But something kept Tony from acting. At the time, he thought he simply couldn’t bear to watch Tessa suffer such a big loss when she was already growing up without a mother.
Now he realizes it was also guilt that drove him. Tessa had already been deprived of a normal family life, and he’d made things worse by letting Tessa do too much for him around the house so he could work insane hours at his tat shop, all so they could afford this whole setup.
Taking on Leo would only double the pressure on Tessa. But she deserved to have something she wanted so deeply, and Tony had never seen her as happy as she was with Leo.
And so he said the stupidest words of his life: “Okay, Tessa. We’ll give it a try.”
Tessa threw her arms around him like he’d handed her the moon.
If he could have, he would have handed her the stars, too.
But now—sitting outside Sye’s Market in his truck—he realizes the sky is about to fall on all of them. It’s started to rain. Enormous splats of water slap his filthy windshield, then slide down the pane in rivulets.
Leo would like watching that, he thinks. He looks again at the information under Leo’s picture:
Missing: Leo Miller
From: Everett, Washington, February 9, 1980
DOB: August 7, 1972
Hair: blond
Eyes: gray
Estimated Height: 5'0"
Note: mentally handicapped
He can’t believe this is happening. What will Tessa do if he goes to prison and Leo is taken away? She could lose her entire family in one fell swoop. The realization is too terrible to take in.
So what the hell is he doing just sitting here in his truck? He needs to call Marco, who’s always been smarter than him. He’ll know exactly what to do—once he gets done with all his I-told-you-so’s. Tessa had been wrong about what M and M would think. But, of course, they eventually came to love Leo, too.
After talking to Marco from the phone booth outside the market, Tony calls Tessa. He makes up a story about how the truck won’t start and now he’s waiting for a mechanic friend to come take a look. “Tell Leo I’m sorry for missing dinner,” he says.
“Of course, Dad,” she says, “but Leo’s not going to be happy.”
Tony wants to laugh when she says that. Tessa has no idea how not happy Leo is going to be pretty soon. Because of course Tony plans to turn Leo over. But even Marco—after yelling and swearing about how Tony should have listened to him all those years ago—agreed they should get legal advice first and come up with a plan.
In the meantime, as dumb as it seems to both men, the best way to buy time might be to buy milk. So Maureen is already making a list of all the grocery stores and markets within the boundaries of their school district, since people who shop there are most likely to have had contact with Leo. But even if all three of them rotate stores, checkers, and different times of day, all they can hope to do is to improve their odds until…well, until Tony figures out how to break the news to Tessa and turn Leo over to the authorities.
Just last night, Tessa was talking to Tony about Leo. “Kids at school like to try to get him to look at them, and when he tries hard to make eye contact, they get excited. Or sometimes they like to toss him a ball because he can catch it without seeming to ever look at it. It’s really kind of weird, Dad,” she said. “But everyone loves Leo.”
Yeah, Tony thinks now. And everyone drinks milk, too.
That night, Tony lies in bed and doesn’t sleep a wink. Once he got past his initial shock and fear for himself and Tessa and Leo, he realized the most important question of all was who exactly is looking for Leo? Leo is like a son to him, and he’s not about to hand him over to strangers without knowing more. Where would he live? What kind of a home environment would it be?
The next day at noon, Tony sits in his small den and has some heated discussion with Marco. His brother looks like Tony feels—sweaty, panicked, and short of breath. He’s been buying milk all morning, so that could be part of it. But since Marco is normally the calm one, the guy who has it together, it scares Tony to see his brother—a clean-cut, tattoo-free professional—so rattled.
Marco explains that he has spoken with a lawyer friend. “I gotta warn you, buddy. This guy is a lawyer, but he doesn’t seem to know this part of the law very well.”
“Still, he’s a lawyer. So what did he say?”
“He said that if the police find the hypothetical missing child before his ‘friend’ voluntarily turns him over, it will definitely look worse, though he’s not sure it will change the outcome.”
“Define worse,” Tony says, feeling his heart beat a little faster.
“Either way, no matter how or when you hand Leo over, charges against you could range anywhere from kidnapping to simple interference with custody.”
“Okay,” says Tony, standing up from his chair to pace around. “But why wouldn’t it count in my favor if I was arrested while trying to find answers? Surely, they’d understand my need to know who’s claiming my son. How could any good parent just hand over their kid without knowing more?”
The plan he and Marco finally arrive at sounds crazy, but it seems like their best shot. Tony will cancel all his appointments for several days, beginning tomorrow—Friday. In the morning he’ll drive to Everett, Washington. Marco pointed out that surely, when Leo first went missing in 1980, there had to be a story in the local newspaper. Tony should start with that. From there, he should be able to get a name and scope out the situation.
He’d rather not go. He wishes he knew someone in Everett or that he had access to Everett newspapers from 1980.
After Marco leaves, his eyes fall on Tessa’s junior-year school photo. She framed it in a green ceramic frame for him. What will Tessa do if they have to give up Leo? What will she do if Tony goes to prison? He can’t imagine it.
