Page 17 of The Cowboy and the Baby

“Good.”

“You’re home safe from Florida!”

“Thank heavens.”

Her boyfriend, Hawk, waved from the table, near a laptop, a cup of abandoned coffee, and a plethora of drawings scattered around. Cora grabbed my hand, tugged me out of her apartment doorway, shoved me into a recliner, and snapped the TV off.

“Tell me,” she demanded, all levity gone.

I knew exactly what she meant.

She’d waited almost two days for my full report on what I found in Florida, so my grace period had expired. Hawk drifted to her side, set a hand on her knee, and pulled her close. She went willingly. I leaned forward, propped my elbows on my knees.

“I didn’t see Mom, but I found where she’s been, and I spoke to a few people who have seen her, or know her.”

“Who?”

“A pastor, a few workers at a homeless shelter she may have stayed in. When I spoke to other people who frequented the same shelter, they were reluctant to speak about her. Another middle-aged woman was a fount of information, though. She’s how I found a man named Pastor Mike with a local church that does a lot of outreach to homeless people. He thinks he recognized Mom in the pictures I showed him.”

Cora absorbed that with fluttering eyelashes and bemused stupefaction, like none of it felt quite real. I might have been speaking about a neighbor, not our mother.

Her relationship with Hawk was still fledgling, but I couldn’t imagine anyone better for Cora. Hawk’s mother, a woman they called Bette, had stepped in as an immediate maternal fixture for Cora recently, and that was a good thing. There were some things I could give Cora, but a lot more that I couldn’t. Hawk and Bette satisfied the height of what lay out of my reach.

“What did Pastor Mike say?”

“We discussed a few details that confirmed the woman he knew was likely our mother. I left my contact information, in case they run into her again. Mom doesn’t sound very lucid. I also spoke to the local county office. They can’t give out information, but I did look up public arrest records to see if she was in them.”

Her brows rose.

“And?”

I shrugged. What was there to say? Little had changed for Mom, who lived in a delusional world from which she hadn’t emerged, to my understanding, in almost a decade. Her mental health had been a dam bursting, and then a landslide.

We lost her to both.

“Same as we saw here,” I concluded, and tucked away the list of miscellaneous arrests for petty crimes to the back of my mind. Cora didn’t need those details. Mom wasn’t violent, but she wasn’t well, either. In the past, officers pulled her off the street when she went into one of her fits, and she usually left the jail in the morning after settling down.

Brimming tears and a sweet nod followed. The urge to hug the pain out of Cora was near physical, but Hawk had already wrapped his arm more fully around her. She curled like a koala into his side. But, as always, Cora didn’t give in to massive emotions. Her practical side allowed them. She stared out the window at the wintry landscape while tears streamed down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Cora,” I said, for lack of anything else. This was the one problem I could never really fix. Food, shelter, and clothes through her young years? Managed it. College tuition? I figured it out. Boyfriends? Taught her well. Art?

Well, that was her gift, but I could always help her figure out how to get the resources into her hands to let her creative streak fly.

Our mother?

I got nothing.

Hawk said, “Thank you, Cade. Knowing will be easier, I think.”

Cora nodded, sniffled.

I don’t know if I agree with that, I thought. The entire trip to Florida felt like a waste, yet something I had to do. I learned nothing new. Didn’t see Mom. And yet . . . that also felt like the best ending. Seeing Mom was like looking into the face of my worst self, and understanding that a shadow side existed to everyone.

Some of us fought it.

Some of us couldn’t.

And only fate seemed to know who landed where.