17 & Gone (26 page)

in there again. Yet she did neither of

those things. She wouldn’t set foot near

this house at all.

Her grandfather had asked how she

was doing, if she was okay. I didn’t

want to say something cruel, but a big

and blazing part of me did want to alarm

him. Her grandmother hadn’t listened;

maybe he would. I locked my eyes on

his, and I put as much weight into the

words as I had in me, and I said, “No. I

don’t think she is.”

I expected him to ask more of me, but

he didn’t. The shovel went down and he

moved along the line with it, putting

distance between us. I had the sudden

vision of jumping into a snowbank like

this one as a little kid. How it felt to

throw armfuls of bright white powder up

into the air and let it sprinkle down all

over, to lie flat as it buried me, and then

to stand up and shake it off and set

myself free. Whose memory was that,

mine or Abby’s? It could have belonged

to either of us.

I sensed his wife at the window,

watching, but still I called to him, “Are

you the one who put the flyers up on the

telephone poles?”

“Up north,” he said. “A whole lot of

’em.”

“I saw one,” I said. “Up in Pinecliff.”

He nodded. “Nobody was doing a

thing. I talked my wife into putting in the

report, but the police say they don’t have

time to chase after every runaway,

so . . .”

I had to do it again, even though I

failed the first time. Now I was the one

who stepped closer to him, walking into

the pathway he was making in the snow.

“She didn’t run away like you think she

did.”

He eyed me, his pupils held low

under a surface of shining water. “She

tell you that?” he said.

“Not exactly,” I admitted. “But you

should call the police. Please. Call the

police. Ask them to keep looking. Find

out what happened to her.”

He stopped for a moment and then

said one last thing. I wasn’t sure if it

meant he heard me or he hadn’t. He said,

“You have to let them know you miss

them. That’s why I did the flyers. Even if

they don’t ever think about coming back.

You gotta make sure they know they

can.”

—
39
—

MY
mom was waiting in the garage

when I came home from New Jersey that

night. I hit the garage-door opener to see

that she’d found what I’d hidden behind

the lawn mower. I’d gotten the tire

patched at the bike shop in town and

she’d wheeled it out and was playing

with the bell on the handlebars. When I

pulled in and cut the engine, the first

thing I heard was its tinny little
ding
.

“There you are,” my mom said lightly,

though behind those three light words

were more words, heavier words. She

was going to confront me about not

telling her where I was all evening, and I

was going to have to come up with an

excuse that didn’t involve a drive out of

state to ask after a so-called runaway I’d

never met, not in real life.

But all my mom said was, “I feel like

I never see you anymore.”

Get used to it.

I heard that. That was my head

thinking it, or it was a familiar voice

warring to be the loudest thing in my

head. Fiona Burke had also heard my

van pull up, so she’d come out to talk to

me. She wanted my mom to leave the

garage, but she wouldn’t.

Maybe we should give my mom a

warning on what to expect, now that I

was 17 like the others. A little head start

to begin planning out the design of my

Missing posters. Hopefully she’d do

something eye-catching, a Missing

poster to frame and be proud of, to

admire long after I was gone.

That was what Fiona Burke wanted

me to say to my own mother.

“Where’d you get this old thing?” my

mom said, nudging Abby’s borrowed

bicycle. “So retro. It’s darling.” She was

straddling the Schwinn now and testing

out its wheels.

“You shouldn’t touch it. I’m holding

on to it, for a friend.”

She let go and climbed off, and I

caught hold of it before it propelled

itself into the wall.

“What friend? Deena?”

I shook my head.

“What’s going on, Lauren? What was

so much more important than being in

school?” Seeing the surprise on my face,

she raised an eyebrow. “Your school

called. I told them you had a dentist

appointment.”

“Thanks for covering for me.”

“Sure thing. Now you tell me where

you were.”

“New Jersey,” I said, before I, or

anyone else, could stop me.

“Excuse me?”

“I drove down to New Jersey, and

then I drove back up.”

“New Jersey?”
she said, more to

herself than to me. “Who do we know in

New Jersey?”

I could have said no one, or I could

have said someone, but my mouth didn’t

want to keep opening, and my body

wanted to move instead. Before I knew

it, I was grasping the bike’s handlebars

and wheeling it out to the center of the

garage.

“You just got home, where’re you

going?”

She didn’t say I couldn’t go. She’s

never told me I couldn’t do something.

She didn’t ground me or give me

curfews. She covered for me when the

school called and said I’d cut class. She

trusted me—or she wanted me to think

she did.

If there was any mother in existence

who I should be able to let in and know

all, it would be this woman. This

woman, here.

“I want to try the bike,” I said. “I’ll

just ride it along the train tracks to the

bridge, then I’ll turn back.”

“It’s too cold.”

I shrugged and pulled down on my

wool hat so my ears were covered.

“Besides, when’s the last time you

rode a bike? You were maybe ten and

you skidded off the embankment outside

and skinned both knees.”

