan in reverse by the time the men dropped into the seats.

  Grant asked Richard to pray again—this time that they wouldn’t get pulled over or, worse, end up in an accident. Richard relaxed into a full potbellied laugh and shouted, “Sweet Jesus, clear the way!”

  Alice NASCARed them down the mountain and through the rural outskirts of Riverbend and into the maze of streets.

  “Alice, where’s your phone?”

  “It’s in my hip pocket and I’m not about to pull over for you to use it.”

  “Richard, got a phone on you?”

  From the backseat he passed it to Grant, who almost dropped it as Alice took a left-hand turn through a very pink light.

  “What’s your cell number?” Grant asked her.

  “Why are you going to call me?”

  “I’m talking about the phone Lexi has!”

  Alice’s mouth formed a small O, then she rattled off the number.

  Grant called four times in a row and was dumped into voice mail on the sixth ring every time.

  Where was she?

  He left a message. They thought Molly was at the mall. They were on their way. She should get there as fast as she could. He’d call as soon as he knew anything for sure.

  Alice reached the shopping center and drove up to the red curb at the food court entrance. She parked behind a fire engine.

  Grant was out of the car before it had stopped moving, and his hands seized the handles of the double doors while the heels of Alice’s shoes were still clackety-clacking down the concrete slab.

  Molly was sitting in front of McDonald’s with her bound ankle propped up on a chair. Someone had bought her a milkshake. Angelo was sitting on her other side, holding her hand. An EMT sat next to her while others packed up their gear.

  The sight of his daughter out of harm’s way took the breath out of Grant. He was in front of her in seconds, scooping her up as if she were still two years old and he’d come home at the end of a long day.

  A very, very long day.

  She clung to his neck while he gripped her around the waist. She was long and gangly in his embrace, all arms and legs.

  “Hi, Molly-Wolly.”

  “Hi, Daddy.” As if she’d never stopped knowing him.

  “Oh no—I didn’t—nothing’s broken is it?” he released his powerhouse hug and held her gingerly.

  “You’re late,” she whispered.

  “I’m so sorry.” His eyes burned.

  The EMT stood. “She seems to be all in one piece, which is a miracle, considering.”

  “What happened?” Grant asked.

  “Eyewitnesses said she climbed up and jumped.” The man pointed to a spot above and behind Grant’s head. Grant turned. The height sickened him. “Not sure how she did it wearing that contraption on her foot. No one seems to have seen that part. She landed there.”

  Next to the water fountain, a plush fern the size of a copy machine had been squashed.

  “Quite a jump. We can’t get her to talk about it, though, so we don’t know much more than that.” Molly hid her eyes against her dad’s shoulder. “That brace didn’t even get damaged.”

  “Doesn’t seem possible, does it?” Grant said, looking at Angelo.

  “Can’t explain it, but I’m not going to complain. Heard she went missing this morning from school?”

  Grant nodded. Angelo had stood silently, arms crossed. Richard had joined the big man at his side. Alice was patting Molly on the back.

  “Her mom and I will get everything sorted out with the sheriff,” Grant said. The medic nodded and raised his hand in a wave as he walked off. “Thank you.”

  “He caught me,” Molly whispered into his cheek.

  “What?”

  “Angelo caught me. Angelo’s my angel.”

  “I’ll bet he is, honey.” He thanked Angelo with his eyes. Whatever role the big man had played in Molly’s life, once more it had proven miraculous. “You want to tell me how you got here?”

  “He promised I could see you. Mr. Ward did. But . . .” She swallowed and started to cry quietly. “Mr. Ward is so mean. He said . . . he said . . .”

  “That’s okay, Molly-Wolly. You’re okay now.”

  “Angelo made Ward go away.”

  “You don’t have to see Ward anymore, okay?”

  The little girl squeezed Grant’s shoulders and kept crying. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Out looking for you. We haven’t been able to—”

  “What’s he going to do to Mom?” Molly lifted her head and placed both her hands on Grant’s cheeks. Worry lined her forehead. “What’s Mr. Ward going to do to Mom?”

  Grant swallowed. The fear that had only just released his heart took hold of it again. What was Ward planning to do?

  “Nothing, Maynard.” Lexi’s voice, tired but happy, turned Grant around. Lexi was holding Molly’s milkshake. Her hair was disheveled and tiny cuts marred one side of her face. “Ward’s not going to bother us any more.”

  { chapter 39 }

  Friday morning, which was the first day of spring, Lexi’s family went to walk with Barrett at the Residence. Barrett pushed Molly in a wheelchair along the winding outdoor paths while Angelo stayed at his side. Grant and Lexi walked together a few yards behind the trio.

  Alice had gone to Norm’s hearing.

