The Mystery of Hollow Places(32)

“You took the train in?”

“Well, yeah. You wouldn’t text me back. Then I went to your house and saw your car was gone, so I got Chad to drop me off at the station on his way to work. And it was horrible. I’m not even kidding. The lady next to me was eating this sandwich out of a paper bag, so I asked if I could borrow the bag, you know? Just in case? And she gave me the stink-eye like I tried to rob her. Like, I was just asking.”

“And you’ve been wandering around trying to find me?”

She shrugs. “I just asked someone in a vest about a fish picture.”

“Oh. I guess that would’ve been easier. . . .” I turn back to the drawing on the wall.

“Any clues here?” Jessa asks.

“Not so much.” Swallowing back a swell of nausea—maybe I’ve been staring a little too closely into the rolling waves of The Miraculous Draught of Fishes—I make for the bench in the middle of the room and collapse onto it, trying to tell myself this isn’t the end of the trail. It’s just the part in the mystery when the answers seem really far away; the depressing part that makes it all the more inspiring and kickass when the detective picks up the trail again. But I’m a little too hungover for that bullshit. “Being here just . . . helps me think,” I finish lamely.

“I’m really sorry,” she mumbles, “about telling Jeremy. When you and Chadwick were busy measuring each other, Jeremy was whining about me not spending any time with him on my break. Because he wanted me to go to this college thing with him today, but I said I was helping you with something really serious, and he should shut up about it. And then he was like, ‘Is it herpes?’ He was being such a tool and I wanted him to feel like a tool, so I told him the truth. I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t think he’d blab to the entire room and I’m so, so sorry. I’ll talk to my brother. Tell him to forget about it.”

“Whatever.” It’s out of the bag already, and it’s too late to put it back. “Why are you going out with that guy if he’s such a tool?”

She winces as a little girl across the room screams at a glass-splintering decibel, then sighs. “He’s not always. Like last semester, when I was fighting with my mom a bunch? And freshman year, when my dad was having stomach problems? And we thought maybe he had, you know, the C-word or something, so Chad was applying to Boston schools only? Jeremy was so sweet. He was always coming around to play stupid video games and make Chad feel better, and me too. That’s kind of when we started dating.”

“What? I didn’t know any of that.”

“Your dad had just gotten engaged to Lindy and you were kind of blah about it. I didn’t want to drag you down. You take things really seriously, you know?”

“Oh.” That makes me sound like I really am a bucket of water about to tip. “I’m sorry you couldn’t tell me about that.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know you care about me,” she says, and then, “Hey, Im? I have a question, but don’t get mad.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Have you told Lindy what we’re doing? What you think your dad is doing? I mean, maybe she would believe you.”

“Why? Do you believe me?”

“Sure,” she says, toying with her hair. “I guess. Like, I don’t really get all these clues . . . but I’m not smart like you. And I don’t know your dad the way you do, obviously,” Jessa hurries to add.

“Right. You’re just helping because you’re my best friend.” I pause to consider this. “You might be my only actual friend.”

“That’s not true,” she says, but it’s a pretty soft protest.

“Still, thanks, anyway. For helping. You know, Lindy wants to put up posters in Stop and Shop and all over. So if we don’t track him down soon, everyone will find out.”

“Is that such a bad thing? Like, you keep saying it’s your job to find your dad. But I don’t get it. You’re not a detective. You’re not a superhero. I don’t remember you becoming, like, ‘one with the night.’ It is literally the police’s literal job to find him. So shouldn’t we tell the cops what we know? They could look up your mom’s, I don’t know, criminal record and stuff.”

“Why would my mother have a criminal record?”

“Robbed a bank? Stole meatballs from Sweden? Who knows? No offense, Im, but it doesn’t seem like your mom was the most . . . well-adjusted person in the world, right? If you’re sure your dad’s going after her, they can find them faster than we can.”

She’s probably right about the police. She’s definitely right about my mom. But the thing is, I don’t want her to be found. I want to find her. I stumble over my words to make Jessa understand.

“You mean you want to find him, right?” She frowns. “You mean your dad? ’Cause I thought that was the whole point. Find your mom because that’s where your dad’s headed.”

“It was,” I answer slowly. “But now . . .”

I want to explain to her that for other girls, a mother is a makeup lesson in the master bathroom, a set of pearls at junior prom, a handwritten letter every Valentine’s Day. For me, a mother is a small body always out of frame in old photos. Just flashes of dangling hair, the toe of a shoe, the tips of outstretched fingers. A wistful dream of plentiful food. And it isn’t enough to keep me going anymore. My mother is half of who I am, and I don’t know her at all.