You Are Here(5)

But for once the speech went no further. Instead he turned to Peter, gazed across that wide gulf between them, a body of water both dangerous and deep, home to man-eating fish and life-threatening creatures that made the idea of ever crossing seem far-fetched at best.

“You want to be careful about wandering,” he said, as if giving a presentation to a group of second graders about to embark on a nature walk. “It’s a good way to get yourself lost.”

Chapter three

It was nearly lunchtime when the car had begun to falter, a sound like someone dragging a metal trash can to the end of the driveway. There was a buckling feeling, like the whole vehicle was struggling to stay in motion, and Emma lifted her foot and listened to the engine heave, then counted to twenty with her eyes fixed on the dashboard. By the time she reached eighteen, the red emergency light had blinked on, and she felt her heart quicken as she merged into the slow lane and coasted toward the rest area, trying not to think of what Patrick might do to her if she ruined his car for good.

But just as soon as it had come on, the light went off again, and the car chugged up the incline with admirable determination. Emma maneuvered into a parking spot beside a camper van and breathed a sigh of relief as she switched off the ignition.

The trip, it seemed, wasn’t over just yet.

The rest stop consisted of five different fast-food places and a gift shop, with outdoor picnic tables and a set of bathrooms she could smell from the parking lot. Emma decided to let the car recuperate while she had lunch, and made her way up to the crowded building, an A-frame structure that looked as if the architects had hoped people might forget they were not at a ski lodge in Vermont but rather at a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike.

She waited in line at a burger stand amid the noisy thrum of people, bleary-eyed mothers and kids covered in ketchup and weary truck drivers who stretched their legs and yawned and seemed to be enjoying the diversion from the road. Emma ordered a burger and fries and then carried her tray past the orange plastic tables and arcade games to the glass door that led outside. There were six picnic tables on the side of the building farthest from the highway, and most were already occupied by families wearing shirts with the names of the various states they’d traveled through. Emma took a seat at the last open table, dabbing uselessly at a puddle of spilled soda with her napkin before unwrapping her burger.

This whole thing had started just yesterday morning, while Patrick was packing up his car to return to the city after spending a couple of days at home. Emma had been planning to go with him all along, ever since he’d shown up in the Mustang and the idea to steal it had first occurred to her, but she’d thought it better to spring it on everyone at the last minute. So when she showed up to say good-bye with a backpack slung over one shoulder, everyone stared at her. Emma smiled back at them brightly, then tossed her bag into the trunk.

“And where might you be going?” Patrick asked, raising one eyebrow.

“I thought I’d come stay with you for the weekend.”

He laughed, but not like it was funny. “I’ve got my summer research stuff to finish up this weekend,” he said. “And I’m teaching two classes on Monday that I still need to prepare for.”

“I’ll stay out of your way,” she said. “I promise. It’s just that there’s nothing to do around here, and I thought it might be fun.”

Dad looked equally unsure. “What about work?”

Emma’s job as a camp counselor had fallen through when not enough kids showed up on the first day, so he’d hired her as a research assistant to pass the time over the summer. This basically meant running back and forth between home and the library to fetch and return books. She was pretty sure he could survive without her.

“You’ll be busy finishing up your revisions anyhow,” Mom reminded him. “And I’ve got my article to write. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea. The house will be quieter this way.”

Emma thought to point out that as noisy teenagers go, she fell pretty low on the scale, but decided against it. New York was only the first step in her plan, and if she were to mess things up now, before even really having a chance to begin, she’d be stuck at home for the rest of the summer with nothing to do but wonder about things from afar.

Ever since she found the birth certificate, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that she should go down to North Carolina. Her grandfather was buried in a cemetery not far from Nate’s house—in the same town where she’d been born—and though she’d never been there before, there was no reason not to think that Thomas Quinn Healy was buried there too.

She wasn’t sure what she hoped to find. It was just a feeling she had, that she should make the trip. She had two parents and three siblings, none of whom understood her at all. Emma felt she owed it to the one brother who might have known her better to pay him a visit. It was as simple as that.

The night before, she’d trailed around the backyard after Mom, helping to clean up after the party and trying to figure out how to ask the question on her mind without really asking anything at all. Mom had always had a tendency to be vague and tight-lipped about the past; she’d never been the type to carry baby pictures in her wallet or tell childhood anecdotes at the dinner table. Emma had always assumed this was because she—like the rest of them—was too focused on her work to see anything outside of it. But now she realized that in the hiding of whatever had happened back then—the disappearance of her twin brother from the family story—other things must have gotten lost as well.