“I guess you never forget how to ride.

That’s what I heard.”

“They say that.” She was floundering

here. She didn’t know how to discipline

me because she never had to before.

I straddled the bike and tried out the

brakes, testing the bounce of the tire. It

seemed as good as new. The snow had

been cleared off the road and I could

coast down it without sliding on ice. Not

two miles away, down the hill, the train

tracks ran north and south, following the

river. I could follow those tracks for

days. The line headed straight up to

Montreal.

What could my mom do if I told her

the truth? Tie me by the wrists to my

bedposts each night, lock me in our

basement and lower food through the

vents so I didn’t starve? Could she save

me and could she save Abby? Could she

save Fiona Burke years after the fact?

Once you were tagged to disappear

and join the others, I don’t think you

could be saved at all.

My mom said my name, softly. She

reached out, as if to touch my hair, and

when I flinched, she lowered her arm.

“We’re going to talk when you get

back,” she said, as if prophesizing our

future. “You’re going to tell me what’s

been going on and why you went down

to New Jersey.”

Very quietly, maybe to keep Fiona

Burke from hearing, I said,
“Okay.”

“I just want you to know you can talk

to me if you want to talk to me,” she

said, keeping it going and coming close

to ruining it. “I’m always here, if you

want to talk. I can see there’s something,

Lauren. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

For a moment I wondered if mothers

can
see. Maybe once you’ve made a

person, you can see through the skin you

shaped to what’s in there hurting without

anyone having to tell you,
Look here.

I stood up straight with the bike in my

hands. I stood in my mom’s direct line of

sight. There I was: Girl, 17. Girl, hair

not so long anymore, but long legs, my

mom’s same long nose. Girl wearing

black boots and black jeans. Wearing the

pendant I found on the side of the road, a

pendant like the one I thought I saw on

Abby in that photograph, like the one

Fiona Burke had on the night she ran

away. I actually never took it off.

Wearing also a flashing sign that said

I was in trouble. Wearing it on high for

heavy traffic so it could be seen far out

in the lanes in the distance. Letting it

blink and beep. Letting it shout out what

I wanted it to say because maybe

someone would know how to make it

stop.

Girl, not yet missing.

Easy target of a girl, standing out in

the open right here.

But all my mom said was, “When you

get back? We’ll talk.” All those psych

classes weren’t teaching her when to

keep pushing and when to let go. She’d

come so close, and too fast she’d let go.

“Don’t you have homework?” I said.

“We can talk tomorrow—it’s not

urgent.”

Liar
, said Fiona Burke.

My mom looked relieved. “I do have

a paper to write, but Lauren? We’ll talk

tomorrow about all of this.”

I got the bicycle gliding and hopped

on. It balanced perfectly and didn’t

topple over. I hadn’t forgotten anything

I’d seen so far. Not even how to ride a

bike.

I pumped the pedals until I was out of

sight of my house and the Burkes’ house

and could let go and have the spinning

tires do it all without me having a say. I

thought of Abby on this bicycle, on the

way to meet Luke. Then there was Abby

leaving Luke’s house on foot in the

warm summer’s night, there was the

road, there were the pine trees, and

beyond that I guess there was something

I wouldn’t get to know. There was a

dark night sky starred with questions,

and she was one of them. I kept thinking

if I looked hard enough maybe I’d be

able to pick out her point in the

constellation.

Or more likely I’d keep getting it all

mixed up, like how I could never seem

to find the Big Dipper, even when it was

right there, screaming out its existence in

the sky right over my head.

Then I changed the story. I imagined

Abby on the way to meet Luke, but never

stopping, never bothering going to his

house and instead riding a wide circle

and making it back safe to the grounds of

the summer camp that night.

I imagined her still alive.

I kept pedaling and soared around

each coming turn. I sped past mailboxes.

I flew over humps in the road. I

somehow managed to avoid slicks of

ice. I pedaled so fast, I didn’t know how

I’d ever get the bike to stop.

When I reached the railroad tracks, I

saw the light in the distance and heard

the rumble: a train was coming. It sped

closer, rattling the air, a freight train that

didn’t look to be stopping at the

commuter Amtrak stop at Pinecliff. I

pumped the pedals and steered the bike

down the narrow road that ran alongside

the tracks. I was ahead of the train, but I

felt it gaining on me, a hulking monster I

was too small and insignificant to think

of ever beating.

The train was just behind me and then

it was beside me, and for a single,

perfect moment the freight train and I

were matched, its nose even with the

bike’s front tire.

Then, fast, it overtook me and

thundered past me and I was left behind.

—
40
—

SHE
was waiting for me in my

bedroom, watching in silence as I shook

out my legs, my muscles burning after

riding her bike so hard and for so long.

Her eyes held on me, and the weight

of that gaze felt like she was pressing

her entire body down on top of me,

caked in mud and littered with burrs and