My dad. It is so hard to just think of him.
I turn away from the door and sit on the couch where he used to sit. I put my face in my hands and rock back and forth a little, but I do not cry.
No more.
Betty crashes out of the kitchen, bringing the smell of burned meat with her.
“I murdered the pork chops, just fried them to death,” she says.
“That’s okay.”
“I have Campbell’s soup . . . chicken noodle.”
“Cool.”
She eyes me. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“Tell me about the boy who went missing last week. What happened?”
Betty turns to glance out the windows. “It’s almost dark. You should be back before dark. You don’t know these roads. They’re dangerous.”
“I was at Issie’s.”
“Oh, that’s good. She’s a sweet girl. Jumpy. Her parents work at the bank.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah . . . I kind of sort of went off the road a little bit. I didn’t hurt the car! I swear. Nick pushed me out.”
“Nick?” She wipes at her face with the moose dish towel and motions for me to follow her into the kitchen. “Nick Colt?”
I nod.
“You didn’t get hurt? Were you speeding?”
“It was ice.”
She takes it all in. “He’s a good boy. Cute. Don’t sigh at me. He is.”
“Tell me about the boy. Please?”
“He was out alone at night. He was an eighth grader. He didn’t show up in the morning.”
“So what? Everything is all business as usual?”
“No. We had search parties. The state police came in.” Her shoes slap against the wood floor. “You’re getting all motivated again. Maybe Maine has already been good for you.”
I decide to ignore her psychoanalysis. “Do the police have any leads?”
She opens the cabinet and pulls out two microwavable soup containers. “No.”
“And what do you think?”
She pops the plastic top off the containers and starts prying off the metal lids. I wait while she puts it all into two bowls and plops them in the microwave for sixty seconds.
Finally she says, “I think he ran away.”
I wait. She turns around and leans against the counter, like it’s too hard to keep standing up. “Okay . . . a long time ago this happened. Almost a couple decades ago. Boys turned up missing. No girls. Just boys. One a week. Always at night. It was in the national news.”
The timer on the microwave counts down the seconds, getting closer and closer to zero.
“Mom and Dad never told me that.”
“They wouldn’t. It’s not something anyone around here wants to remember.”
“And now you think it’s happening again.”
“I hope to God not.”
“But it might be.”
The microwave beeps. She chucks the pork chops into the trash can. “It might be, but he may have just run away.”
“Seriously, why did Mom send me here? A boy went missing.”
“People don’t go missing in Charleston? I bet the murder rate’s a lot higher there.” She swallows. She pulls in air through her nose like she expects she’ll never breathe again. “She thought she was doing the right thing. It wasn’t easy for her, Zara. You weren’t acting alive anymore. She thought a change of scenery would help.”
“Was I that bad? Really?”
She stares out the window above the sink, past the old glass insulators she collects. “Yes.”
Right after dinner my cell phone goes off while it’s charging and I rush over to the counter to get it, even though it’s probably just my mother, but the display says it’s a Maine number.
I flick it open. “Hello?”
“Hey, Zara. It’s me, Ian.” His voice sounds all happy.
“Hi, Ian.” I lean against the counter. Betty makes bug eyes at me like she’s all excited that a boy is calling me. I refuse to look at her.
“Hey. Sorry to bother you. I hope you aren’t eating.”
“Nope. We’re done.”
“Good. I was just thinking about how hard it must be for you to be in a new town and everything . . .”
I bump my butt against the counter because it’s hard to be still.
“It’s not that bad,” I lie.
“Well, anyway, I was thinking maybe I could show you around after cross-country tomorrow? You know, give you a grand tour of the excitement that is Bedford, Maine.”
“Oh. Tomorrow?”
Betty perks up and starts hustling around, taking dishes off the table.
“Say yes,” she whispers.
“I have to go register my car tomorrow,” I say, which I do.
“Oh,” Ian says.
“I’m sorry.”
Betty yanks the faucet to turn on the hot water and groans.
“I could come with you,” Ian says.
“To the DMV?” I am stunned.
“Yeah. It’s boring as hell in there, but it’s better with someone else.”
“Sure. Okay.” I don’t know what to say. “If you don’t mind.”
We hang up and Betty asks me who it was.
“This guy named Ian that I met at school. He wants to go to the DMV with me.”
She hands me a plate to dry. “Well, there’s true love.”
I snort.
She says, “He’s the Ian who is a runner, right? The point guard of the basketball team?”
“I don’t know. I know he runs and he’s in a ton of clubs.”
“Classic overachiever. He comes from an old Bedford family. His father lobsters. His grandfather logged. They have hardly anything; live in a glorified shack, basically. It’s amazing to see what that boy has done.”
While I rub the plate with a dish towel, I think about Ian and all his clubs and all his energy. “Yeah.”
“And he’s obviously got good taste if he already has his eye set on you.” She points at me with a fork.
I put the plate away and grab the fork from her. “He’s just being helpful.”
“Ha. Right.”
. . .
I wake up in the middle of the night. There’s a noise downstairs, soft tapping across the floor. I grab the big metal flashlight that’s next to the bed and slip out from under the covers. I don’t turn the flashlight on, though. I grab it like cops do, ready to bash someone over the head. I tiptoe down the stairs and that’s when I see her, Betty, standing by the front windows.