Emma had been in kindergarten or first grade then, and Mom had laughed.
“Oh, Emma,” she’d said. “What all are you going to do in this world, my little mathematician?”
The way she’d said it had made Emma feel proud. And a little possessive. Later, when she noticed that Mom had started using 111360 as her cell phone passcode, Emma wanted to keep the information to herself. She was the middle child, stuck between adorable Finn and responsible Chess—sometimes she just needed something to be all hers.
The keypad vanished from the screen, revealing the menu page. Emma held the phone out so Natalie could see the screen. Natalie squinted at the texting symbol at the top.
“Your mom uses an encrypted texting service?” Natalie said. “That’s interesting. What did you say she does?”
“We didn’t tell you,” Emma said.
“But she’s a graphic designer,” Chess added, just as Finn said, “She makes websites.”
Emma tried to decide if she should glare at her two brothers. But she was too busy watching Natalie’s fingers fly across the screen.
“Huh,” Natalie said. She bent closer and started to lift the phone higher. Emma pulled it back down.
“You don’t see anything we don’t see,” Emma reminded her.
“Are you sure you want to . . . ? Oh!” Natalie jerked back, knocking the phone to the side.
Chess’s hand shot out, steadying it again.
“Mom sent another text?” he asked. “Or—lots of them?”
Now it was Chess lifting the phone higher. Emma had to stand on tiptoes to see the screen, which was suddenly full of one green bubble of words after another. Emma read only, Tell the kids I can’t believe this! My schedule today is just as crazy today as yesterday but . . . before Natalie was scrolling farther down, through bubble after bubble after bubble.
“Technically, she hasn’t sent these yet,” Natalie said. She sounded apologetic again. “It’s like she’s got some auto-service set up, so these are set to go out at certain times. Tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, then . . .”
Emma caught only bits and pieces of each text: . . . so, so sorry . . . Believe me, this is not what I want . . . don’t want to interrupt at school . . . wish so much I could be home with . . . really do wish I could call . . .
Then the words on the screen stopped moving, and Natalie slapped her hand over the last bubble of text. Emma could see only the date above that bubble: It was for Tuesday, May 12. Exactly one week away.
“Let. Us. See,” Finn said.
Natalie started shaking her head, her long hair whipping out like snakes.
“No,” she said, and now her voice turned pleading. “You don’t want to read this. Maybe you’ll never have to. It’s actually to my mom. And it’s the kind of thing that—”
Emma and Chess and Finn together ripped the phone out of Natalie’s grasp.
And then Emma saw the last words on the screen:
Please tell the kids this was the last thing I wanted to happen. But I have to stay away for good, to protect them. That’s the only way to keep them safe. Tell them, you’ll always have each other. But also tell them never to look for me. I’m mailing you a letter to give to them today. It will explain everything—when they’re ready.
Fifteen
Chess
“Mom would never do that to us,” Chess said.
“Unless she had to,” Emma said. “Mom always says she would do anything to protect us.”
Chess hated how Emma could be so brutally logical, even at a time like this.
Even if she sounded like she was about to cry.
Chess put his arm around Emma’s shoulder, so now all three Greystones were linked: Chess holding on to Emma, Emma holding on to Finn.
But it’s not the same without Mom, Chess thought.
How could she possibly be gone for good? How could anybody not cry, if that was true?
Chess felt too frozen to do anything. But Finn sniffed. Then he whirled around and buried his face in the hollow between Chess’s shirt and Emma’s sleeve. He was crying.
Natalie reached out like she wanted to pat Finn on the back, but Emma glared and clutched Finn closer. It was possible that Chess’s face had shaped itself into a glare, too. He seemed to have lost control of his expression.
Natalie drew her hand back.
“Parents are so awful!” she snarled. “I hate my mom, too. And my dad. But even they never—”
“Our mom isn’t awful,” Finn mumbled into Chess’s shirt and Emma’s sleeve. “She loves us.”