As he ate his dinner last night, Tony had felt Tessa studying him. She has some kind of radar for sensing when he’s troubled about something. For the umpteenth time, he worries that he relies on her way too much. He wonders if he would try harder to find a wife instead of dating casually if Tessa didn’t take such great care of everything.
He’s also concerned that Tessa is so devoted to Leo and himself that it’s gotten in the way of her having other friendships and acting like a normal adolescent. Tony isn’t sure, but isn’t she supposed to be having sleepovers, and shouldn’t she be begging to date boys by now? Tony always insisted she had to wait until she was sixteen, but he’s secretly disappointed she hasn’t seemed to care.
If there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s that Tessa has to go to college. She’s smart as a whip, like her mother, even if she’s way less outgoing and not quite as driven. Tessa doesn’t seem to mind an occasional B or even a C. Tony can’t decide if this is a good thing or if he should push her hard just in case she could get a scholarship, because he has no idea how he could afford college.
He glances at his clock radio. He has a customer in five minutes, but he’s reluctant to move from his spot. Tony doesn’t use his den very often, but he likes the idea of it. It makes him feel like there’s more to him than being a tattoo artist. He bought a bookshelf, and now and then he goes into the den to read a novel.
Now he reaches for a big green atlas he got at a garage sale. It takes him a few minutes to locate the map of Washington State. He’s never been to Seattle, but he’s heard that all it does is rain. He scans the map and there it is. Everett is located about thirty miles north of Seattle, right on the waters of Puget Sound.
Who knew a single black dot could seem so ominous?
* * *
—
WHEN TESSA DOES laundry, she always checks Leo’s pockets for crayons—he still likes to draw with them. She checks her dad’s, too—because she gets half of any money she finds. Usually it’s only some change,
but today it feels like dollars. It turns out to be an old tire-store receipt with something jotted on the back: “Miss 2-80 Born 8-7-72.”
Who is “Miss”? It would be great if this was about a woman, but it’s obviously not a phone number. She’s always regretted that her father doesn’t date more, especially when she realizes it’s partly her fault—her fault and Leo’s. Between the tat shop and being a parent, he probably doesn’t have time to chase women, as he’d say.
She puts the receipt in her pocket to ask her dad about later.
By the time her father comes home from work, she’s forgotten about the receipt. Tessa loves Thursday nights, because they always have pizza, and they take turns choosing the toppings. Since Leo always orders the same thing—Canadian bacon and pineapple—and removes all the toppings when it’s not his turn, that’s often what Tessa orders, too, even though she hates Canadian bacon and pineapple.
But not tonight. She’s still bugged by something her best friend, Kelly, said to her today. “You need to stop being so nice, Tessa. Guys don’t like girls who don’t have personality or stick up for themselves.” The comment surprised Tessa and hurt her feelings, but she didn’t say so.
Now she realizes that her reaction only proves Kelly’s point. If she was the kind of girl guys would like, she would have told Kelly that what she said wasn’t nice. It’s all so confusing. How can someone be too nice? Maybe what Kelly really means is that Tessa is too shy, which is something she’s heard all of her life.
She goes to the door of her dad’s den and asks, “How about mushrooms and green peppers tonight?”
“Sure,” he says. But she can tell he’s not listening. “Tess, actually, can you wait for a sec on the pizza? I need to talk to you.”
She takes a seat on the only other chair in the room. It always makes her nervous when her dad says he wants to talk, perhaps because he does it so rarely and it’s usually an awkward conversation about boys or sex or something like that.
“I need to leave town for a few days,” he says. “There’s a big tattoo convention I want to go to. I can learn some new techniques, check out some of the latest equipment. That kind of thing.”
“Really?” she asks. Her dad never went anywhere. She can’t remember the last time he left the Oakland area, besides the couple of times a year he takes her to visit her grandparents on her mother’s side in L.A. “Where’s it being held?”
“It’s in Seattle, Washington.”
“Oh,” she says. “That’s pretty far. What are the dates?”
“I’d be leaving tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” She couldn’t be more surprised.
“I’m sorry, Tessa,” her dad says. “I know it’s really sudden. And I’m not going to leave you and Leo alone. Your aunt Maureen is going to come and stay while I’m gone.”
“I don’t need a babysitter!” she objects. “Dad, I’m seventeen!”
“Just barely,” he reminds her.
“Still, I’m more than old enough to babysit other people’s kids, so why not Leo?”
“Not overnight. I’m not going to leave you alone overnight.”
She can tell her dad’s not going to change his mind on this one. “Will she be here all the time, the whole time?” Tessa can’t bear the thought. She likes Maureen, but she wants to be treated like she can handle being alone.
“I don’t know. Maybe she could just come in the evenings and sleep over.”
“That’d be better,” Tessa says.
Her father takes a deep breath and Tessa realizes he’s upset about something. He’s shaking his knee, a telltale sign that he is nervous. What’s he so nervous about? And why did he decide at the last minute to go to a conference in Seattle? It just seems weird.
“So you’re flying?” she asks. If he’s flying, she’s going to be jealous. Neither of them has ever been on a plane before—which right there might explain her dad’s anxiety. Maybe he’s scared of flying.
