by Alana Terry
I hate the fact that all my friends are at my cabin with my mom having a great time without me, but I’m also sick enough that I know when to count my losses.
“I don’t think I’m up for it,” I tell my brother. “But thanks anyway.”
He looks disappointed. Maybe Mom told him that if he nursed me back to health before my big weekend camping trip was over she’d give him an extra bonus. The worst part of the day is not being able to get in touch with anyone out there. Marco said something earlier about Mom having to take my cell. I can’t believe that in addition to missing out on my own senior trip, I can’t even text my friends to find out what they’re doing.
Then an idea strikes me. “Hey, do you have Chris’s number in your phone?”
“Chris?” Marco feigns ignorance. “Who’s Chris?”
“What do you mean who’s Chris? My boyfriend.”
“Oh. That Chris.” Marco clears his throat. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“I just wanted to see how he’s doing.” A nagging thought looms in the back of my head. “Hey, I know you have his number because you were the one he texted to figure out what I wanted for my birthday last year. Remember that?”
“Oh. Yeah. But I didn’t save it or anything.” He lets out a chuckle. “Truth be told, I didn’t think you two’d be together that long.”
I glare at him, and he shrugs. “Sorry.”
“Could you at least check?” I ask.
Marco pulls out his phone, swipes at his screen a couple times, and announces, “Nope. Nothing from anyone named Chris.”
I groan, and my brother aims the remote at the TV again. “Hey, since you’re being such a good sport about all this, let’s watch another movie. This time you pick. How about a romcom?”
We’re halfway into Thirteen Going on Thirty when Dad comes into the living room. “Marco, can I talk to you?”
My brother leaves the movie going, but I hit pause once he leaves. My brain craves the silence, even if only for a few minutes.
“I’ve got the detective on the phone right now,” Dad is hissing from the foyer. “He’s on his way over to talk to Mia.”
For a minute, I wonder if this is some fever-induced hallucination. I certainly feel sick enough to have made something like this up, but the concern in my brother’s voice is unmistakable.
“What? He can’t come over here. Not today.”
Some sort of muffled exchange. I don’t think I’d be able to follow their conversation if my life depended on it.
It feels strange hearing my Dad and Marco talking to each other at all. What’s going on?
“... going to want to question her,” Dad whispers.
“It’ll be fine,” Marco says. “I’ll take care of everything.” I don’t know what to make of this new cooperative attitude between them.
“Like you did before?” Dad snaps. This is more like it. The two of them always on edge with each other.
The strain of trying to listen in is too great. I make my way toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Marco calls to me a moment later.
“I need to lie down,” I tell him.
A minute later I’m in bed, and he’s handing me more water and another set of pills for my headache.
“What were you and Dad arguing about?” I ask. There’s something that’s not connecting in my brain. Maybe it’s this headache. Maybe it’s from being sick. I feel like I should understand more than I do. This whole day has felt like I’m listening to everything in a foreign language. I know the individual words but am slower piecing them together than I should be.
Marco gives a little chuckle. “Oh, nothing. Dad’s just worried about work stuff. You know how he gets.”
I take the pills and the cup of water my brother’s holding out. “Thanks,” I say. I had no idea that watching one and a half movies would make me so tired. I feel like I’m ready to sleep for the rest of the day and all through the night as well. So much for trying to get better in time to make it to my senior trip.
I hope they’re all having a good time. When Mom comes back with my phone, I’ll get to see all the pictures. In the meantime, I’m too sleepy to even care that I’m not there with my friends.
“Have a good nap,” Marco tells me, pulling the blankets up to my chin as if I were a toddler. “Sleep as long as you’d like. Your body needs the rest.”
CHAPTER 20
Springtime. I’ve always loved the ...
What’s that noise?
I glance at the clock. Half past four, except it’s bright out. Bright as day.
I’m so confused.
My head hurts. Why does my head hurt? What time did I go to bed? I’m so tired ...
I need to ... Wait, what day is it? Half past four. Can’t be nighttime. Not with the sky so bright. Not with ...
What’s that noise?
“Mia, I need you to get up. Now.”
I don’t understand. I think it must be ... Someone’s in my room. It’s not Mom. What’s going on?
“Mia, get up.” It’s my dad. But who’s with him? Why are there strangers in my house?
“Are you dressed?” Dad asks. I think so. Am I? I have no idea what I’m doing here, why my head aches this badly.
Where’s Mom?
“There are officers here,” Dad says. Officers? Like cops? What do they want? “They have some questions for you,” Dad tells me.
Questions? I’ve got questions. Is this about ...
No. It can’t be. I’m just confused. I might not even be awake at all. This whole thing must be one bad dream.
The police are here for me? Did Dad let them in? That can’t mean that ...
No, Dad would never allow that to happen. It must be something else.
I want my mom.
Dad steps in and pulls the covers off me. “Wake up,” he says. “You’re going with these guys.”
Going? Where are we going? Where are they taking me? What’s going on?
