“So that’s got to be significant. Don’t you think?”
Unable to give Finn the response she was fishing for, Zadie didn’t answer.
“It’s fine if you don’t. That’s not what matters here. What matters is that we now know I can pick up on Mom’s memories. I just have to do it again. Maybe then we can figure out where she went.”
“But don’t you find memories where they happened? If we don’t know where she went, how would you even know where to look?”
“I know where we could start.”
Zadie hadn’t been back to their childhood home since the day Finn and she had moved out. Sometimes she thought about its red shutters, the way the pipes clicked when the hot water was running, the screen door that snapped shut like a mousetrap every time you went outside. She tried not to think about the time their mom had made a sprinkler for them in the backyard by poking holes in an old hose, or the time they’d tried to make a cake for Finn’s ninth birthday and ended up with something that tasted good but was definitely not cake. She didn’t need a gift like Finn’s to know that their old house was full of memories. That’s why she’d elected to stay as far away from it as possible, even moving an hour away so that she never had to accidentally drive past it.
“Nope. Nuh-uh. I’m not going back there.”
“But it’s just down the street—”
“No.”
“Fine. You don’t have to, but hear me out,” Finn insisted. “Let’s say I find another memory. We might be able to retrace her steps. If we can retrace her steps, then we might find more memories. If we find more memories, we might findher.Make sense?”
“Yes, but”—whether or not it made sense was not the issue—“what about Steve and Kathy? I don’t think they’ll be wild about the idea.”
“They think we’re going on vacation, anyway. They wouldn’t need to know.”
And in an instant, Zadie’s beach plans were washed away. She could practically see the tide dragging her romance novels out to sea. “So you want to cancel our beach vacation to go looking forMom?” she said, measured, trying not to let her disappointment crack open like an egg and run all over the floor.
Finn must not have known how much this trip meant to Zadie, or she wouldn’t have said what she said next. “The beach would be fun, but, I mean, this is more important, right?”
Who’s more important than the mother who abandoned you? How about the sister who didn’t?Five years had passed since Nora’s disappearance, and yet her mom had still managed to find a way to intrude on their lives. Zadie didn’t just want Nora in her rearview mirror, she wanted to smash the mirror into a thousand tiny shards. She wished that Finn understood how she felt. But instead of telling her, she did what she usually did when she felt hurt: she lied. “Sure, it’s important. But what if she doesn’twantto be found. Have you considered that?”
“No.” Finn was adamant. She reached down under the table and reappeared with Nora’s anklet in her hand, their tiny initials glittering pink in the light. “I used to think this had just fallen off her ankle by accident, but now I’m thinking maybe she left it behind on purpose. She was trying to tell us something.”
“Tell us what?”
“To follow her.”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just leave a note?” Zadie said hotly. The irony of this statement was not lost on her—having declined her own opportunity to leave such a note that morning. The breakup, the pregnancy—these were words Zadie was waiting to say out loud until the air was salty enough to cure them. But with her beach plans dashed, she could feel them start to rot in her mouth.
“You really think she just ran out on us, don’t you?” Finn’s eyes flashed.
Zadie thought carefully about her answer. “I don’t think there’s any way of knowing why Mom did what she did, and I think chasing after her based on one echo would be a mistake.”
Unlike Zadie, who tried her best to bury her emotions, Finn flew them like a flag. Her indignation was borderline patriotic. “I don’t know why I even told you. You don’t care where she is.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Then why don’t you want to look for her?”
Zadiehadlooked for Nora. The day she went missing she’d driven around town for hours asking everyone she knew whether they’d seen her mother. When she returned home that evening, she couldn’t stop staring at the iridescent oil stain on the driveway where Nora’s car had once been parked. It was another twenty minutes before she could bring herself to go inside, to tell her sister she’d failed.
Finn got tired of waiting for an answer. “I’m doing this. With or without you.” With that, she pushed her chair away from the table, feet screeching across the linoleum, then hurried out the front door.
“Shit,” Zadie muttered. The woman singing onstage made brief eye contact with her. She’d heard their argument. Most of the room probably had.
Zadie slinked past the other tables and pushed open the front door. Warm air rushed at her face, as did the lonesome sound of an approaching train. The horn sounded again and the warning bells began to chime, an oddly cheerful reminder of something so deadly. Zadie watched Finn’s car pass over the tracks just as the barriers began to fall and the mile-long train split the neighborhood in two.
FIVEA SECOND SLEEPING BAG
Several days went by; long, hot, drawn-curtain days that made Zadie yearn for a sea breeze. Most of her evenings were spent slouching in front of her window air conditioner, waiting for Finn to call. The girls hadn’t spoken since their fight, and they were supposed to leave for Galveston the next day. With less than twelve hours to go, Zadie thought it was pretty safe to assume that they would not be going to the beach tomorrow or perhaps any other day.