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Chapter TWENTY-TWO

"Has he been by?" I ask Sam. "Do you know what happened?"

"I heard he made bail right away, but I haven't heard anything else." He hands me the envelope with my pay. "Good luck. You seem like a nice girl."

"Thanks."

Out in the hot afternoon, I look toward the mountains that have been the backdrop of my life and feel wretchedly, painfully homesick before I've even left.

What am I doing?

I'm walking to my car, trying to stave off a full blown panic attack, when I see my mom. She's sitting on a half-wall beneath a tree, wearing one of the little sundresses she liked. She doesn't seem to see me at all, which is weird. I tell myself I'm not really seeing my mom at all, that it's some other person who looks like her, but that's not true, since I can see her wedding ring and the sandals she liked, with these crazy rhinestones on them.

Then it occurs to me that I'm having a hallucination, probably brought on by panic, so I take a couple of long breaths and blow them out. She's gone.

But when I get in the car I smell her-cigarettes and Juicy Fruit gum-and goose bumps break out all over me. "Mom?"

There's no answer.

Of course there isn't, because I'm just having a mental breakdown.

As I start the car, though, I wonder. If she was here to tell me something, what would it be? To stay? To go?

When she was seventeen she left home and traveled around the world, never looking back. When she was ready to come back to the US, she came back. She chose her life, right or wrong. Random things happen to everybody, but what really counts is how you manage them.

With that in mind, I realize there's one thing I need to do before I leave. Instead of going home, I head to Manitou and Tyler's house. I can't leave without talking to him face to face.

Clouds are rolling in, predictably, as I drive into town and up the steep street to his house. My hands are shaking with nerves as I get out of the car, and my heart squeezes as I look at the porch and the studio windows where we made love. A thousand moments press into me all at once-and I'm hungry and tired and full of too much love, thinking of his mouth and his laugh and the tattoos on his body that I haven't yet read.

There's a good chance he won't even talk to me, I know that. But I have to try.

I get out of the car and walk up the steps, but before I can knock he's standing there behind the screen door in jeans and a white t-shirt, his feet bare. In his hands is an artist's palette covered with fresh paint. He says nothing.

"Hi," I say. "Is this an okay time?"

"I guess." He doesn't push the door open or invite me in, and I realize that I've been imagining a happy reunion, thinking that he'd be so desperately glad to see me that he'd sweep me up and kiss me and everything would be on the way to better.

Not so much.

I take a breath. "Lena told me why you went to prison. And I'm really sorry that I caused you so many headaches." To my horror, my voice breaks, and I have to bow my head to hide my emotions for a second. When I'm calm, I look at him again. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to New Zealand, and, um, I guess I didn't want to leave without telling you goodbye."

He still doesn't say anything, and I can't read his expression through the screen.

I turn to go, and I'm almost to my car, tears blinding me so much that I stumble.

"Wait," he says gruffly. "Come in for a minute."

But now I'm crying too hard, and it's so embarrassing, and really, until this very second, I didn't realize how much I loved him, how much I'll miss him. I was mad at him, but I didn't mean to completely ruin it. I really didn't.