Dad squeezes my arm. Leans in. Acts as if he’s going to kiss the top of my head, except he doesn’t. His fingernails dig into my biceps. “Remember what I’ve taught you,” he whispers, so quietly my brain might have made it up.
I glance at him questioningly, but he’s too busy apologizing to the two officers. “She’s pretty out of it.”
Remember what I’ve taught you. So this is about ...
“Miss Blanca, we have some questions we’d like to ask you,” a man says. I don’t think I’ve seen him before, but he acts as if he belongs here. There’s no apologizing for waking me up in the middle of the night. Except it can’t be night.
I’m still so confused.
Where’s Mom? Is she the one who called the police here? Is she the one who told them ...
I think I’m about to puke. There’s something familiar about this fear. Something about this terror that triggers a latent memory, something that’s been lost for a very, very long time.
I understand, or at least I think I do. I think I know what’s going on. Why the police are here. What they want to ask me.
I look to Dad. Remember what I’ve taught you. He’s got his arm around me. He’s leading me out of my room. Down the hall and toward the stairs. His fingernails dig into my flesh. Is he as frightened as I am?
Remember what I’ve taught you.
What are the police going to ask me? I have to tell them the truth, don’t I? Maybe not.
“It’ll be okay,” Dad says, and I seize onto his words. If Dad isn’t worried, then I don’t have any reason to be either. Dad knows how to handle things like this.
He always has.
That’s why he’s so good at what he does.
I’m outside now. The sun is bright, the pain in the back of my skull blasting me awake.
I’m passed from one set of hands to another. Led away to a waiting police car, like a criminal under arrest.
Dad remains on the porch, but his words are still with me.
His warning.
Remember what I’ve taught you.
A woman is sitting next to me. “Mia,” she says. “Mia, do you know where you are?”
The question seems inane. “In a police car.”
“Do you know what day today is?” Her voice is somber.
The day? Of course I remember ... It’s Friday. Senior skip day. No, that can’t be right...
“Do you know what today is?” she repeats.
I stare at my father, standing motionless on our porch. I think about what I’m not supposed to tell the police, what I’m not supposed to tell anybody, then I shake my head.
The woman says something into a radio and buckles me in. “Come on. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 21
This is about Dad. That’s what this is. The police want to ask me questions about my father.
I was in middle school when I first started to understand. Started to put the pieces together. There was more to my dad, the man I loved, the man I idolized, than the loving family man I knew at home.
I was twelve or thirteen by the time I learned I had an older sister. Half-sister, I should say, from my dad’s previous marriage. In the course of one overheard phone conversation, I discovered that when he was younger, my dad had been married and divorced, and that the half-sister I never knew I had had been murdered in a vicious attack.
I wasn’t supposed to know any of this, and so I kept my mouth shut, but I wondered if that had something to do with the creepy men Dad called over for late-night business meetings when everyone else in the house was supposed to be asleep.
Another time I overheard Dad fighting with my brother. Marco threatening to call the police on him. “You do that,” Dad snarled, “and the same thing’ll happen to you.” I didn’t know who or what he was referring to, but something in the way he said it made me realize it was more than an idle threat.
That’s when Marco left home. Stopped talking with Dad altogether.
Looking back, maybe I should have been more concerned than I was. But when you’re young and you hear your adult brother and your father fighting, making threats, you don’t stop to think that something dangerous might be going on. It’s grown-up stuff. Between Dad and Marco.
And then I got even older. Started to realize my dad had made more enemies than friends in the business world, and the friends he did have scared me. More than once, I was woken up in the middle of the night by voices outside, Dad talking to some stranger in the shadows. I could never hear what they were saying and knew better than to try to listen.
When I was in tenth grade, the police started coming by. Asking Mom questions. Sometimes Dad would come home complaining about cops tailing him around all day. He was a busy man. An important man. They didn’t understand the line of work he was in.
The truth was that I didn’t understand the line of work he was in either.
“Some things we keep in the family,” Dad would tell me. “Some things we keep to ourselves.” That part I understood. Understood without understanding, if something like that’s even possible. It wasn’t my job to get too curious. I took my cues from Mom. Didn’t ask questions. Accepted life as it was. Knew my father loved me more than anything, and that was enough for me.
When Dad’s phone beeped at dinnertime and the color drained from his face and we didn’t see him for weeks, I didn’t ask where he was. Didn’t mention he was gone. And then he’d come home, smothering Mom and me with gifts, and everything went back to normal again.
Remember what I’ve taught you. What did Dad mean when he said that? I have no idea what he’s afraid of, what information I might give the police that could or couldn’t get him in trouble. I’ve never been scared of my father, not a single moment in my life. Dad’s never raised his voice to me or Mom. Not ever. I told myself for years that whatever was going on with work was his business. Adult stuff. Things I couldn’t understand.
But the truth is I understood more than I gave myself credit for. Understood that some things weren’t supposed to be discussed with outsiders. Some things were supposed to stay within the family.
