Page 104 of Smoke and Roses

“I did. It’s the best sunflower I’ve ever seen.”

She beams at me. “I’m Lindsey too,” she says. “I’m the little Lindsey.”

That’s the one that gets me.

I’m thirty-six years old, standing in a hospital room in Ogden, Utah, in a hospital gown with a burn on my neck, and a five-year-old in Portland breaks me in half.

I put my hand over my eyes.

My Lindsey reaches up and takes my other hand and holds it against her cheek.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“That’s her. Travis. That’s her. Oh my God, that’s her.”

“Honey, you have to let go of my arm. I can’t feel my hand.”

I don’t let go of his arm.

It’s six days later, and we’re standing at the bottom of the escalators at the Salt Lake airport. Me and Travis. Carol, in her good church coat, holding a bouquet of yellow roses and white daisies I made her this morning. Hank Simmons in his best hat and his suspenders, with his hands folded in front of him like he’s at a funeral, except he can’t stop smiling.

At the top of the escalator, coming down, is Danielle.

She has dark curly hair and a green coat. There’s a toddler on her hip and a five-year-old holding her hand, and behind them is a tall man with glasses, carrying a car seat and three backpacks and looking like he hasn’t slept since Tuesday.

She sees me. She stops right there in the middle of the escalator, and the man behind her almost walks into her, and she doesn’t even notice. She just stands there with her hand over her mouth while the escalator carries her down to me.

I let go of Travis’s arm.

I don’t remember walking. One second I’m standing next to Travis, and the next I’m at the bottom of the escalator. Danielle steps off and hands the toddler to her husband without even looking, and then I’ve got her.

She smells different. Like somebody else’s laundry soap. She has crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and a little scar through one eyebrow that I don’t remember. She’s thirty-four years old, a mother and a nurse and a wife, and she’s still Danny. She’s hanging on to me like the escalator might take her back up.

“Linds,” she says into my hair.

“Hi,” I say. “Hi, Danny.”

Neither of us says anything else for a long time. People flow around us. Somebody’s suitcase bumps my ankle. A little boy asks his mom why those ladies are crying. None of it matters.

When she finally pulls back, she’s laughing, with my hair stuck in her lip gloss. She reaches into the collar of her green coat and pulls out a chain.

Hanging on it is half of a cheap gold heart. The letters are still black with soot down in the grooves. BE FRI.

“I got it back,” she says. “Gabe released it to Hank, and Hank drove it to the post office himself and overnighted it to me. It was still hanging on the mirror, Linds. All that time.” She’s shaking. “I left it there on purpose that night. So if anybody ever found the car, you’d know. You’d know I didn’t throw it away.”

I reach under my sweater. My half is right where it’s been every day since I was fourteen. ST ENDS.

I pull it out. She holds hers up.

We put them together.

They don’t fit perfectly. They’re seven-dollar necklaces from Claire’s. Mine is bent at one corner from the time I caught it on a cooler door, and hers is darker from the soot. But the jagged edges meet in the middle.

BE FRI ST ENDS.

Behind me, Carol gasps. Hank makes a sound in his throat. Even Travis lets out a long breath.

Danielle looks past my shoulder, and her face changes.