Girl One(9)

“I got the impression that your mom wasn’t exactly friendly with the others?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, you could say that. Not a visit, not a letter, not even a phone call.”

“But you’ve gotten in touch with them yourself?”

I bristled. Most people assumed I’d had time to seek out the other Girls, that we were all good friends, sharing reminiscences of our bizarre babyhoods. “No,” I admitted, terse. “I’ve been busy.” The acceptance to the University of Chicago had triggered the busiest stage of my life. I’d hoped that the flurry of news pieces—“Josephine Morrow, First Human ‘Virgin Birth,’ Follows in Her Creator’s Footsteps!”—would lead to calls or letters from the others, some congratulations. So far, only silence.

“Sure,” Tom said, “I know how busy you’ve been. Totally understandable.”

“I wasn’t asking for approval, Tom,” I said.

He shrugged, held up his hands, Mea culpa.

“I can’t believe my mother got in touch with them, though, it’s just—” I stopped myself. It was too bizarre to be sitting here talking to a reporter about my mother’s personal habits. If I was going to track down my mother, I had to quit imagining the woman I’d left behind a year ago. I needed to track down this newer version, the one who’d apparently turned into a crazed sleuth before vanishing in a puff of smoke and flame. “Did she just call the others?” I asked instead, focusing. “Or did she actually visit?”

“She mentioned visiting some of them, yeah.”

The newspapers had noted my mother’s long absences from work. And I’d seen the disrepair of the house. The overgrown lawn, the piled-up mail. She hadn’t been hiding inside. She’d been gone entirely. Out of town. Something nobody in Coeur du Lac would ever suspect of her.

“When I heard about the fire,” Tom went on, “my first thought was that Margaret had gone to one of the others. It just makes sense.”

The idea was exhilarating, but I had to think this through carefully. “The Chevy’s still in the garage.”

“Okay. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything. How’d you get here? I didn’t see a car out front. Maybe she left some other way.”

My mother—not vanished, but rearranged. Optimism flared in me, hot and bright, and I didn’t fight it. Maybe this didn’t have to be so complicated. I could reconnect with a few of the other Homesteaders and find my mother at the same time. Figure out whatever she’d wanted to say about Fiona.

Tom watched me flip to the list. “Your mom mentioned Emily French by name,” he offered. “She was considering visiting her when we talked.”

“Emily,” I repeated. I’d watched coverage of her mother’s funeral from my apartment, textbooks open in front of me, too antsy to study. Emily, sitting alone in a sea of folding chairs. Behind her, protest signs that bobbed above Emily’s head like cartoon thought bubbles. UNNATURAL! ONLY GOD CAN CREATE MIRACLES! My heart had been in my throat, imagining what it would be like to lose my mother. I’d nearly called home—just to say hello, to see how my mother was doing—but then I’d imagined how jittery and defensive she would make me feel about my work, even if she didn’t say a word about it. All those old wounds reopening. I didn’t call.

“Where does Emily live?” I asked.

“Kansas, actually. A town not far from Wichita. I drive through it now and then.”

“Redbud?” My excitement sparked.

“Yeah. Why?”

I turned the notebook toward him as he sat on the step beside me, bringing his scent of unfamiliar laundry detergent with him. “Redbud. See? And five-twenty-four. That could be a street address.”

“Emily’s last known address,” Tom said, unthinkingly pulling the notebook closer to him. I resisted, pulling it back, and he let go. “She’s staying at five-twenty-four Twelfth Street in Redbud. I have contact information for all of these names.” He ran his finger down the page.

I took a second look at him. He smiled back, suddenly shifting away. Maybe he’d realized how close we were, hips nearly touching. “You’ve been stalking the other Homesteaders?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual. The pit of my stomach tightened. I was alone in this dark house with him.

Tom looked hurt, like I’d offended him purposefully. “I prefer the term researching. It’s for work. I even helped your mom fill in a few blanks. Like the Grassis, Angela and Gina—you know how long it took to track down a reliable address for those two? It’s my coup.”

“How long did it take?” I asked.

He blinked. “A year.”

I nodded, cautiously accepting this. He wasn’t the first guy to research us. “And you’re sure this is Emily’s current address.”

“Positive. So what now? Are you going to go to the police with this?”

I hesitated. Honestly, I didn’t want to take it to the authorities. Not yet. I imagined being interviewed on the news, my classmates watching as I talked about my crazed mother running off into the night. No: I needed to find her myself. I’d given myself roughly three days before I returned to the dawn coming through the windows of my apartment, to the tranquility of the zebrafish tanks in the lab. Three days to return to my work, my promise to Bellanger that I’d finish what he’d started. A promise made public once I was accepted to the University of Chicago.