Catching Air (11 page)

Kira couldn’t think of anything to say to her husband, except, once again,
I’m sorry
.

But she held the words inside. If she spoke them, she knew she’d burst into tears, and she couldn’t do that. This was Grace’s day.

Chapter Eight

THE ONLY PEOPLE ALYSSA
had confided in about her infertility were her parents. Her father had been sweetly supportive, offering to send her to the Canyon Ranch spa, and Bee had been positive and reflective, as she was about so many things in life, telling Alyssa that everyone took a different path to motherhood.

“The children who are meant to be ours find us one way or another,” Bee had said, her gentle voice a balm to Alyssa’s pain. “You’ll know when you meet him or her.”

“Did you feel that way about me?” Alyssa had asked, flopping back onto her bed and letting her mother’s voice soothe her as it had countless times during her childhood. She envisioned her mother’s round face with the deep smile lines radiating out from the corners of her eyes like beams from the sun, and imagined her curling up on a sofa under a patchwork quilt, a mug of tea close at hand.

Her high-achieving half sisters took after their dad, but Alyssa was indisputably her mother’s daughter.

Alyssa knew the story of her own birth well: Bee had panted her way through labor at home, attended by a midwife who lit incense and Alyssa’s father, who rushed home from work and ducked into the room, grew pale and loosened his tie, and ducked back out. Nine glorious, agonizing hours later, Bee had reached down and pulled Alyssa out herself. The story had half-thrilled, half-horrified Alyssa as a child; as an adult, she yearned for a similar experience.

“When I first looked into your eyes, I recognized you,” Bee had said. “As if we’d been connected across time.”

As she looked into Grace’s eyes in the photograph sent by the adoption agency, Alyssa finally understood what her mother meant.

Alyssa cupped her chin in her hand as she considered the photo now. She’d printed out a copy on her best paper and had mounted it on a frameless canvas. Every detail of Grace’s face was carved into her heart; she could pick her daughter out of a crowd of hundreds of children in China. The tiny scar just above her lip—how had that happened? Alyssa’s heart contracted; she hadn’t been there to comfort her little girl, to draw Grace into her arms and kiss her boo-boo, and now she’d never learn the real story behind the scar. Grace’s chin jutted out the tiniest bit, and in that feature Alyssa could almost feel the strength of her daughter, who’d traveled so long and far to find her mother, as Alyssa was searching for her from the other side of the world.

“Aren’t you going to hang that on the wall?” Rand passed by, his skin gleaming wet from the shower, a towel twisted around his waist. She’d thought of buying him a bathrobe for Christmas the first year they were married, then decided against it. She loved the way his tight stomach muscles looked when they were damp, and the trail of dark hair disappearing under the towel.

Alyssa shrugged. “I like holding it,” she said.

“You’ll get to hold her soon enough,” Rand said.

“Not soon enough,” Alyssa corrected.

Every time her cell phone sounded, her heart leapt in her chest. She knew it would be a long time before they were told to get on a plane, but her bag was already packed and sitting in the closet. It held three changes of clothes for Alyssa and a few toiletries, but most of the space was reserved for things Grace would need: packages of diapers and wipes, shampoo and lotion and rash cream, a half dozen soft cotton shirts with matching pants, a sweet little coat, a fuzzy orange blanket, and a few chunky board books. The last item Alyssa had tucked in the bag was the ducky bathrobe. Her good-luck talisman.

“Don’t you want to get your bag ready, too?” Alyssa asked Rand. He was standing in the closet, swapping his towel for a pair of jeans.

“We’ve got plenty of time,” he said. He slid on a black Henley shirt and used the towel to dry his hair.

“I know, but . . . ,” she said.

He turned to look at her. “But what?”

She shrugged. “It’s part of the fun.”

He leaned forward and dropped a kiss on her lips.

“Your hair’s getting long around the ears,” she said, reaching out to touch it. “Want me to trim it?”

“Nah.” Rand jerked away from her and walked into the bathroom. She could see him through the open door; he was fiddling with his hair, brushing it forward onto his forehead as he examined it from different angles in the mirror.

A ten-second combing was the most attention he usually paid to it, so he must’ve noticed what she already had: his hairline was beginning to recede and the top was thinning. Genetics were working against Rand; his father was almost completely bald, and Rand had inherited his dark hair and blunt features. Peter, on the other hand, took after their mother, who’d been tall and slim, with thick blond hair.