“No,” he says. “I’ll actually just be driving. And that’s part of why I need to be gone for at least three or four days.”
Tessa gets an idea. “What if Leo and I come with you? It could be fun! And we’d only miss a couple days of school.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s not a place for kids.”
Her dad gets up abruptly. “Call me when the pizza gets here, okay? After we eat, I need to go out for a while. That okay?”
Something keeps her from asking him where. It’s like she can tell he doesn’t want to be bothered. “Sure, Dad,” she says, feeling a little miffed. She’d been hoping they could all play a game tonight. Leo has learned to love playing the game Trouble. She watches her dad get up and leave the room, notices his ponytail is getting some gray hairs.
She stays awhile after her father’s gone, feeling left out and somehow abandoned. She can’t remember now what toppings she wanted on the pizza and she no longer cares. She uses the phone on her dad’s desk to order Canadian bacon and pineapple.
* * *
—
LEO CAREFULLY REMOVES the pineapple and Canadian bacon from his piece of pizza so he can eat them separately. He is sitting at the kitchen table with Tessa and Tony. Tony is talking to Leo. He is saying that he is going to be out of town. “Do you understand, Leo? Leo, please look at me.”
Leo forces himself to see Tony’s eyes. “Do you understand?”
“No,” says Leo.
“I’m not going to be here for a few days. Maureen will come spend the nights while I’m gone. Tessa will still be here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Seattle, Washington.”
“The Space Needle?”
“Well, I’m not going there, but, yes, that’s where it’s located. Good for you, Leo, knowing about the Space Needle.”
“I’m not dumb,” he says, something he’s just started saying this past year. “I went up to the top there,” he says. “Before.”
He can feel Tony and Tessa stiffen. This is why he doesn’t talk about before. Before makes Tessa unhappy.
“So Tessa will watch you while I’m gone and Maureen will spend the night. Do you understand, Leo?”
“Tessa will stay here,” he says.
“Yes,” says Tony. “Tessa will be here.”
Leo takes a bite of pizza. It is good. He has liked pizza for a while now.
Leo drinks his milk, too. He hears Tessa talking about Maureen. Maureen is the one who always wears black. And she smells like his mother smelled before.
Leo hears the phone ring. He hates the phone, because it doesn’t ring the same number of times before Tessa or Tony answers. He used to yell if they let it ring more than three, but now he doesn’t. He hears Tony say Marco’s name and then, “I’ll take it in the den.”
Tessa gets up to hold the phone. Leo does not like it when they stand up and leave during dinner. “No leaving!” he shouts. All three of them are supposed to stay at the table until Leo is done eating.
“Just a minute, Leo,” Tessa says.
“No minutes! You have to stay.” She hangs up the kitchen phone and sits back down by him. “I’m staying. Eat your pizza.”
He won’t eat his pizza until Tony is at the table. He starts to rock, but just rocking one. Tessa says he can’t rock number two unless he asks. And rocking three is only for an emergency. But Leo still doesn’t understand emergency.
Tessa is not eating her pizza, either. She is not talking. She is sitting very still, which to Leo seems the same as rocking.
* * *
—
TONY FOLLOWS LEO to his room and waits while Leo gets in his jammies, brushes his teeth, and climbs in bed. “Good night, Leo,” Tony says.
“Good night, Tony,” Leo says.
After Tony shuts the door, he hears Leo begin his counting.
He and Tessa have talked lately about trying to change Leo’s bedtime pattern so it doesn’t require Tony’s supervising. But after several traumatic evenings, they finally caved in. Tony doesn’t even remember how the routine came about. Those early months with Leo were so difficult. When to give in to Leo and when to force an issue? Now, almost six years later, there’s little that hasn’t been reduced to a routine.
He passes Tessa’s door and hears her radio playing. He pokes his head in. “Headed to bed, sweetie?”
“Yeah, in a minute.” She is lying on top of her bed with her lamp on, reading a book. How can she read and listen to music at the same time?
She looks like her mother. The older she gets, the more Tony thinks she resembles Maria. The thick dark hair, the penetrating, serious eyes that don’t seem to blink as often as they should. And her nose, the perfection of its angles.
Is she a beauty or is Tony just prejudiced? He goes to her. Kisses her forehead. “I’ll be leaving before you get up.”
“You will?” She looks alarmed.
“It’s a long drive,” Tony says. He strokes her hair. “You will be okay?”
“I will be okay,” says Tessa. “And so will Leo.” She smiles reassuringly. Always, she is reassuring him when he knows he should be reassuring her.
Now he can’t believe what a cruel thing God is asking him to do to his children. He tries to remember which saint he should pray to. He’s pretty sure Saint Anthony is the saint for finding lost things. But what if you don’t want to find what you’re looking for?
* * *
—
TESSA WAKES UP before her alarm goes off. Her father is already gone. She feels his absence in a way that is different from when she knows he’s just gone to the shop early. She pictures him on the highway, driving to Seattle. She worries that he’ll get lonely. Or that his truck will break down.
In a few moments, she hears Leo getting in the shower. He doesn’t need an alarm. He always wakes up in time to get in the shower at 7:00 A.M.
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