Little Secrets(6)
Come by the bar, he texts. I’m all alone with a bunch of college shits who don’t realize there are beers other than Budweiser.
Can’t, she replies. On my way to group.
Fine, Sal texts. Then come by when you’re done self-flagellating. I miss your face.
She’s tempted to say yes, because she misses him, too, but she’s always drained after group. Maybe, she types, not wanting to say no. You know how tired I get. I’ll let you know.
Fair enough, he writes back. But I invented a new cocktail I want you to try—mojito with a splash of grenadine and pineapple. I’m calling it the Hawaii 5-0.
Sounds disgusting, she texts back, smiling. She’s rewarded with a GIF of a man giving her the middle finger, which makes her snort.
Sal doesn’t ask where Derek is tonight. He never does.
It’s a fifteen-minute drive to SoDo, the area of Seattle known as “south of downtown.” By the time she pulls into the parking lot of the dilapidated plaza where group takes place, she’s sad again. Which is fine, because this is probably the one place in the entire world where she can feel as miserable as she needs to, without feeling the need to apologize for it, while still not necessarily being the most miserable person in the room. Not even therapy is like that. Therapy is a safe space, certainly, but there’s still judgment involved, and an unspoken expectation that she’s there to get better.
This meeting tonight, on the other hand, forces no such pretense. The Support Group for Parents of Missing Children—Greater Seattle is a fancy name for a bunch of people with one terrible thing in common: they all have missing kids. Sal described going to group as an act of self-flagellation. He isn’t wrong. Some nights, that’s exactly what it is, which is exactly what she needs.
One year, three months, and twenty-two days ago was the worst day of her life, when Marin did the worst thing she will ever do. It was nobody’s fault but hers; she has nobody to blame but herself.
If she hadn’t been texting, if she hadn’t let go of Sebastian’s hand, if they’d gone to the candy store earlier, if she hadn’t dragged him to the bookstore, if she had looked up from her phone sooner, if if if if if …
Her therapist says she has to stop fixating on that day, that it’s not helpful to replay every second again and again in her head, as if some new detail will magically present itself. He says she needs to find a way to process what happened and move through it, which doesn’t mean she’s letting Sebastian go. It would mean she’d be living a productive life despite what happened, despite the thing she let happen, despite what she’s done.
Marin thinks he’s full of shit. Which is why she doesn’t want to see him anymore. All she wants to do is fixate on it. She wants to continue picking at the wound. She doesn’t want it to heal, because if it heals, that means it’s over, and her little boy is lost forever. It boggles her mind that nobody seems to understand that.
Except for the people at group.
She stares up at the aging yellow sign of the donut shop, which is a shade somewhere between mustard and lemon. It’s always lit. If someone had told her last year that she’d be here once a month to spend time with a group of people she hadn’t even met yet, she wouldn’t have believed it.
There are a lot of things she wouldn’t have believed.
Her keys slip out of her hand, and she manages to catch them before they land in a dirty parking lot puddle. And that’s what life is these days, isn’t it? A series of slips and catches, mistakes and remorse, a constant juggling act of pretending to feel okay when all she wants to do is fall apart.
One day, all those balls will drop, and they won’t just break.
They’ll shatter.
Chapter 3
The FBI estimates that there are currently over thirty thousand active missing persons cases for children.
It’s an alarmingly high number, and yet somehow, being the parent of a missing child is weirdly isolating. Unless it’s happened to you, you can’t possibly understand the unique nightmare of not knowing where your child is, and whether he’s alive or dead. Marin needs to be around people who get this specific brand of hell. She needs a safe place to dump out all her fears so she can examine and dissect them, knowing the others in the room are doing the exact same thing.
She asked Derek to attend the group meetings with her, but he declined. Talking about feelings wasn’t his thing to begin with, and he refuses to discuss Sebastian. Anytime anyone mentions their son, he shuts down. It’s the emotional equivalent of playing dead; the more you show concern for Derek’s well-being, the less he’ll react, until you give up and leave him alone. He even does this with Marin. Maybe especially with Marin.
A little under a year ago, when she first started attending group, there were seven people. The meetings took place in the basement of St. Augustine Church. The group is now down to four and has since moved to the back of this donut shop. An odd choice of location, but the woman who owns Big Holes is the mother of a missing child.
The name Big Holes should be funny, but Frances Payne does not have much of a sense of humor. One of the first things she said when she met Marin was that Big Holes wasn’t a bakery, since it only made two things consistently: coffee and donuts. Calling it a bakery, she insisted, suggested a level of pastry skill that she doesn’t have. Frances is in her early fifties but looks seventy, the lines in her face so deeply etched, it’s like looking at a relief map. Her son, Thomas, went missing when he was fifteen. He went to a party one night where everyone was underage, drinking, and doing drugs. The next morning, he was gone. Nobody remembers him leaving the party. Nothing was left behind. Just gone. Frances is a single mom and Thomas was all she had. His disappearance happened nine years ago.