I have no idea why the police decided to start tailing my dad two years ago. I have no idea what they think I do or don’t know now or why they want to question me. But I’m scared.
Scared that some way, somehow, I might say something that will get my dad in trouble. Because even though I don’t get exactly who he is in the business world, I know that he loves me. And I love him.
Remember what I’ve taught you.
How am I supposed to remember what I never knew to begin with?
My legs are trembling. I feel disoriented. A little dizzy. Is it just nerves? I still don’t remember falling asleep in the middle of the day. The mental confusion certainly isn’t helping my anxiety.
I think about Sandy, the woman who led the teen girls’ Bible study I was in for a while. Even though she had a lot going on in her own life, she was always a picture of perfect calm. Peace just seemed to radiate from her. I’m not as spiritual as she is, but I could definitely use some of that peace right now.
The only problem is I don’t know how to find it. I always assumed that once I got older, I’d learn to be more like Sandy. I quit the teen Bible study because I was busy with school. Story of my life. Focus on my grades, get my NYU scholarship. Then I would start thinking more about things like God and religion.
Except now I’m in the back of a police car. I don’t know what they’re going to ask me, but I’m terrified about what might happen before this mess is resolved. I want to pray. Sandy always acts as if it’s not hard at all. You just open your mouth and talk to God. But it comes so easily to her. She could pray for hours at a time if she wanted. I’ve never done much more than the kind of praying you do before Thanksgiving dinner. But I really need God’s help now.
I sure hope he’s listening.
I shoot up a plea to heaven. I have no idea if I use the right phrases. I have no idea if it’s going to make any difference whatsoever. And I certainly don’t feel the peace that Sandy always talked about. But I have to believe that I did the right thing anyway. Prayer is about the only thing I know to do right now.
I wish I had my phone on me. I need to text Chris. Call my mom. Let everyone know what’s happening to me. Dad knows just about every lawyer in the city. He could tell me what to do. He could help me figure all this out.
But Dad’s not here. Mom’s not here. Chris’s not here. And I don’t have my phone.
What’s that verse Sandy always quotes? God works all things out for good. Something like that. It’s one of Chris’s favorites too. I know he uses it when things are going hard for him at home.
God works all things out for good. Which means that I just need to get through this scary part and then everything will be fine. What was that story of the police who barged into the wrong home and then got sued and they owed the family hundreds of thousands of dollars for damages or something like that? I don’t remember the details now, but what if this is something like that? I just need to have faith. Need to trust that what Sandy and Chris believe is really true.
God’s going to make good things happen because of what’s going on right now. I need to be patient. The police are going to realize they’ve made a mistake, and we’ll get everything fixed and sorted out.
Patience has never been a virtue of mine. What’s that joke Christians always say? Don’t pray for patience or God will give it to you. Maybe that’s what this is. Some big test. Every once in a while, I feel like Chris wishes I took my faith as seriously as he does. Is this God’s way of answering my boyfriend’s prayer?
I’m about to find out.
I’ve never been to the police station before. I never even realized until now that it was this close to our house. This won’t take long. I know it won’t. Dad’s probably on the phone now, making sure I get out of here as soon as possible.
We pull up to the curb, and the officer lets me out of the back seat. I tell myself she’s just doing h
er job. Trying to be helpful. That if I smile and act compliant and polite, she’ll realize I’m not a threat and send me back home to my family. Where I need to be.
The officer doesn’t return my smile, and I’m not sure what to make of that. In fact, I think I can safely say that she’s frowning at me. Then she opens her mouth, and the first words I hear are, “All right, Mia. We have a lot to talk about. Starting with what you know about how your mother and boyfriend both ended up dead.”
CHAPTER 22
“Where’s your mom going?” Chris asks when I let him in the back door of the cabin.
“Has some errands to run,” I tell him. If he didn’t look so serious, I’d make some kind of joke about how she could come back any minute so he better not try to get too close or anything.
But he’s staring at me so intently. I have no idea what’s on his mind or what he’s about to say.
“Come on.” He brushes past me into the living room. I follow him toward the largest couch, and my stomach drops when he says, “We have to talk.”
I try not to let him see my panic. Try not to show him how scared I am. If he’s planning on breaking up with me, couldn’t he at least do it at the end of the weekend? Let me enjoy just a couple more happy days with my friends?
I force a smile. Tell myself I’m being ridiculous. Chris and I are destined to be together. I’m the only one who knows his family secrets. I’m the only one he trusts. Not to mention the fact that we’re in love. We’re meant to be together.
Chris is fidgeting in his seat. “Listen, Mia.”
“Hold on,” I interrupt. I can’t help it. If Chris wants to break up with me, he has every right to in the world. Just not now. Not here. Not like this. “Maybe we should go back out to the dock. It’s such a nice day. And ... and ...” I feel my voice rising. This is no good. I can’t get all irrational right now. I have to think clearly.