But when my mom saw me when I walked into our kitchen, she looked disappointed. Like she’d been hoping I wouldn’t turn up.
“You’re in a lot of trouble, girly.” That’s what she said. That was all she said.
Growing up, I always believed my mother loved me. In her own way, I used to tell myself. I made excuses for her. Things were hard after my dad left. When she met Francis, it was a stroke of luck for her. But being married to him was difficult. He was a hard man to please. It was only natural that he took priority over me. I was just a little girl. And when I got older, I was difficult. I was moody and I didn’t always make the best choices. It wasn’t until college that I became the Goody-Two-shoes my daughters have accused me of being.
I wonder if my poor relationship with my mother is why I’m not doing a better job with Haley right now. But I’ve tried so hard to not be my mother. To be involved in my girls’ lives. Shoot, I’ve devoted myself so much to my girls that I don’t have a personal life. And my marriage is certainly not doing all that hot.
My mother was so strict with me . . . or rather my stepfather was and my mother always did as he said. I wonder if that made me too lenient with my girls. Is that why Haley’s such a mess? Is this my fault, somehow?
Or am I just overthinking this whole thing?
And does it matter how we got here?
I lift my hand over my head and stretch. I slept surprisingly well last night, considering the weight of my woes. It was nice to have Izzy snuggled against me. And the cat.
I roll over slowly. I’m actually looking forward to today. We’re going to cross Colorado through the mountains, through the Arapaho National Forest, and into Nebraska. With my merry band. I’m thinking we might delve right in today, once I’d had my coffee. We need to talk about the night Caitlin died. The details are blurry to me because I was in such shock. I wonder if they’re blurry to Haley. Does she want to talk about it? Maybe not. And that’s okay, but I feel like I should give her the opportunity.
I open my eyes and I see Haley’s form in the bed. Then I realize her head is not on the pillow and she’s not in her bed. It’s just the way the blanket and bedspread are rolled up. I feel a flutter of panic in my chest and I sit up, eyeing the bathroom door. It’s closed.
The clock says it’s 8:15.
I throw my feet over the side of the bed and walk toward the door. I’m wearing a T-shirt I packed and a pair of Izzy’s sleep pants. SpongeBob of all things. I don’t know how I forgot to pack anything to sleep in. “Haley?” I whisper.
At the bathroom door, I tap lightly. I don’t want to wake Izzy. “Haley?”
It’s closed, but not all the way. She doesn’t answer. I don’t hear any water running. I hate to cross any lines of privacy. My mother used to do that and it really upset me, but—“Haley?” I hear the slightest hint of panic in my voice.
Again, no answer. I push the door open. No Haley. I open the shower curtain. No Haley.
My heart hammering, I grab the room key off the desk as I yank the front door open. I don’t take the time to wake Izzy. I run out into the hall in bright yellow PJ bottoms, a bubblegum pink T-shirt, and no bra.
No Haley in the hall, either.
There’s a breakfast buffet. Maybe she went down to the lobby for a cup of orange juice. I push the call button on the elevator. Then I push it a second time and a third when the elevator doesn’t respond fast enough to suit me.
As the doors finally open, I hear Izzy calling me from the doorway of our room. “Mom? Where are you going?”
“Coffee. Stay in the room.” The elevator doors begin to close and I step in.
“But, Mom, there’s a—”
“Go back in the room, Izzy!”
The doors shut and the elevator begins to drop. On the first floor, I race out the doors before they open completely. The breakfast area is just off the lobby. There are a dozen people helping themselves to hard-boiled eggs, cold cereal, and pastries. No Haley. I force myself not to run.
Off the lobby, I check the ladies’ bathroom. All three stalls. Not there, either.
Now I feel like my heart is going to burst out of my chest. Where is she? Where’s my daughter? How could I have been so stupid? I should have slept on the floor in front of the door. I should have figured out a way to keep her from taking off. I should have known she was going to do this. I should have stayed home like Ben wanted me to. I should have stayed in bed with the blanket over my head.
