“I don’t need protecting.”
“So I should have… what? Told my kid sister that her mom blacks out and nearly kills herself wandering off a cliff?”
“What cliff?” Finn’s voice shook.
“You wanna know why I didn’t stop her that day? Because she was already gone, Finn. She had been for months. You just didn’t see it.”
“You wouldn’t let me! I could have helped.”
“You were twelve.”
“You didn’t have to do it alone.”
Zadie laughed bitterly. “What would you know about being alone?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Youhavea family.”
“I haven’t even said yes yet!” Then, realizing she’d said too much, Finn fell silent.
“Yes to what?”
Finn hesitated for a moment, then said, “Kathy and Steve offered to adopt me.”
Zadie felt like she’d had the wind knocked out of her. It was a full five seconds before she drew another breath. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I told you. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
“Don’t act like this is easy for me.”
“Isn’t it? I swear, Finn, sometimes you act like Mom’s the only one who left.” Zadie regretted the words the moment she gave them oxygen.
A stunned silence descended on the room. Finn gaped back at her sister with a pained expression. “That’s not fair.”
“Finn, I didn’t mean—”
“I need a minute,” she said, then shouldered past her sister and opened the door. “Don’t follow me.”
Zadie flinched as the door slammed behind her.
Fifteen minutes passed. The pizza Zadie had ordered arrived. She tried eating a slice but discovered she no longer had an appetite.You should eat,the Star seemed to say (the Star got to eat only if she ate), but even the smell of the sausage made her stomach turn, so she closed the box and listened for Finn’s return.
Zadie waited for her sister for another thirty minutes before shedecided to go looking for her. She wrapped a piece of pizza in a napkin—a peace offering—and carried it outside. Finn was not in the parking lot. She wasn’t in the car, either. Zadie walked down the road to the beach, waited for her eyes to adjust to the moonlight, and scanned the shore. If her sister was on the beach, she didn’t see her. “Finn!” Zadie’s voice sounded small compared to the roar of the waves. Even if Finn was somewhere in the darkness, she was unlikely to hear her.
Zadie turned around and headed back to the motel. Finn was not in the room when she returned. Pizza grease had soaked through the napkin. Zadie threw it and the slice in the trash, grabbed her keys, and ran to her car.
TWENTY-FOURTHE DAY OF
(NORAWILDER’S DISAPPEARANCE)
“She probably just went out for cigarettes,” Zadie said when their mom had been missing for almost four hours. Never mind that Nora hadn’t smoked in years, but now that it was starting to look like she might not come back, the words had taken on a whole new significance.
Zadie asked their neighbor, Mrs. Reyes, to watch Finn while she drove around town. She checked all of her mom’s favorite haunts, the 24/7 Pancake, the laundromat down the street that sold coffee and doughnuts, the stone bridge on the river, and of course the Fro-Yodel. None of the employees had seen her that night, so she headed to the last location on her list.
It was Thursday, open mic night at Hound Dog’s. Thankfully, it was still too early in the evening for anyone to be manning the door, so Zadie was able to slip in unnoticed. She looked around the room of dimly lit faces before heading to the empty stage. A sign-up sheet sat on a stool next to a large speaker. Zadie scanned the list of names but didn’t see her mom’s. Then she approached the bar. “Have you seen Nora Wilder today?”