She thought of making a joke—she didn’t care if he lost his hair—but something told her Rand wouldn’t laugh. He had a streak of vanity, probably honed while he was growing up, when his dyslexia prevented him from performing well in school so he earned admiration in other ways, like through his athletic prowess and his good looks. Rand still did fifty push-ups every morning and kept his free weights in the garage for daily workouts; he was proud that he could fit into the same size jeans he’d worn when he was twenty. Maybe it was scary for him to lose control over this aspect of his appearance, Alyssa thought as he frowned into the mirror.

“Want to go snowboarding?” she called out. “I checked the website for the slopes, and it was cold enough last night to make snow.”

“Sure,” Rand said. He came out of the bathroom. “Is anyone coming today?”

“Nope,” Alyssa said. “We’ve got Jessica’s bachelorette party tomorrow—or her ‘pre-bachelorette-party party,’ as she’s calling it, and then a full house at the end of the week.”

“Pre-party party?” Rand asked.

“Apparently she and the girls are going to Vegas, too, closer to the wedding,” Alyssa said. “But I don’t think they wanted to turn down a free trip here.”

“Pain-in-the-ass bride.” Rand rolled his eyes. “Let’s hit it,” he said, putting a baseball cap on his head. “I’ll grab my board.”

“Okay,” Alyssa said. “In twenty minutes.”

She grabbed his hand and yanked him down onto the bed next to her. “You’re gorgeous,” she whispered, slipping her hand under his shirt and stroking his broad chest.

She couldn’t tell him that his hair loss didn’t matter, that he was still as attractive as ever. But maybe she could show him.

• • •

Routines meant danger. The folks who ran the hostel in Boston had begun to take an interest in Dawn, asking where she was from and how long she planned to stay. Most travelers came through for just a night or two, so she’d started to stand out.

That, combined with Tucker’s chilling e-mail, meant it was time to move on.

She was sitting in a diner near the Boston University campus, stretching her early-morning breakfast of tea and an English muffin and thinking of where to go, when she overheard a few students in the next booth chatting about a ski trip.

She’d been skiing once, long ago, with her dad. He’d saved up for the day trip because he wanted his daughter to experience all that his glorious adopted country had to offer. They’d driven in his old Pinto from New York to a small resort town—she couldn’t remember its name—and he’d rented her what had to be the world’s shortest skis and half-carried her to the bunny slope, since she kept slipping. She’d been terrible at it, but her father’s patience had never wavered. He’d stayed right next to her, steadying her with his arms, reminding her to fall backward, onto her butt, if she needed to. At the end of the day, when her nose was running and her cheeks ached from the cold, he’d taken her into the resort’s lodge and bought her a hot chocolate. It had arrived smothered in a pile of whipped cream with chocolate shavings on top. She’d drunk every rich, delicious drop, her fingertips tingling as the feeling returned to them, then she’d fallen asleep on the ride home. She’d awoken briefly to feel her father carrying her up the stairs of their apartment building. There wasn’t any better feeling than having your dad carry you to bed when you were a child.

She sensed that her father was somehow by her side again, guiding her just as he had on that long-ago day when she’d navigated the scary slopes. He was such a smart man. He’d immigrated to the United States with Dawn’s mother when they were both nineteen. He’d only been able to find work as a grocery store cashier, but he’d taught himself how to repair their car and handle plumbing problems, and he’d learned English by watching sitcoms at night and repeating the actors’ lines. What would he tell her to do now?

Stay unpredictable.
She could almost hear his voice.

“I see the bus,” one of the students said, and they all stood up and grabbed their skis and boots and headed outside. A sign, Dawn thought, and she paid her bill and followed them. The driver was stowing the equipment under the bus when she approached him.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Is there room for one more?”

He shrugged. “Twenty bucks.”

She handed him the fare and found an empty seat in the last row. She pulled the backpack containing the change of clothes she’d bought at a thrift store onto her lap and took a black wool cap out of the pocket of her secondhand down coat as her eyes scanned the pedestrians outside the window. She was looking for Tucker again, just as she’d done every time she’d walked down the hallways at work, but now whenever she saw a tall blond man, her heart stuttered for a very different reason. When the bus began to move, she eavesdropped on the conversations around her, trying to glean details about where they were going so she could formulate a plan. She was equal parts watchman and private detective lately, she thought. The thought made her flinch: Could the investment banking firm—or Tucker—have hired a private detective to find her?