No. I couldn’t have stayed home. We couldn’t have stayed there. We had to do this. We had to get away from the house and all the sadness there.
There’s no way I could have known Haley would leave the hotel room. Where the hell would she go? We’re in Colorado. She doesn’t know anyone in Colorado. And yesterday, at least by the afternoon, she had seemed . . . if not enthusiastic, at least tolerant of the idea of making this trip.
The cool morning air hits me as I rush out the front doors and come to a halt under a white and green canopy. The pneumatic doors whoosh and click behind me. No Haley. No Haley on the benches near the door. No Haley in the circle drive. Someone is parked in front of the door; a man is loading suitcases into the back of his minivan. I can hear children’s voices drifting from inside the van.
The car. It’s the only place I can think to look. After that? I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.
I run barefoot, in my daughter’s pajama pants, along the front of the hotel. The pavement is cool on my feet; there are loose stones that hurt. We parked in the side parking lot. We used that side door, with our passkey, to get in last night after we had dinner.
I fly around the corner, looking for my little SUV. There are more cars in the parking lot than there were last night and it takes me a second to orient myself. I spot my car in the third row, but it’s partially obscured by a white pickup truck.
I run into the parking lot and behind the row of cars. As I come around the white truck, I stop abruptly. Haley’s lying on the hood of my car reading a tattered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.
“Haley,” I say, coming around the car.
She looks me up and down, taking in the pajamas and bare feet I’m sure, then back at her book. She’s leaning back against my windshield, legs stretched out like she’s lying in a lounge chair. “School property,” she says, indicating the paperback. “I guess I should return it.”
I can’t catch my breath. I lean forward, panting. “What—are—you—doing—out—here?” I manage.
“You thought I left?” She says it quietly, putting the book down on the hood.
I stand up and meet her gaze. My heart is still pounding in my chest. I feel light-headed. But I’m so relieved. I’m so thankful to see Haley’s inky black hair that I don’t even care that it looks like she dyed it with shoe polish. “Did you leave?” I ask her.
She holds my gaze for a long moment. “I’m here, right?”
A dark spot on her sleeve catches my eye and I stare at it. It’s the arm she cuts and I’m pretty certain that splotch I see is blood.
She looks down at her arm and touches the wet shirt. Then she looks up at me.
“Oh, Haley,” I breathe. “Did you—”
“Only a little bit.” She speaks in a single exhalation and I see the pain in her eyes. Pain that hurts me so deeply that I feel wobbly on my legs.
I take a step toward her. I want to ask her what she used to cut herself, but it doesn’t seem right to ask. What does it matter?
“It’s not bad,” she says. I can tell she’s upset.
I’m still staring at her arm. “Let me see, Haley. Will you let me look at it?”
She hesitates and then slowly pushes up her sleeve. I immediately see a piece of bloody white gauze. Fresh blood.
Slowly she peels back the gauze and I see two wet wounds, but they’re the same ones I saw Sunday and they’re not actively bleeding anymore. Just oozing a little. It looks like she just dug at the old ones; there are no new cuts.
&n
bsp; I fight my panic, trying to tell myself this is good. No new wounds. This is actually good. “You should clean that up and put fresh gauze over it. Maybe get some big Band-Aids next time we stop at a store, like the kind for skinned knees,” I say, keeping my voice even. Then I look at her as she pushes down her sleeve to cover the bloody bandage. “You okay?”
She hangs her head. But then she nods, and looks up at me. “I think I’m okay.”
I have so many questions, but I sense this isn’t the time to ask them. It may even be years before I can. I need to be in the moment, though. I need to say and do the right thing at this moment. “I want you to tell me when you feel like you want to do this. Can you try and do that? Can you tell me?”
“Okay,” she whispers.
And the way she says it makes me think maybe she will. She has a long way to go, but there’s something in her eyes this morning that I haven’t seen since Caitlin’s death. Life?
