panic attack every time she saw a homeless person. “They make me feel guilty and vulnerable,” the client had said.
“Please, Bette, he took my boys...”
Bette’s face had clouded over, and for a split second Juno entertained the thought that her old coffee date, her girls’ night partner, was going to help her. Juno, after all, had been the one to start calling Elizabeth Brown “Bette” when they first met. It had caught on, and then suddenly everyone else was calling her Bette, too. And here was her Bette, with the high, round moon cheeks, looking at Juno like she was spoiled cheese. The thought was indulgent; Juno knew what she’d do in the same situation. Someone you’re ashamed to know shows up on your doorstep demanding information they really didn’t deserve.
Bette’s eyes filled with ice. Juno was familiar with that look, but not from Bette; Bette had always been a little lamb. Now she suddenly seemed like something else. Had Kregger called to tell Bette that Juno was getting out and to keep an eye out for her? Of course he had; Juno knew Kregger just as well as he knew her. She took a little step back, which seemed to embolden the new Bette.
“Those aren’t your boys, they’re Kregger’s. You had your chance with them, Juno, and you blew it. Leave them be, they’ve started over.” And then Bette shut the door in Juno’s face.
Juno had a key to Bette’s house once; a just-in-case key that she held on to in case they ever got locked out, or Juno needed to go inside to water a plant while they were on vacation. The pain Juno felt in that moment was unbearable; they were her boys. She’d raised them. They’d left Alaska after Kregger’s ex-wife, Marnie, overdosed in her apartment in Albuquerque. A neighbor had found the toddlers, both wearing sagging diapers and wandering the corridors of the building. The worst part was, they hadn’t even been crying; that’s what broke Juno’s heart the most. She and Kregger had taken the first flight back to New Mexico with no thoughts of returning to Alaska. They had sons now, and Juno had taken the boys willingly—of course she would raise them, of course she would love them as her own.
The boys had had nothing to do with her mistake; she just hadn’t been thinking about them. That’s how it always was when it came to mistakes; no one was doing any thinking. During Dale’s freshman year of high school, Juno had an affair with his swim coach. She could say all of the regular things about how “it just happened” and how “she wasn’t that type of person,” but...if you did it, sorry, you were that type of person.
His name was Chad Allan, and the first time he’d walked into Juno’s office for therapy it was with his wife, Julianna. They all startled when they recognized each other, and then, somewhat awkwardly, sat down. Juno went by her maiden name professionally, and the Allans had been a referral, so none of them had realized they knew each other until the day of the appointment. They had sons in the same grade; Chad and Julianna’s son Michael was not an athlete and drifted toward the arts, separating the boys into two circles.
Juno was shivering. She needed to get up, move to where it was warmer. Hems Corner, she thought. No, the blue room; she could sleep in the blue room right off Nigel’s den. When was the last time she’d slept in a bed? She groaned as fresh pain erupted in her stomach. She’d stay here for a little while longer, until she was strong enough, even if the memories were bad.
Chad Allan wasn’t the reason her marriage and her motherhood ended, no. He was just at the ugly end. The whole thing had felt like a roller-coaster ride to Juno, one that she realized she didn’t want to be on until it was too late. The adrenaline of secrecy paired with an angry woman. And Juno was angry—at Kregger. Mostly. Hadn’t she put her life and career on hold to raise his sons? She’d done everything right, everything to benefit him—and yet by the time she met Chad, it seemed that Kregger barely looked at her. He looked at everything but her, in fact: the television, the paper, his laptop.
Chad’s son had seen them together, walking out of a Motel Six hand in hand as he drove to his part-time job