Page 36 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
But as time passed, with the bills unpaid, Lorraine needed to take an outside job. She asked neighbors to watch Annie after school and was exhausted by the time she got home. Annie started sleeping in her own room. Eventually, Lorraine was asked out by men at her new office and she quickly accepted, especially when they paid for a babysitter. She had a string of short relationships, none of them successful. She continued trying, hoping to change her life.
Then came the day at Ruby Pier, when she got her wish, but not the way she wanted.
***
In heaven, vision can be shared, and Annie, having tumbled into her mother’s eyes, now found herself inside one of Lorraine’s memories, sitting at a table in the backyard of their first home. The sky was white. A laundry pole hadsheets and clothes hanging, as did other laundry poles in other yards. Lorraine was wearing high heels with a blue skirt and a white blouse, an outfit she’d worn to work. There was a manila folder on her lap and documents in her hands.
“Do you know what these are, Annie?”
Annie, still trying to understand how they got here, shook her head no.
“They’re from a lawyer. Your father had them sent.”
Annie blinked. “Why?”
“He claimed I was an unfit mother. Because of your accident. He wanted custody.”
“Of me?”
“Full-time.”
“But I hadn’t seen Dad—”
“In years. I know. But he wanted to sue the amusement park, and he needed you to do that. He thought he could get big money. And when Jerry got a money idea, he didn’t give up.
“I knew what your life would be like if he took you. I knew how violent he was. So I made a decision.”
Annie glanced at the bedroom window. She saw her younger self looking out.
“I remember this day... It was when those reporters came to the door.”
“That’s right.”
“We left the next morning.”
“I never told you why.”
Lorraine laid down the papers.
“Now you know why.”
She stood and flattened her skirt.
“So that’s a start,” she said.
“A start of what?” Annie asked.
“Of ending our secrets. Come. There’s more to show you.”
Annie felt herself floating beside her mother. They rose above the house. The afternoon sky melted to dawn, and Annie saw their car pulling away the next morning, its trunk held down by a bungee cord.
“I hated leaving,” she said.
“I know you did.”
“Things were never the same.”
“They couldn’t be.”