“What’s going on?” Izzy appears from between two parked cars. She’s in her PJ bottoms and bare feet, too. “Are we at least getting dressed before we go?”
I stand there, hands on my hips, still trying to catch my breath, and laugh out loud.
Chapter 30
Izzy
Day 2 of the best adventure of my life
Mom laughs and then She Who Shall Not Be Named starts to laugh and I start laughing too. I have no idea why. I look around. No one’s in the parking lot, which is probably a good thing because if there were anyone, they’d probably think there was something wrong with us. All three of us are in a parking lot, wearing pajamas, laughing for no reason at all.
I steal a quick look in She Who Shall Not Be Named’s direction. She’s lying on the hood of Mom’s car (probably denting it), like she does it all the time. Like she was just hanging out, waiting for us.
I wonder where she’s been all night? Did she go to a bar or something? She probably has a fake ID. Of course I don’t think she looks any older than me so I don’t know how she’d get in. I can’t believe she sat out here all night, though. She didn’t have the car key, though. It’s still up in the room.
Or was she planning on running away? Why else would she sneak out of the hotel room in the middle of the night like that? I know Mom was afraid she was going to go out her window again the night before last. That’s why Mom slept with her.
But if she was going to run away, why didn’t she? Did she realize she’s totally unequipped to be on her own? Or did she not run away because she realized our family, no matter how big a mess we are, is better than no family at all?
Last night, when I woke up and saw her at the door, I don’t know why I didn’t squeal like a pig on her. All I would have had to do was shake Mom awake and She Who Shall Not Be Named would have been so busted. But I didn’t wake up Mom. I just watched her go. I’m going to have to think on that later—when I’m dressed.
She Who Shall Not Be Named catches me looking at her and I look away really fast. Her looking at me makes me feel weird. Guilty weird.
In the house, it was easy to ignore her. Sometimes I could even pretend she didn’t exist. But in the car, staying in a hotel room with her, is different. It’s harder. I keep remembering things from before Caitlin bought her one-way ticket. Haley did mean things to me like tease me, but as much as I don’t want to remember, she was nice to me, too. Like the time I broke this vase Mom really liked and she said she did it goofing around with Caitlin. Then she used her own money to buy a new one and said I didn’t have to pay her back. She told me, “This one’s on me, kiddo.”
I look at Mom. “Can we at least get breakfast before we leave?”
“I don’t think they have waffles at the breakfast bar. Just cold stuff.” She Who Shall Not Be Named puts her book into her backpack and digs around for something. I see a flash of pink; Caitlin’s iPad is in her bag. The little thief. I brought it. I should be able to carry it in my bag. Maybe she was going to run away and that’s why she has it.
“But they have scones and blueberry muffins.” She Who Shall Not Be Named looks right at me. She knows I love blueberry muffins. On Sundays, before Caitlin crossed the River Styx, somebody always used to run to the bakery and get fresh pastries. I always got a blueberry muffin, the kind with the crumbles on top.
“Saw them when I got some coffee earlier.” She Who Shall Not Be Named is obviously talking to me. She takes something wrapped in a napkin out of her bag and pushes it across the hood of the car. “I got an extra one. In case they ran out.”
I stare at the muffin. I really really like blueberry muffins and I’m hungry. I ordered a veggie burger last night. Bad choice. I stare at the muffin. It’s a big one with brown sugar crumbles on the top.
“But if you don’t want it,” she says. She shrugs and makes a move to take it back.
I grab it and take a big bite.
Mom stands there looking at the two of us. I can’t believe she’s not making She Who Shall Not Be Named tell her what she’s doing out here on top of our car at eight o’clock in the morning, but Mom’s blind to her daughters’ shortcomings. All of ours. She’s always been that way. Even with me. She thinks I’m like the smartest ten-year-old in the world.
“You could say thank-you,” Mom says. Instead of chewing Haley out for being out here rather than in the hotel room where we can keep an eye on her, that’s what she says.
I purposely don’t look at She Who Shall Not Be Named still on the hood. “Do I have to give it back if I don’t?”
