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  I stayed with Jared in his bachelor apartment in Columbus for a few days on my way to Wilton. I showed him the letters and we talked a little about the past. He told me he had kept in touch with Wendy and Andrew and Addison. He was in the process of getting a divorce; he said losing Mom and Dad had made his marriage seem pointless. “Ever feel like you’re running and you’re not sure if it’s away from or toward something?”

  I nodded. “The thing is, there is always something to get away from. If you keep looking back you can’t see what you might be heading toward.”

  “Something good?” he said, as if I knew.

  “I don’t know. I think we get to decide that for ourselves,” I said.

  Wendy moved back to the farm with Willard to live with Andrew as they prepared for their daughter to arrive. Andrew had convinced them to adopt and to come back to Wilton. Andrew had gone to California to meet his father, and while he did not get a fairy tale reunion, Jared Watkins acknowledged Andrew as his son. Jared showed Andrew a letter my mother had sent to him the day she killed herself, asking Jared to turn the farm over to her children. Jared respected her wishes and turned the farm over to us. My mother’s death had righted a good deal of wrongs after all. Andrew had found his father at last, and although on some level I’m sure he was a disappointment, at least he knew where he came from.

  The school bell rang and the doors burst open with screaming middle schoolers. I shifted the shopping bag with his birthday present to my other hand as I scanned the crowd for my son. I thought about the years I spent wondering if I would be able to pick him out of a crowd, if I would know him easily. The better question would have been, would he have known me?

  His backpack appeared taller than he was as I saw him bounding out the door with a dark-haired girl. She was trying to ignore him, but, like his father, he was hard to resist. She smiled before she pushed him away. He laughed.

  I waved and he saw me. I was afraid he might run in the other direction or flip me the bird or turn away, but he was not me. He came toward me instead and smiled shyly.

  “Dad said you were coming back,” he said. “Are you better?”

  “I’m getting there. Happy birthday,” I said, handing him the bag.

  “You remembered? How did you know?”

  “I was there when you were born,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah.” We laughed. “Can I open it?”

  “Wait for Dad. He’s coming.” Addison had been waiting by his car at my request. We had agreed I would do this on my own.

  “Dad’s here too?” he said, as if he could not imagine a universe where such things could happen.

  I pointed behind him as Addison rushed up and snatched him in his arms. “Happy birthday. You like your present?”

  “Dad!” Alex hit him in embarrassment. “You promised you wouldn’t say anything.”

  “Say what?” I asked.

  “Alex asked for you for his birthday.”

  I felt a rush of something flood my chest. This was the old sign that it was time for a drink, but I had learned a new trick in rehab that I was still practicing. I learned how to breathe. I took a deep one as I felt my chest open up to a strange emotion I suspected was close to joy.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t have preferred a new mitt?” I said, joking.

  He laughed. “Well, I do need one.”

  Addison looked at me and smiled and I felt that flood again. This time when I breathed, I felt the urge to touch him. I held back; there were still mountains to climb before I got there.

  Alex opened the present and loved the book and set of pens.

  “Your dad gave me a book exactly like this when we first met.”

  “This is cool.”

  “I started it for you,” I said. “Open it.”

  On the first two pages I had sketched out the story of his birth and included drawings of Addison and Diana. I put in as much detail as I could.

  As we walked to the car he looked at the captions and laughed at the exaggerated way I had Addison’s eyes popping out of his head when he came out. “Dad, see how funny you look,” he said.

  “That’s pretty accurate. I was freaked out,” Addison said, ruffling Alex’s hair.

  “Were you?” Alex said to me.

  “For about ten years,” I said.

  “But you’re not anymore, right?”

  “I’m working on it, kid,” I said, and without thinking, I put my arms around him and hugged him. He fit perfectly in my arms.

  Alex looked back at the book and got to the end of the second page and turned it to a blank one. “Ahh … tell me how it ends,” he said, as Addison opened the car door for me.

  “I can’t. It’s your story now.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing this book has been one of the great adventures of my life. I am truly grateful to everyone who helped me along the way, including those cited here and others I am sure to forget. Thanks to my agent, Jean Naggar, and everyone on her team at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. In addition to believing in Cat and helping this story find a home, she has been a gentle and encouraging guide into the world of publishing. Thanks to my editors, Jane von Mehren and Porscha Burke, who brought great passion and care to the story and helped me find its final shape, and to everyone at Random House who has worked hard to bring this story to you. Special thanks to all the readers over the years, including those in writing groups and workshops, and to Ivone DeOliveira for her proofreading help. Thanks to Christie Cox for dropping everything and helping me with copyedits, and for believing so fiercely in the book; to Lester and Harvey Pyle, who showed me life on a farm; to Gwyn Cready, for always believing my stories (even the one about being cloned); to my brother Patrick, who took a chance and read an American author; to Beth, Sara, Caroline, and Emily Coyne and Sophia and Giuseppe Scorcia, for their love and support; to Gina, Marc, Christopher, and Matthew Meha-lakes for sharing their lives with me and giving me a beautiful place to write. Thanks to my sister, Tami, for her unwavering and unconditional faith in me; to Donna Alleluia for her friendship; to Catherine Racette for listening; to Frank Polistena for his support; and to Laura Josephs for her guidance.

  Finally, a special thanks to the women survivors who gifted me with their stories. I am in awe of their courage and fortitude.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TERI COYNE is an alumna of New York University. In addition to writing fiction, Teri wrote and performed stand-up comedy for many years. The Last Bridge is her first novel. She divides her time between New York City and the North Fork of Long Island. Visit her website at www.tericoyne.com.

  The Last Bridge is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Teri Coyne

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-51705-0

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-On
e

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright