Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [132]
Over time, it became apparent that Kelly wasn’t doing much to rehabilitate herself. She’d shown up high on two of her last three visitation days, and the grandparents promptly filed a petition to terminate Kelly’s rights permanently. Total termination of rights was a drastic step, one never made lightly nor without a certain amount of angst and soul searching.
After all, Mara knew all too well the torment of losing a child.
In the end, of course, the decision would rest in the hands of Judge McKettrick, whom Mara knew from past experience was always reluctant to sever a parent’s rights when the parent contested as vehemently as Kelly Feehan was doing. Much would depend on the information brought to the court in the morning. The responsibility to present everything fairly, without judgment or embellishment, was one that Mara took very seriously.
With the flick of her finger, the screen of Mara’s laptop went blank, then filled with the image of a newborn snuggled up against a shoulder covered by a yellow and white hospital gown. The infant’s hair was little more than pale fuzz, the eyes closed in slumber, the perfect rosebud mouth puckered just so.
Another flick of a finger, and the image was gone.
Mara’s throat constricted with the pain of remembrance, the memories of the joy that had filled her every time she’d held that tiny body against her own. She abruptly pushed back from the table and walked to the door.
“Spike,” she called, and from the living room came the unmistakable sound of a little dog tail thumping on hard wood.
“It’s time to go for a walk.”
Spike knew walk, but not time, which was just as well, since it was past one in the morning. But once the thorn of memory began to throb, Mara had to work it out of her system. Her conditioned response to emotional pain was physical. Any kind of sustained movement would do—a walk, a run, a bike ride, a trip to the gym, anything that got her on her feet was acceptable, as long as it got her moving through the pain so that she could get past it for a while.
Mara pursued exhaustion where others might have chosen a bottle or a needle or a handful of pills, though there’d been times, in the past, when she’d considered those, too.
By day, Mara’s neighborhood in a suburban Philadelphia college town was normally quiet, but at night, it was as silent as a tomb. She walked briskly, the soles of her walking shoes padding softly on the sidewalk, the occasional street lamp lighting her way, Spike’s little Jack Russell legs keeping the pace. Four blocks down, four blocks over and back again. That’s what it usually took to clear her head. Tonight she made the loop in record time. She still had work to do, and an appointment in court at nine the next morning.
The evening’s earlier storm had passed through, and now a full moon hung over her small house and cast shadows behind her as she made her way back up the brick walk to her front door. She’d let Spike off the leash at the end of their drive, and now stood watching as the dog sniffed at something in the grass.
“Spike,” she whispered loudly, and the dog looked up, wagging his tail enthusiastically. “Come on, buddy. Time to go in.”
With obvious reluctance, Spike left whatever it was he’d found on the lawn and followed his mistress to the front steps. Mara unlocked the front door, but did not go immediately inside. She crossed her arms and stared up at the night sky for a long moment, thinking of her own child, wondering once again where in this vast world she was at that exact moment, and who, if anyone, was standing for her.
On the television screen, the earnest five o’clock news anchor droned on and on, his delivery as flat as his crew-cut hair. Mara turned the volume down to answer the ringing phone.
“What’s for dinner?” Mara’s sister, Anne Marie McCall, dispensed with a greeting and cut to the chase.
“I was just asking myself that very thing.” Mara grinned, delighted to hear Annie’s voice.
“How ’bout a little Chinese?”
“You buying?”
“And delivering.”