When

by Victoria Laurie

  Wallace pursed his lips and considered Ma with a cool, steady glare. “Little early in the day to be drinking, don’t you think, Mrs. Faraday?”

  I felt my chest tighten and I stopped breathing. This was exactly what I feared.

  Ma paled and set the plastic cup down. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said meekly, then she reached for her cigarette pack and fished one out. Her hands were shaking, and I knew the agents noticed.

  Wallace smiled tightly. “No. I’m sure you don’t.”

  Ma glared at him while she lit up, and I saw her spine straighten a little. “Maddie,” she said. “Can you bring me the phone? I think it’s time we called Donny.” I was rooted to the spot for a second. The phone was sitting on a table right between the two agents. I was afraid to retrieve it.

  While I hesitated, Faraday tucked his notebook into his pocket, motioned to Wallace, and stood up. Before heading to the door, Faraday pulled out a business card from his inside coat pocket and said, “If you want to call and talk, Madelyn, this is my number. Maybe you didn’t have anything to do with Tevon’s disappearance, but if you know anything…anything at all about what might’ve happened to him or where he is, you can call me and I’ll listen.”

  After placing it next to the phone, he and Wallace walked to the front door, which sticks. They had to tug on it a couple of times to get it to open, but then they were gone. The minute they pulled the door closed, Ma turned to me. “The phone, honey. I need to call Donny.”

  My uncle Donny is my dad’s younger brother. He’s an attorney in Manhattan, and he’d handled the lawsuit against the city Ma filed after Dad died. He also managed the settlement we’d gotten as a result, sending us a check every month to cover most of the bills.

  Donny still lives in Brooklyn, and he used to come around to check on us every couple of weeks. Now, though, he hardly visits at all. Ever since Ma’s drinking got worse, he and Ma stopped getting along. Still, he’s always gotten me a great Christmas gift, and this past summer, he’d taken Stubby and me to Florida. I knew that, if anybody could help explain things to the feds, it was Donny.

  After bringing Ma the phone, I headed upstairs to lock myself in my room. The first thing I did was hop on my computer and FaceTime Stubs. He answered on the sixth or seventh ring, and simply seeing his baby-faced smile brought a measure of comfort. “I thought you’d never call,” he said, scratching at the light-blond stubble on his chin. “You looked totally freaked out at school. What happened with Harris?”

  I explained everything to him, about the feds waiting for me in Harris’s office and then again here at home. “Whoa,” he said, after I was done. “Maddie, that’s bad!”

  “I know,” I said, feeling like the weight of the world had firmly settled onto my shoulders. And then I remembered that I’d given Stubby as my alibi. “They should be calling you,” I told him. “To confirm where I was when Tevon went missing.”

  “When did he go missing?”

  “Yesterday after school. The feds said he never made it home.”

  Stubby’s eyes grew wide. “What do you think happened to him?”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea, but when they showed me his picture, his date confirms that he’s dead.”

  “Oh, man,” Stubby said. “Maddie, maybe we shoulda done something more to try and save him.”

  I bit my lip. That’s what I’d been thinking, too. I felt terribly ashamed of myself because, even though I’d known it was coming and I’d found it really sad, I hadn’t expected Tevon’s death to be so mysterious. What if he’d fallen into a ravine and his death had been slow and painful? Or what if he’d been hit by a car on a dirt road and the driver hadn’t stopped to report it, and he was simply out there somewhere where nobody would find him for weeks? I couldn’t imagine what his mother was going through. No wonder she thought I had something to do with it.

  “I feel really bad,” Stubby said quietly. “I know she got mad when you called, but maybe I should’ve gone over to her house and explained to her that I knew you, and that you’re not a fake. You’re a good person. I bet I could’ve convinced her.”

  “You couldn’t have known it was going to be like this,” I said. It was exactly like Stubs to feel guilty over something he had no control over. For a guy, he was incredibly softhearted.

  And then I saw Stubs jerk and look over his shoulder. Turning back to me he said, “Somebody’s at the door.”

  I had a suspicion about who it was. “Is your mom home yet?”

