Sunrise Point

judgment. So, I moved into this awful motel in a bad section of town. I went to social services for help and medical benefits and…and Chad went back to his team. I didn’t hear from him for months.”
    “Really?” Tom said. “He didn’t call you or anything?”
    “He called a few times, but it seemed like he wanted to know about other people, not me. Like a couple of his friends who lived around there. But they weren’t really friends—they were guys he got pot from.” She met his eyes. “Before I found out I was pregnant, which by the way I found out right away, we used to smoke a little pot. That’s something I’m sure you never did…”
    Tom laughed. “Oh, of course not—not a good old boy from Humboldt County! Where we grow our own.”
    “You mean you did? ” she asked, stunned.
    “You should keep that to yourself. Maxie wouldn’t be too happy about that, even though I was just a stupid kid.”
    “Seriously? You did?”
    “I was not a pothead, all right?” he said, somewhat indignantly. “I was a kid, a boy. There might’ve been a little beer, a joint. I never got in trouble.” He shook his head. “Maxie would kill me. Even now.”
    She laughed at him. “Your secret is safe with me. And that describes my dabbling exactly. I realized I was pregnant with Berry and there hasn’t been any of that since. Not anything. But Chad? I had absolutely no idea, but he was a sinking ship. Since I never saw him, how would I know? But when he came back later, when I was pregnant with Fay, his appearance had changed. He’d gotten so thin—his teeth and skin were terrible. He said they were working him to death, and I believed it, but that wasn’t what it was. I found out too late—he had fallen headlong into all kinds of drugs, had been kicked off the team, was doing some dealing to cover his own habit. He was not the same guy who rang all my chimes at a baseball game when I was nineteen.” She looked at Tom and just tilted her head. “I was young and dumb, no experience. I didn’t know anything. And I didn’t have anyone to lean on.”
    “And then what happened?” Tom asked.
    “Then?” she said.
    “Well, you have two kids… .”
    “Oh,” she said. “Well, by the time I realized what was going on I had a one-year-old and was pregnant, living on assistance in a hovel with my useless boyfriend living off me. I was twenty-one, broke, had no family and no money and Chad said we were coming to Humboldt County because he had found work, but Fay came before. It was winter in the mountains and he left me with a newborn baby and a toddler in a house that didn’t even keep the wind out. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of strangers, I don’t think we would have survived.”
    “What work did he come here to do?” Tom asked.
    “He said he got a job with a farmer,” she said with a rueful laugh and a slight flush. “I don’t think it was your regular kind of farmer—it was Christmastime! Do farmers hire hands at Christmas when the snow is four feet deep? I think it was a grower and I think Chad either got fired or ran or maybe even robbed the guy before he ran. He abandoned us, but he came back about six months later looking for money and the men in town caught him trying to shake some money out of me. Jack, Noah, Preacher. Mike V., the town cop, was there, the sheriff was called and Chad is now in jail. He’s going to be in jail for a while. Hopefully long enough to forget about us.”
    Tom had turned in his driver’s seat. His arm was rested on the top of the steering wheel; he balanced it on his wrist. The other arm was stretched out along the seat, toward her. He just stared at her for a long moment. Finally he said, “You’ve had a tough time.”
    She took a breath. “I wish I’d made better choices.”
    “You were young.”
    “I had girlfriends who were as young, but protected themselves much better.”
    “Yeah? I had friends who were better at lots of things than me. But I can grow a real pretty apple.” And then he tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ear.
    “I am very impressed with your apples,” she told him.
    “All those things you didn’t feel you had the best instincts for before? You’ll be so much better at that now,” he said.
    “I had a very sweet maternity nurse when Berry was born,” Nora said. “She was a grandmother, she said. And she felt so sorry for me that my mother wanted no part of Berry’s arrival—she wouldn’t have missed her