  In the time since Ward’s disappearance, Lexi’s heart had done the work of sorting out her experiences. For the past two mornings she had awakened with the clarity of a vivid dream that stayed in sharp focus for half a second before the present moment blurred it all. During that brief time she understood everything. The strings between her physical and spiritual lives were pulled taut, and they vibrated with meaning. She expected the union of these experiences to reverberate through her heart for as long as possible— forever, she hoped, or at least until the day when she could finally explain the nuances.

  To any reasonable witness, there might have been explanations for what happened that didn’t have to rely on any miraculous reasoning. But Lexi knew better.

  Molly called Angelo her angel, and of course, they all agreed he was. But Molly still had the blessed innocence of a child who believed the world was a beautifully simple place. When she got that look in her eye and kept saying, “I mean really,” Lexi understood this was a secret she and h
er daughter could share.

  It wasn’t so hard to believe. It was just so strange to say. Lexi worried that if she examined the truth of it too deeply, she might force it to become unbelievable. So she chose to tuck the bigness of it away in the most private corners of her heart until the she could grow into Molly’s childlike faith.

  On the wooded grounds of her dad’s home, she walked with the people she loved most without saying much, content with the sound of March wind in the pines. The snow had started to melt and created a steady stream of snowmelt that ran from the highest point of the property down to a gully at its perimeter. Barrett’s “river,” as he pointed out.

  Grant took Lexi’s hand and gently tugged her into a slower pace.

  “Talk a minute?” he asked. They’d been surrounded by people since Molly’s disappearance Wednesday morning.

  “I guess it’s about time,” she said, wriggling her fingers out of his. She feared their moment of reckoning had come, and the conversation would be easier with her hands shoved into the pockets of her old high school jacket.

  “I was thinking about Molly,” he said, glancing at his empty hand.

  “Oh. Right. What about her?”

  “She seems to be bouncing back fast.”

  Lexi stopped on the trail. “Time will show us,” she said.

  He nodded. “We’ll have to pay close attention to her, even if she seems fine.”

  “We?”

  Grant cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to say . . . I meant . . . all of us will need to help her through the rough spots. Us. Your mom. Gina. You know.”

  “Of course.”

  They took a few steps without speaking.

  Lexi said, “Did Molly tell you the whole story?”

  “Yes. As far as I know.”

  “If she said she did, she did.”

  Grant nodded.

  “The part about Norman—”

  “I know.”

  Lexi looked up at the fresh pinecones forming at the top of the tall blue spruces. “Sometimes I look back at that time and try to figure out why. I can’t believe the person who fell so fast and so hard was me.”

  “We’ve all done it. In different ways, but we ’ve all done it.”

  “Grant, I wronged you.” Lexi faced him. “I wronged you in the most awful way a wife can.”

  “You had every reason.”

  “Not one of them made it right.”

  “Okay. I’ll agree with you. But we’re different people now.”

  Lexi sighed. “I keep hoping it’s true.”

  “It is for you, Lexi. It’s obvious. Beautifully obvious.”

  “Does that mean you’re letting me off the hook?”

  Grant laughed, the first time Lexi had heard that baritone harmony since he’d returned to her. She smiled at the freedom of it. He said, “I’m not sure how it works for me to help you with that while I’ve got six bigger barbs snagged in the corner of my own mouth. But yes, Lexi, please do not waste any more time dangling from that hook.”

  “I won’t if you won’t.”

  He pursed his lips. “

  Lexi smiled at him. His nose was pink from the brisk wind.

  “Gina’s coming home tonight,” she said. “Your daughter is cooking to celebrate. Join us?”

  After their walk, Angelo turned in his employee badge at the nurse’s station, where they seemed to be expecting it. Lexi and Molly went with him to the parking lot while Grant took Barrett back to his room.

  Angelo had given notice two weeks ago, she learned. A whole week before she met him. There was a job he was supposed to start elsewhere Monday, but he didn’t say what it was, and she didn’t have the nerve to ask.

  “How long have you been working here?” Lexi asked.

  “Six years.”

  “That’s how long my dad has . . .” And there, too, was another thought she chose not to chase too far. Instead, she tucked it into her heart’s box. She felt mildly embarrassed that she’d ever looked at Angelo as a potential romantic.

  She asked, “Who’s going to look after Dad?”

  “All the wonderful people who work here,” Angelo said. “Get to know Julian.”

  He helped Molly into the Volvo and she gave him a kiss on the cheek. He put her wheelchair in the trunk.

  Lexi nodded. “Thank you,” she said, referring to so much more than his lifting the wheelchair.

  “You’re welcome.” These words, too, seemed to acknowledge everything that went unsaid.

  “Will I see you around?”

  “If you ever have need of my cranberry Batmobile, you give me a call.”

  “I hope I never give you reason to have to come back here,” she said. “But if I do, I’m going to handcuff you to Molly and make sure you never sleep.”