Mom shakes her head like she’s annoyed with me and walks away, headed for the side door of the hotel. I just stand there for a minute, eating my muffin. I want to ask She Who Shall Not Be Named where she went. Why she left the room, but I can’t figure out how without actually speaking to her and I’m kind of on a roll. I don’t think I’ve spoken to her since the morning of the day Caitlin died.
She watches me stuff the muffin into my mouth. “Thanks for not ratting on me last night. That was . . . it was a nice thing to do, Izzy.”
I don’t say anything, but my eyes are scratchy, like I’m going to cry. I have no idea why. I’m so mad at her. Why do I care if she thinks I’m nice?
“What I can’t figure out,” she says, climbing down off the hood of the car, “is why you didn’t tell. Did you not tell Mom because you wanted me to leave? Because you never want to see me again? Or did you not wake Mom up because you knew I didn’t want you to?”
I just stand there. The muffin doesn’t taste that good anymore. I wish I hadn’t put so much in my mouth. I chew slowly. I don’t want to cry. I should just walk away, but my feet won’t move.
She’s standing close to me now. “If I’d had a choice that night, I’d have been the one who died and not Caitlin. You get that, don’t you?” She just keeps standing there for a minute. Then she walks away. “Come on. Let’s get dressed and see if there’s any more blueberry muffins.”
Chapter 31
Julia
52 days
The drive from Grand Junction, Colorado to Kearney, Nebraska, makes for a long day. It takes me at least two hours, once we’re on the road, to relax a little. I was so afraid Haley had taken off this morning. I was so scared I’d lost her.
But she didn’t.
And I haven’t.
And I have to move on.
I’m not sure exactly what Haley was doing in the hotel parking lot this morning, or when she’d gone out. (Luckily I was able to keep from falling into a self-deprecating state, blaming myself for falling asleep and letting her get out of the room, in the first place.) When I tried to question Haley as we were packing the car after breakfast, she made it clear she didn’t want to talk about it. I let it go because I felt like we had more important things to say to each other and I didn’t want to jeopardize my chances of making headway today. I just hope that really was my motivation and I wasn’t just trying to avoid unpleasantness.
I made a couple of attempts at meaningful conversation, but after falling
flat multiple times, I decide I can’t force it. But even though I can’t force Haley to talk to me and tell me how she’s feeling, I can do things to keep her engaged. We spend the morning playing the license plate game, “collecting” a plate from each state. Of course Haley doesn’t want to play at first, but when she spots an Alaska license plate, she gets into it. Izzy keeps track of the states they spot on the iPad and we collect thirty-eight by the time we were an hour outside of Kearney.
We play other car games too. Word games like we used to play when we traveled as a family. Of course it’s a little trickier since Izzy won’t speak to Haley, but we make it work. My girls’ favorites were always the association game and the disassociation game. Ben and Caitlin and Izzy always liked the association game. All you have to do is say a word that’s associated with the word the person before you said. But the disassociation game is trickier because you have to say a word that has nothing to do with what was said the last three times. Haley and I always ruled at that game.
After lunch at a burger place, Izzy decides to get into the backseat so Mr. Cat can be closer to his litter box that we’ve set up in the back of the car. Despite Haley’s concerns, the litter box hasn’t been an issue. As best I can figure, Mr. Cat uses it as a sandbox to play in, rather than for its intended use.
In the backseat, Izzy is mostly quiet although several times I see her in the rearview mirror moving her lips and looking at the empty seat beside her, as if she’s having a conversation with someone. I don’t say anything for fear Haley will tease her, but I make a note to myself to ask her about it later.
Haley rides for two hours in the front seat without engaging in any meaningful conversation with me. We watch the countryside go by, slowly moving from the mountains to the flat plains and occasionally one of us comments on a passing vehicle or an interestingly shaped tree. She doesn’t ask if we can turn on the radio and I don’t offer. All three of us seem to be lost in our thoughts today.
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