She was still retracing her path in her mind, probing for missteps, when they arrived in Killington, Vermont, three hours later.

Dawn stepped off the bus into the ski resort’s parking lot and looked up to see a tall wooden lodge, not dissimilar from the one she’d visited with her dad so many years ago. She went inside and found a table by a big window overlooking the slopes. The cavernous room was mostly empty, and it felt toasty warm. She’d chosen a seat that faced the entrance, so she could see whoever came into the restaurant, but everyone seemed to be out on the slopes.

A deep weariness settled in her core. She’d been on high alert for so long, sleeping in snatches, tensing every time she turned a new street corner or heard a loud sound. There were fewer people here, and it was blessedly quiet. Getting out of the city had been a good idea, she thought.

What was she going to do next, though? She tried to come up with a mental list of options. She could consult a lawyer, but would the lawyer have an ethical obligation to turn her in? She didn’t know enough about the law to determine if it was safe. Maybe she should just turn
herself
in. But if the police didn’t believe her story, she’d go to jail. She’d be trapped there—unable to escape. Her worst fear. She didn’t realize she’d reached up to touch the scar on her cheek until her fingernail scratched her skin.

She slouched lower in her seat as her eyelids began to grow heavy. She’d gotten up at 4:30 to leave the hostel so no one would see her depart. Now the exhaustion she’d built up over the preceding weeks overtook her. She rested her head on the long wooden table and closed her eyes. She’d allow herself the luxury of drifting off for a few minutes. When she woke up, she’d plan her next step.

• • •

What sadist had invented the concept of skiing? Kira wondered. Who was the first person to decide it would be fun to rocket shakily down an icy mountain on two pieces of metal with wind attacking your face and snow spraying into your eyes and people whipping all around, waving spiky poles like gladiators closing in for a kill? She was shocked lawyers hadn’t shut down the sport yet; the potential for catastrophe was rampant.

“Come on,” Rand said. “You’ll love it.”

“I bet you’ll catch on really quick,” Alyssa said encouragingly. She and Rand were carrying their personal snowboards and wearing goggles and boots and helmets they hadn’t had to rent. They looked like they’d been born atop a mountain and had soared down it in lieu of learning how to walk.

“It looks like fun,” Kira lied. She’d lived in the South for her entire life. She wasn’t cut out for this crap.

She slid a foot forward and promptly fell over. She tried to get up and fell again, like a slapstick character in a cartoon.

She glared up at Peter, who was helpfully holding out the pointed tip of his pole, like he expected her to clutch on to it. He was the one who’d suggested they join Alyssa and Rand on the slopes. Peter had gone skiing a few times before, naturally, so he looked perfectly at ease on his flippers of death.

“Here.” Rand handed his snowboard to Alyssa, walked over behind Kira, and bent down to grab her around the waist. He lifted her to a standing position, then kept his hands on her as she took another, tentative shuffle forward. She would’ve wiped out again if it weren’t for Rand. As it was, she fell backward against his chest and nearly took them both down.

“This might not be a good idea,” Kira said. “I should probably go straight to the après-ski part.”

“Let’s try the bunny slope,” Rand suggested. “I’ll stay with you until you get your legs. It’s like riding a bike—it’ll click after a little bit.”

“I broke my wrist when I was learning how to ride a bike,” Kira muttered, but Rand kept helping her slide along, a few inches at a time. His closeness was distracting, as was his firm grip on her waist and his deep voice in her ear. She glanced over at Peter, keeping pace alongside them on his own skis. Her husband didn’t look overjoyed.

“I think I’ve got it now,” Kira said. “Let me try it on my own.”

Rand let go of her, and she tumbled forward, landing spread-eagle.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Rand said. “Come on, Lindsey Vonn.”

Kira raised her head and spit out some snow, then Rand lifted her up into a standing position again.

She nearly wiped out a dozen more times on the way to the bunny slope, but by the time they arrived, her legs were adjusting to the unfamiliar sensation and her body’s excellent sense of balance—due to her years of gymnastics and cheerleading—was kicking in.