“Finn’s right,” Emma said fiercely. “Mom probably needs our help. We need to see that letter. Now, not next week.”
“We can’t get it out of the mail,” Chess said. “We don’t even know where and when she’s putting it in the mail. But if she typed it on her computer . . .”
Natalie raised an eyebrow at Chess, like he was supposed to understand something the younger kids wouldn’t. Maybe she was trying to say, What if you really don’t want to see that letter? What if it’s too awful to read?
Chess shook his head at Natalie. If he hadn’t minded Finn and Emma overhearing, he would have said out loud, My father died when I was four. You think I’m scared of a letter?
No, he probably wouldn’t actually say that. But he could think it.
Whether it was true or not.
“If she left her phone here, maybe she left one of her computers, too,” Emma said. “The one she doesn’t use for work. And maybe the letter’s on that. Or we can use that computer to get to the cloud, where she might have saved it.”
“I’m going to go find it,” Finn announced, and Chess knew without looking that Finn would have his lip stuck out and his face set, a vision of obstinacy.
But then Chess did glance down at his brother, thinking it would help his own resolve. And Finn had tear tracks down his cheeks, along with a bubble of snot threatening to balloon out of one of his nostrils. His whole face trembled.
Finn looked like he wanted to act stubborn, but he’d gotten stuck on forlorn.
“Finn, why don’t you look around up here,” Chess suggested. “I’ll check on the first floor, and Emma can try the basement. She needs to go back down there to throw away the kitty litter she scooped, anyway.”
It felt good to be making plans—taking charge—even though his voice shook. And Emma shot him a glance that Chess knew meant, Why do you have to be so bossy? Still, Emma started down the stairs, and Chess quickly followed her.
Because if he hadn’t, he would have had to meet Natalie’s gaze again. And she might have even asked the question Chess was trying very hard not to think about. Chess hoped it never occurred to Finn or Emma.
Natalie’s mom had agreed to take care of the Greystone kids for a night or two. Or maybe three. But if Mom wasn’t coming back—or even if she only got delayed—what would happen to the Greystone kids then? Where would they go? Who would take care of them?
This is crazy, Chess told himself. A misunderstanding. A mistake. Of course Mom’s coming back. That will happen regardless. Whether we find her spare computer or not. Whether we do anything or not.
Still, as soon as he got down to the living room, Chess began looking under pillows, pulling out drawers.
Because there had to be something he could do.
He had to prove that none of this was true.
Sixteen
Finn
“You can go help Chess or Emma,” Finn told Natalie as he opened Mom’s closet. “I’ve got this.”
Finn hoped she couldn’t tell that what he really wanted was for her to leave so he could bury his face in Mom’s clothes. Maybe he could pull them down from the hangers and just curl up in a nest of Mom’s shirts until she came back. They’d still smell like her as long as nobody washed them, right? Finn sniffed a sleeve, and there it was: Mom’s unique odor, a mix of vanilla and Spring Breeze laundry detergent, with maybe some cinnamon and grass stain lurking underneath.
/> And apples. Mom’s clothes also smelled like apples.
“I . . . ,” Natalie began, and Finn forced himself to turn around and look at her. She stood in the doorway, half in, half out of the room. “I want to help. And Chess and Emma don’t trust me.”
If they don’t trust you, why would I? Finn wanted to say.
Most of the time, Finn said what he wanted to say as soon as he thought it.
But he’d never before thought it was possible that he’d never see his mother again. So right now he didn’t trust his own brain. Or his own mouth.
I will see Mom again, he told himself. I will. I will. I will. Soon.
He was like that train in the book for little kids, chugging out, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I can!”
He liked feeling like there wasn’t room in his brain for any other thoughts besides that.
He ignored Natalie and began pushing clothes from one side of the closet to the other, even though he didn’t really believe he would find a laptop behind or underneath them. He just liked the way moving the clothes set off more puffs of Mom smell.