  “Keep feeding me those pies and your ice-cream coffee, and that will be fine with me.”

  Then he waved good-bye and that was all.

  Lexi took the day off. It would short her seventy-five dollars for the week, and it didn’t matter to her one bit. She took her daughter out of school and they spent the afternoon preparing to celebrate Gina’s homecoming with a massive pan of lasagna, with extra oregano and three kinds of cheese.

  Lexi asked her mother not to elaborate on what happened at Norm’s hearing. Alice seemed happy to avoid the subject entirely and announced plans to dine with Barrett. She hadn’t been inclined to say much at all to Lexi since Molly’s safe return. Without Lexi’s permission she did, however, buy Molly one of those kiddie cell phones with prepaid minutes and parental controls and all that, so she and Molly could talk plenty.

  At six o’clock Lexi and Molly stood next to each other in the kitchen, dicing garlic for bread, and Lexi wondered if Molly was thinking about Angelo too.

  Or Grant.

  The doorbell rang and the two looked at each other. Molly grinned and hobbled out of the kitchen, thumping her new cast like a peg-leg pirate.

  “Knife!” Lexi reminded.

  Molly hustled back in, laid the blade next to the garlic cloves, and rushed back out again.

  Lexi waited at the place where the hallway met the kitchen entrance and watched Molly throw the door open for her daddy. She was suddenly self-conscious of her unmanicured hands and plain face. She’d forgotten makeup and meant to put some on before he came.

  Oh well.

  Grant picked up Molly in a hug while holding onto a small brown paper bag.

  “You smell like garlic.”

  “Gotta kiss me anyway,” she said.

  He planted a big wet one on her forehead before putting her down. She kept her arms around his neck and he stooped patiently.

  “What’s the chef got on the menu tonight?” he asked.

  “Lasagna!”

  “My favorite!”

  “Did you bring dessert?”

  “As requested.”

  “What is it?” She let go of his neck, grabbed his hand, and started dragging him toward the kitchen.

  “Liver tofu.”

  “Eeewww! Dad!” She swiped at the bag. He held it over her head, out of reach, and handed it off to Lexi while the girl tried to intercept it. Lexi grinned and joined in the game.

  “Hey!” Molly announced. “There’s no such thing as liver tofu!”

  “You’ll be surprised.”

  “No I won’t! Tofu doesn’t have—”

  “You’ll be surprised because I’ll tell you when dinner’s over.”

  Lexi put the bag on top of the fridge.

  “Can I guess?” Molly asked.

  “You’ll never.”

  “Lemon sorbet!”

  “Strike one! Let me say hi to your mother.”

  Lexi was smiling when Grant looked at her, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled when he smiled back. He hadn’t looked at her like that—sunshine happiness busting out of the human face—since the day Molly was born. She forgot what she had planned to say.

  “Snickerdoodles!”

  Finally she m
anaged, “I’m glad you could come, Grant.”

  He seemed unprepared for that kind of warmth, because he stared at her for two seconds and then said, “Strike two.”

  Lexi pretended to be offended. He laughed. “It’s good to be ho—” He stopped himself, shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Carrot cake?” Molly asked.

  “Don’t be,” Lexi said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Molly said, “I’m glad you’re here too. When are you going to move in with us?”

  Lexi covered her mouth with the back of her hand and must have blushed, because Molly said, “What? It’s not like you guys have to get married again, is it?”

  That much was true, so Lexi wondered why it felt like she was on an exciting first date.

  Grant opened his mouth to say something, or perhaps it was surprise that parted his lips. He looked at Lexi, turned back to Molly, and said, “Chips Ahoy.”

  Lexi said, “Molly, why don’t you go get your report on the Pawnee to show to your dad?”

  Molly grinned and put her hands on her hips. “All you have to do is ask for privacy,” she said.

  “Go get your report, goofball.”

  “Did you know that the Pawnee Indians wrapped their babies in bobcat furs?” she asked Grant. “They thought the spots looked like stars in the sky and said the heavens protected their children. Isn’t that cool?”

  “Very!”

  “Angelo showed me that in a book I borrowed from the school library. I didn’t have time to read the whole thing.”

  Lexi gave her a gentle shove in the direction of their room.

  “I got a B plus!” she announced as she did a little hobble dance down the hall.

  “Lower the volume, hon. Gina’s resting,” Lexi said.

  Molly turned around and whispered loudly, “And I love Chips Ahoy!”

  Lexi caught Grant’s eye and gestured toward a kitchen chair, then began to pile Molly’s garlic into a bowl of softened butter. Grant remained standing. “She’s amazing,” he said. “You’ve done such a great job with her, Lexi.”

  “Thank you.” She mashed the mixture together with a fork.

  “She looks like you.”

  “She’s got your sense of humor. Which I’ve missed.”

  “She’s so mature for her age.”