Page 43 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
“Mom,” Annie whispered, “I didn’t know any of this.”
Lorraine nodded. “I didn’t know much of it myself—until that day.”
She motioned back to the boardwalk. They saw Lorraine rise quickly, grabbing her shoes. Bob looked angry, pulling at Lorraine’s legs until she broke free and ran. Bob smacked a fist into the sand, spraying it onto his pants.
“At that point, Annie, I just wanted to gather you up, take you home, buy you ice cream. I wanted to make you the happiest girl in the world.
“It was like a curtain had lifted. I could be done with all those men who weren’t right for me, done with the stupid flirting phone calls. I was finally seeing things straight.”
“What happened?” Annie asked.
Lorraine looked off. “Just because you see things straight doesn’t mean you see them in time.”
***
They watched young Lorraine hurry onto Ruby Pier. An ambulance sped past her, lights flashing. Police officers were barking into radios. Lorraine spun back and forth, confused, as crowds surged on the midway. She pushed against the tide of onlookers, past the bumper cars, pastthe teacup ride, through the food pavilion, all the while yelling, “Annie!... Annie!”
Finally, after an hour of fruitless search, Lorraine spotted a police officer talking to a park worker, a wiry young man whose shirt patch readDOMINGUEZ. They stood beside yellow barricade tape. The wiry man had tears in his eyes.
“Can you help me?” Lorraine interrupted. “I’m sorry. I know you’re dealing with whatever’s going on. But it’s my daughter. I can’t find her. I’ve looked everywhere. I’m worried.”
The policeman shot a glance at Dominguez.
“What did she look like?” the officer asked.
Lorraine described Annie. The cutoff shorts. The lime green T-shirt with a duck on the front.
“Oh, my God,” Dominguez whispered.
***
Annie watched the heavenly sky turn a dull red.
“That was the lowest moment of my life,” her mother said. “When my daughter most needed me, I was with a man I didn’t even care about.
“By the time I reached the hospital, they had alreadystarted operating. I had to ask what they were doing. Me. Your mother. Asking like an outsider. I cried so hard. Not just for your pain, Annie, but for my own humiliation.
“All those rules? All the limits and curfews I would put on you? It was all because of that day. I never wanted to make another mistake.”
“It just made me hate you,” Annie said, softly.
“No more than I hated myself. I didn’t protect you. I left you alone. After that, I could never think of myself as a good mother again.
“I was so ashamed. It made me hard on you, when I was trying to be hard on me. We are blinded by our regrets, Annie. We don’t realize who else we punish while we’re punishing ourselves.”
Annie thought for a moment. “Is that the lesson you’re here to teach me?”
“No,” Lorraine said, quietly. “That’s me sharing my most painful secret.”
Annie stared at her mother’s young, unblemished face, which suggested a woman still in her twenties. She felt a surge of something that had yet to visit her in the afterlife: the need to confess.
“I have a secret, too,” Annie said.
Annie Makes a Mistake
She is twenty. She is pregnant. An old woman entering the doctor’s office holds the door for Annie as she leaves.
“You don’t have to do that,” Annie says.