  “No,” he said. “Hold on a sec and let me see who it is.” Stubby darted off, and I was left to wait anxiously for him to return. It took about fifteen minutes, but he finally came back and tried to smile at me encouragingly. “That was them,” he said, referring to Wallace and Faraday. “I told them you were here the whole time yesterday after school, studying with me for the chem test.”

  I relaxed a fraction. “Thanks, buddy. What else did they ask you?”

  “They wanted to know if I believed you were really psychic. I told them I didn’t know about being psychic, but I knew you could read deathdates. And then they asked me how I knew that, and I told them that you’d told me about my grampa dying right after Christmas last year, and he died the exact day you said.”

  “Did they believe you?”

  Stubby frowned. “I don’t think so, but they left after that.”

  I swallowed hard and looked down at my lap. This whole thing was so bad, I didn’t know what to do. When I looked up again I saw that Stubby was studying me. “You gonna be okay?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. I hope they find him soon, Stubbs. I hate to think that Tevon is out there somewhere where no one can find him.”

  Stubby was quiet for a minute, then he said, “You don’t think somebody…?”

  “What?”

  He grimaced. “Murdered him.”

  My eyes widened. “In Parkwick? No way.” Parkwick was known for its big houses, big money, big parks, and its nearly nonexistent crime rate. It had its own police force, which had a reputation for stopping anybody who looked like they didn’t belong in the neighborhood.

  But Stubby seemed unconvinced. “Then what happened to him, Mads? And why doesn’t anybody know where he is?”

  I shrugged, feeling incredibly sad. “I don’t know, Stubs. It could be that he simply wandered off into the woods and fell and hit his head or something. Or maybe he got hit by a car and no one’s found his body yet. Anything like that might explain it.”

  Stubs sighed. “Yeah, okay. Listen, I gotta go start dinner for Mom. FaceTime me later if you wanna talk.”

  After I got off the computer with Stubs, I headed downstairs and found Ma pacing back and forth in the kitchen, her plastic cup nearly empty. She jumped when I entered the room. I could tell she was having a tough time dealing with the visit from the FBI. “I spoke to Donny,” she said. “He’s had court all day and he had to go back to the office to work late on a case, but he told me that if those agents come back to call him right away.”

  With a pang I noted that Ma was starting to slur her words. “Want some dinner?” I asked, trying to distract her.

  Ma moved over to the pantry where she kept her booze. “No, honey. I’m not hungry. There’s some turkey in the fridge, though. I got some from the deli today.”

  I made myself a sandwich and avoided looking at Ma while she poured a refill. I made a half of a sandwich for her, too, just in case, and set it down in front of her in the TV room.

  I then took my sandwich upstairs to eat it while I did my homework, but it was nearly impossible to concentrate, and I barely got through it. I finally called it quits around eight and went back down to check on Ma. She hadn’t touched her sandwich, but she’d nodded off, plastic cup in hand.

  It took me a little while to get her up to her bedroom, but at last she was settled for the night. I went back downstairs, where I tried to watch some TV, but I was too wound up and anxious.

  For a long time I sat in the d
ark, listening to the light rhythm of Dad’s clock. Now that he was gone, its constant ticktock was the closest thing we had to his heartbeat. I loved listening to it—and to the chimes, soft and sweet, like the first notes of a lullaby.

  Dad’s photo was on the mantel right under the clock. As the minutes ticked by, I found myself staring at his image and missing him like crazy. In my heart I knew that if he were here, he’d get Faraday and Wallace to believe me. It was yet another example of how little Ma and I mattered to a world without Dad. He’d been our center, the glue that held us together and gave us purpose. His absence was greater than the sum of our parts, and I didn’t think we’d ever feel quite whole again.

  With a sigh I turned away from the photo and went to the window. Peering out into the night, I saw a sedan come down the street and park a bit up from our house. I could see that the motor was still running, because the tailpipe was giving off vapor, which sparkled in the light from the streetlamp. Squinting, I could just make out the figures of two people in the car. My heartbeat ticked up. It was Wallace and Faraday. I waited for them to get out of the car and come to the door, but as the minutes passed they remained where they were. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, the agents slowly pulled away from the curb and drove off.