He heard the doorbell downstairs and then Ms. Morales’s powerful voice calling, “Natalie? Finn, Emma, and, uh, Chess? What’s going on? This was supposed to be a quick stop, remember?”
Good thing Chess is downstairs, Finn thought. He’ll explain everything, and then Ms. Morales will understand why we have to stay here longer.
Ms. Morales was a grown-up. A mom. Once she heard about the messages on Mom’s phone, she’d probably say, “Why didn’t you show me that right away? Of course that’s a mistake. In fact, your mom just called, and she’s on her way home right now. You won’t have to spend the night at my house, after all!”
But Finn didn’t hear the rumble of Chess’s voice downstairs answering Ms. Morales. Instead, he heard Natalie’s footsteps, headed out toward the landing.
“Mom, go back to the car before you start sneezing all over the place!” Natalie yelled. She was standing at the top of the stairs. “The kids needed a few things their mom didn’t pack, so we’re getting everything together. Just five more minutes, okay?”
“Are you sure everything’s all right?” Ms. Morales asked.
“Of course,” Natalie said. “Now, go away before your whole face swells up!”
“Just five more minutes,” Ms. Morales said. Then she sneezed. “I’ll be waiting in the car. Hurry!”
Natalie came back into Mom’s room.
“You didn’t tell her about the text messages?” Finn asked. “Wouldn’t she—?”
“Help” was the word Finn wanted. No, that wasn’t strong enough. He wanted Ms. Morales to solve everything. He wanted her to undo the text messages, make it so they’d never existed in Mom’s phone, and so Finn, Emma, and Chess—and Natalie—had never seen them. He wanted Ms. Morales to fly to Chicago and back in the next five minutes and bring Mom home, just like that.
Sometimes it almost seemed like Mom had superpowers, taking care of everything Finn and Emma and Chess needed. Weren’t all moms like that?
Natalie snorted.
“You do not want my mom to know about that text message,” she said. “She’d make everything worse. Believe me. She’s the one you can’t trust.”
Mom’s far, far away, Finn thought. I can’t trust Natalie. She says I can’t trust her mom, either. All I have is Emma and Chess.
It was the most grown-up thing Finn had ever done, that he kept standing there peering into Mom’s closet.
When all he really wanted to do was run downstairs, grab hold of Emma and Chess, and never let go.
Seventeen
Emma
Math, Emma thought as she descended the basement stairs. Square roots. Prime numbers. Pi.
Those were the most comforting things Emma could think of. They were constants. Two was always the square root of four. One, three, five, seven, and eleven were always prime. Pi was always 3.14, with an endless string of other numbers behind it.
Mom had always been a constant in Emma’s life, too.
Yeah, well, she’s still somewhere, Emma told herself. She hasn’t ceased to exist. And even if she thinks there’s some reason she can’t come home, we can find her and prove to her that she can.
Emma picked up the plastic bag of dirty kitty litter and put it in the wastebasket by the bottom of the stairs, even though the kids were really supposed to put all litter bags directly into the trash can outside.
Mom will be so grateful when we rescue her, she’s not going to get mad about a little kitty litter, Emma thought.
She regarded the main part of the basement: the one saggy couch that had been retired from the living room upstairs after Finn spilled grape Kool-Aid on it. The foosball table that could convert into a mini Ping-Pong table or a mini pool table. The bucket of Nerf balls. The Koosh dartboard. The tub of Legos. She remembered Finn’s friend Tyrell asking once, “Isn’t this your family room? Where’s the TV?”
And Finn had said indignantly, “It’s our rec room. Don’t you think we’d wreck a TV if it was down here?”
That was when Mom explained that, really, “rec room” stood for “recreation room,” and that a TV would distract her when she was working in the Boring Room, Mom’s little closed-off office at the far side of the basement.
Why was a TV distracting when Finn and Tyrell screaming at the top of their lungs wasn’t?
Emma stepped past the couch and the foosball table and went straight to the door to the Boring Room.
