LITMIR.BIZ

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and wearing a Yankees baseball cap, which had been a Christmas gift from Bo. A clear pouch on a string, with a card that read Unaccompanied Minor, dangled around his neck.

      Strike three. Yeeee’re out.

      Bo stepped forward, assumed his best posture. “AJ?” he said to the boy he’d never laid eyes on before. “It’s me, Bo Crutcher. Your dad.”

       Three

      Kim hobbled through the airport to the commuter-plane concourse. The dress, torn to within a few inches of decency, flapped around her chilled, bare legs. She hoped to catch a flight on a private carrier upstate, thus avoiding a trek into the city and a long and lurching train ride. In this, at least, fate was on her side. Pegasus Air had a seat available on a flight to Kingston that was leaving within the hour. She didn’t dare look at the charge slip of her credit card, but scribbled her signature and headed for the waiting area. Within minutes, the flight was called and the small cluster of passengers lined up to board the plane.

      The route to the commuter aircraft was a long outdoor walkway with a canvas awning, currently being whipped into a frenzy by an icy, sideways wind. She was beyond exhausted, beyond feeling conspicuous in her evening wear. That didn’t, however, protect her from feeling the pure, freezing torment of the cold, lashing about her ankles and legs. Small rivers of snow eddied underfoot, chasing her to the truck-mounted stairway leading up to the dual-prop Bombardier.

      She dozed during the short, bumpy flight north to the snow-clad hills of Ulster County, and jolted awake when the plane slammed down on the foreshortened runway. Blinking at the flat, gray winter scene outside the window, a fresh wave of misgivings nudged at her. Walking out on last night’s party and going straight to the airport, leaving behind a successful career, a crappy boyfriend and all her belongings, might not have been the best idea she’d ever had. Quite possibly, heading directly from the L.A. disaster to the small town where her widowed mother now lived was a bit extreme.

      Still. Sometimes a girl simply had to respect her instincts, and every instinct last night had urged her to flee. Quite often, her impulses had proven to be wrong; she’d get a head full of steam over something, only to discover things weren’t so bad, after all. This time, she acknowledged, was different. Because beneath the shock and panic, the humiliation and disappointment, something else emerged—determination.

      She would get through this.

      Squaring her shoulders, she endured the arctic crossing of the open-air tarmac and headed into the waiting room of the tiny airport. Here was something Kim was good at—appearing calm. To the point where she actually was calm. No one would guess that she was on the verge of screaming.

      The waiting room was a drafty, cavernous aluminum building that became a virtual wind tunnel every time the door opened. She set her jeweled clutch on a vacant counter. The evening bag had been a Christmas gift from Lloyd, and was worth thousands of dollars. But when she peered inside, all she could see was how small it was, how empty. It contained her remaining diamond chandelier earring, a gift from the hockey player she’d dated before Lloyd. She wouldn’t miss wearing the earrings, since they were heavy and uncomfortable. There was a lipstick and a tube of concealer, one credit card, a platinum American Express. Her driver’s license and a wad of cash she’d withdrawn from an ATM at the airport, charging it to the American Express. This would likely incur an exorbitant fee but she couldn’t worry about that. Not now. She had more immediate worries.

      Gritting her teeth, she took out her phone, balking as she had earlier. Turning on the phone meant acknowledging what had happened last night. Well, ignoring the phone was not going to make her troubles go away. She set her jaw and hit the power button. As expected, there was a full queue of missed calls. She scrolled through them but didn’t listen to the messages. She knew they would be a string of rants from Lloyd and, no doubt, Lloyd’s manager, his various coaches and teammates, his parents. Good lord, the man was thirty years old and didn’t even take a piss without getting input from his parents.

      She definitely wouldn’t miss that aspect of him. She wouldn’t miss any aspect of him, not even his money, his status, his looks or reputation. None of those were worth her heart. Or her self-respect.

      As she glared at the tiny screen, it gave her a low-battery warning and then went blank. All the better, she thought. Except she really did need to make a call.

      She looked around for a pay phone. The only one in range was a phone booth about fifty yards across the frozen tundra of the parking lot. Please, no, she thought, approaching the counter. “Excuse me,” she said to the girl working there. “Is there a pay phone indoors? My cell phone died.”

      “Local call?” the girl asked, eyeing Kim’s outfit.

      “Yes.”

      The counter girl indicated a phone on the wall, surrounded by scribbled-on Post-it notes. “Help yourself.”

      Kim watched her own fingers punch the numbers as though they belonged to someone else. To her horror, she was shaking uncontrollably. She could barely connect her fingers with the correct number. After a couple of false starts, she finally got it right.

      “Fairfield House.”

      Kim frowned, momentarily disoriented. “Mom?”

      “Kimberly,” her mother chirped. “Good morning, dear. How are you?”

       Trust me, you do not want to know.

      “You’re up early,” her mother continued.

      “I’m not there,” said Kim. “I mean, I’m not in L.A. I came home on the red-eye.”

      “You’re in New York?”

      “I’m at the county airport, Mom.”

      There was a beat of hesitation, weighted with doubt. “Well, for heaven’s sake. I had no idea you planned to fly out from L.A.”

      “Can you come and pick me up?” To her dismay, Kim’s throat burned and her eyes smarted. Fatigue, she told herself. She was tired, that was all.

      “I was just cleaning up after breakfast.”

      Screw breakfast, Kim wanted to scream. “Mom, please. I’m really tired.”

      “Of course. I’ll be there in a jiff.”

      Kim wondered how long a “jiff” was. Her mom was always saying things like “in a jiff.” It used to drive Kim’s father crazy. He always thought colloquialisms were so déclassé.

      “Wait, can you bring a spare coat and some snow boots?” she asked hurriedly. But it was too late. Her mother had already hung up. She wondered what her father would think of her current getup. No, she didn’t wonder. She knew. The form-fitting gown would earn his skepticism at best, but more likely disapproval, her father’s default mode.

      I wish we’d had time to forgive one another, Dad, she thought.

      She pulled her thoughts away from him, telling herself not to go there, not in her current state of mind. One day, she would get to work on making peace with the past, but not this morning. This morning, it was all she could do to keep from turning into a sequined Popsicle in the waiting room. She found a bench to sit on in the terminal, and started nodding off like a wino.

      She jerked herself awake and glanced at the clock. It would probably take her mother another ten minutes to get here. Ten more minutes. How many things could happen in ten minutes? That was about how long it took to send a flower delivery. Or to write an email.

      Or break up with a boyfriend. Or quit a job. These ten minutes, Kim thought, right here, right now, were the start of forever.

      The notion made her sit up straighter. Right here, right now, she could pick a new path for her life. Leave the past behind and move ahead. People did it all the time, didn’t they? Why couldn’t she do the same?

      Her mother had made a new start in Avalon, Kim reminded herself. It could be done. After the

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