  I knew then that no matter what alibi I’d offered them, this wasn’t over.

  The next day passed in a fog. I was jumpy and on edge the whole time, and even Stubby couldn’t make me feel better. “They can’t prove you had anything to do with it, Maddie,” he said as we rode home together.

  But I didn’t have a good feeling.

  Stubby and I parted ways at the midway point between our houses, and I pedaled hard toward home. It was Halloween, and I had to make sure we had enough money in the grocery envelope for candy for the few kids brave enough to ring our doorbell. There’re lots of kids in the neighborhood, but our house never sees much traffic. Too many people have heard the rumors that Ma and I are witches.

  As I sped down the street, my thoughts were occupied by the need for a backup plan if there was no cash in the envelope. As I turned the corner onto my block, I had to lean to the side to avoid the large truck parked between our house and Mrs. Duncan’s. Taking a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure there were no cars behind me, I was ready to begin making the turn into our drive when I turned back to the road, and all of a sudden, two men, hoisting a plastic-wrapped sofa between them, stepped out from the back of a delivery truck and right into my path.

  Tensing, I squeezed the hand brakes with all my strength. It caused the bike to skid, then wobble, then crash right into the front of the sofa.

  I went down hard and felt the pavement burn the side of my leg all the way to my thigh. My hip took the brunt of the fall, and it hurt so badly I cried out, squeezing my lids shut as hot tears stung my eyes.

  A moment later I heard my neighbor, Mrs. Duncan, exclaim, “Oh, my goodness! Maddie, darling!” followed by a quick shuffle of feet. I focused on the pavement and the cluster of shoes hurrying toward me, while I tried to get my bearings. Then there were hands pulling at the bike and at my arms. It all muddled with the pain searing my leg and thigh.

  Belatedly, I realized that the bike was still on top of me, and I was gritting my teeth hard against the pain. “Let go of the bike, sweetie,” a male voice said. “Come on…that’s it. Let it go.”

  I unclasped my hands and the bike was lifted off of me. I was crying too hard to do much else. “Oh, dear! I should get your mother!” Mrs. Duncan said, hurrying away.

  Meanwhile, the two delivery guys helped me up. One was talking low and gentle, but I couldn’t focus on anything but the shock of the crash and the pain that radiated up and down my leg. I couldn’t seem to stop sobbing. Deep down I knew it wasn’t all about the fall.

  “Wes,” one of the men said, “get the first aid kit from the truck.”

  I was handed off, and the guy named Wes disappeared into the cab. “Here, honey,” the first guy said. “Let’s sit you down on this, okay?” I saw him motion toward Mrs. Duncan’s new sofa, which had ended up in the middle of the street.

  I took a few shuddering breaths and limped over to the couch, where the guy helping me eased me carefully onto the plastic covering before he bent down to inspect my leg. “Can I roll this up?” he asked, pointing to the cuff of my jeans.

  I swallowed a sob and nodded. He rolled up the pant leg, and I hissed as it brushed against my raw skin. He whistled and shook his head, his body partially hiding the wound from my sight.

  “Is it…is it bad?” I blubbered.

  He lifted his chin. “Yeah,” he said gravely, and then the corners of his mouth quirked and with a wink he added, “But I don’t think it’s fatal.” All of the sudden, even though I was having a total meltdown, I laughed. Then I was half-laughing and half-crying, and I couldn’t seem to settle on one over the other.

  Mrs. Duncan returned, wringing her gnarled hands. “Your mother’s not feeling so well, herself,” she said, her eyes avoiding mine. Her meaning was clear. All the laughter died in my throat.

  The other delivery guy came back then with a small white box, and he was sifting through it with a frown on his face. “I don’t think any of these bandages are big enough.”

  Mrs. Duncan hooked one of her fingers onto the box to pull it toward her. “Oh, that won’t do!” she said. “Come along inside, Wesley. I’ve got everything we need to patch her up, but you’ll have to move those chairs out of the way so I can get to the powder room.”