It was locked.
Sure, Mom, Emma thought. Because of course that’s going to keep Chess, Finn, and me out.
She walked over to the couch and bent down to lift the little flap of fabric that covered the couch’s legs. She felt around the couch’s middle leg. From the front, that leg looked like a solid block of wood. But it had a notch carved into the back of it. Emma pulled a little metal key out of the notch.
Mom knows Chess, Finn, and I all know about this hiding place, doesn’t she? Emma thought, sitting back up. They’d played hide-and-seek games with Mom where the hidden thing was a coin or a Polly Pocket—hadn’t Mom herself sometimes hidden the coin or the doll in the couch leg for the kids to find? It was hard to remember, because those games seemed so long ago—maybe even before Emma started school.
But if Mom wasn’t hiding this key from Chess, Finn, and me, then who was she hiding it from? Emma wondered.
Just that thought made Emma want to start reciting reliable things to herself again: Fibonacci numbers. Multiplication tables. The Pythagorean theorem.
“Hey, Emma! Come on up!” Chess shouted from the top of the stairs. “I found Mom’s computer! And Finn and Natalie found the one she lets us use. So she must have taken the one from down there with her!”
Oh, good, Emma thought. I don’t even have to look in the Boring Room.
This wasn’t scientific or logical, but Emma was a little afraid of the Boring Room. Outside of the Boring Room, Mom was so Mom: always there instantly when one of the kids scraped a knee or wanted to show off a bike trick or was just exploding with a brilliant new idea. But if Mom was in the Boring Room, she kept the door shut. If one of the kids knocked, there was sometimes a long pause before Mom answered, “Yes? Do you need something?” And even if Mom answered immediately, Emma had discovered that it was possible to count to a hundred sometimes—sometimes even more—before Mom inched the door open, stepped out, carefully shut it behind her, and finally peered down at Emma with her usual amount of concern.
It was like the Boring Room made Mom not-Mom.
Those text messages on Mom’s phone were really not-Mom-ish, Emma thought.
Just the text messages about Mom not calling them were not-Mom-ish. The one about Mom not coming back made it seem like she’d been swallowed up by someplace like the Boring Room, and she’d completely become the person she was in the Boring Room, not the person she was everywhere else in the world. And . . .
You’re being silly,
Emma told herself. Not logical. Not like yourself, either.
She sat still for a moment, holding the key, and then she forced herself to walk over to the Boring Room door. It was like she had something to prove. If she could face the Boring Room, then she (and Chess and Finn) could figure out where Mom was and go rescue her.
Emma put the key into the lock and turned it. She heard the click that meant the lock had given way. Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she shoved the door open and reached for the light switch on the wall. The dim glow overhead revealed a room with blank walls, mostly empty bookshelves, and a desk and a chair that were so unremarkable that Emma could almost believe they came from a store called Amazingly Boring Office Furniture for the Home. That was a joke Mom had made once, and remembering that made Emma’s eyes go a little misty.
Never mind that, Emma told herself. Does anything in here look any different than usual?
It was hard to tell, because when was the last time Emma actually looked into this room? She had vague memories of being a little kid playing with Finn out in the rec room while Mom sat at the desk in the Boring Room with the door open—maybe that was so long ago that Mom had needed to keep an eye on them all the time, even while she worked.
Emma could call up a fuzzy image in her mind from those days: Mom’s eyes barely visible over the top of her laptop. . . .
Oh, duh, Emma thought. Of course. The laptop’s missing. It always sat right in the middle of the desk, and now it’s not there.
Maybe Emma’s mind wasn’t working very well right now. Maybe she was expecting too much, to think that her brain could work at all with the words of Mom’s text message for next week still burned into her eyeballs: I have to stay away for good, to protect . . .
Emma reached for the light switch to turn it off again. But just shifting her position that much put her at a different angle; now she could see the edge of a piece of paper sticking out of the top of Mom’s drawer.
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