  After they’d headed inside Mrs. Duncan’s house, the guy who was helping me got up and went to the back of his truck. He took out a couple of orange cones and put them in the street behind and in front of the truck so that anyone who drove by wouldn’t get too close. Then he came back to me and pulled out a bandanna from his back pocket. He used it to dab at my bleeding leg. “What else hurts?” he asked me.

  Everything hurt—I jumped every time he touched my skin with the cloth. Still, I held up my elbow. I couldn’t really see it, but I knew it’d gotten scraped up, too.

  “Yikes,” he said. “When you go down, you really go down, girl.”

  I wiped at my cheeks. He seemed really nice. But after glancing up to look at him, I took note of his deathdate, and my chest tightened. Dropping my gaze I said, “I’m okay. Thanks.”

  “Do any bones hurt?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Really sorry about that, Maddie,” he said kindly. “If your bike’s wrecked, we’ll pay to have it fixed.”

  I glanced at my ride. It looked a little scratched up, but otherwise it seemed fine. “I think it’s okay.”

  The delivery guy put the bandanna in my hand. “Here,” he said. “You can probably do a better job of that than me.”

  “Thanks.” I continued to avoid his gaze.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  Puzzled, I looked up again. He had a big, square head, with short-cropped gray hair and deep-set eyes. Now that he mentioned it, he did look kind of familiar. I squinted at him but couldn’t place how I knew him.

  He stuck out his hand, and I put my good palm in his. He shook it gently and said, “Rick Kane. I came to see you about a year ago.”

  Vaguely, I remembered someone who looked a little like him coming to see me the previous September. It’d been right around the anniversary of my dad’s death, which is always a tough time at my house—so I couldn’t quite remember the exact details—but his deathdate stood out for me now, which was why I was trying to avoid his gaze.

  “It’s okay,” he said, as if reading my mind. “It’s still the same, right? I’ve only got about five weeks left.”

  I nodded. “I’m really sorry.”

  He smiled in a way that seemed sad but still genuine. “Don’t be, kiddo. We all gotta go sometime.”

  I looked back at my lap, wishing Mrs. Duncan and the other guy would come back out.

  “You know,” he said, “you’ve really helped me.
”

  I squeezed the bandanna. The heel of my palm was scraped up, too.

  “I mean, at first I was a wreck. You tell a guy he’s only got about a year left to live, and it’ll pretty much tear him up inside. But then I got over it, and I realized I had a whole year to get ready. Most people, they have no idea when they wake up in the morning that it’ll be their last day, but I know the exact date, and because of that, I’ve been taking care of things.”

  I lifted my chin. “Yeah?”

  He nodded and he seemed so at peace about it. “I’ve taken out extra life insurance,” he said. “To get the insurance they had to put me through a physical, and it turns out I’ve got a few issues. I think that’s how it’ll happen. My heart will give out or it’ll be a stroke or something like that.”

  “Can’t you go to a doctor?” I asked. I wanted so badly for that date on his forehead to change.

  “I did, Maddie. My own doc ran a bunch of tests, but nothing obvious jumped off the page at him. My cholesterol is a little elevated, and my blood pressure’s not great, but it’s not bad enough yet to go on the meds. I even got a second head-to-toe physical, and nothing shows up that could be the culprit. Whatever’s going to happen to me, I think it’ll be a surprise, and it’ll be quick. Which, when I think about it, isn’t a bad way to go, you know?”

  I nodded, shocked by how well he seemed to be taking it. But then, I’d seen this reaction from some of my clients with terminal diseases. They simply accepted it and got busy getting their affairs in order.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “with all the added life insurance, my family will never have to worry about money again, and both my kids are gonna get to go to college. I also make sure to tell my sons and my wife how much I love them every day. We’ve never been closer. And I’ve been checking things off my bucket list, too. You know, the stuff you always say you want to do but never get to because there’s always tomorrow? My whole life I put off doing what I really wanted to do because I was worried about providing for my family and keeping my job. These days if I want to take a day off to do something fun, I do. I don’t sweat the small stuff. Not anymore. You freed me, Maddie. I feel more alive right now than I ever have. You gave me that.”