Essential Maps for the Lost (3 page)

But this will not happen. She is destined (
doomed
) to be in Otto Hermann's tired room, where the fluorescent lights twitch, and where the students are mostly older women who aren't wearing wedding rings anymore. There are a few men. One's name is Arthur. He still wears a watch. There's a young guy who reads books with titles like
Selling Your Way to Your First Million.
This is not college-college, but Continuing Education. Continuing Education is a good name for life in general, Mads thinks.

Here are the necessary details: After she finishes both Washington Real Estate Fundamentals and Real Estate Practices, Mads will take her licensing exam. She is in Seattle for this one purpose, to take this particular course, which is packed into two quarters and completed by summer's end. This is where they promise a “convenient and expedient” experience, and where 97.5 percent of graduates pass the licensing exam on the first try.

They are, after all, in a hurry. Speed is of the essence. Her mother forgets to return client calls, and important inspection deadlines are getting overlooked, and there was even that near miss with the Huntingtons' lawsuit, when the couple almost lost their fat wad of earnest money, thanks to Catherine Murray's lack of attention. Her mother needs her. Needs her
now
. Or, as she's told Mads more than once,
It'll probably all go under without your help, not that it matters.

It matters. The business is her mother's livelihood. What would happen if she lost it? Disaster, that's what. Here is the ticking clock: The partnership papers were drawn up sometime in Madison's junior year, ready to be signed the minute she passed the licensing exam. The cap is off the pen. Feet are impatiently tapping; fingertips are drumming on tabletops. Mads graduated early for this. She ditched her friends in what felt like the middle of the party. Last year at the attorney's office, the lawyer, Mr. Knightley, didn't listen to Mads's (admittedly muted) protests. He said things to Mads like
You can make a real difference here
and
What would your mom do without you
, and thus sealed Mads's fate.

The problem is—and Mads would never confess this to anyone, even now consider this a whisper, consider it something you can barely hear—the classes, the papers, the signature . . . They fill her with a despair she senses she is no match for. Ever since she and her mother sat across from Mr. Knightley at his desk, a long shadow of sorrow has slipped over her like an eclipse. When people notice the half-moons under her eyes (sorrow keeps you awake), or the slow weightiness in her step (sorrow grabs your ankles), they say things like
Cheer up!
And
Look on the bright side!
These words are only sweet flowers that the dark ogre of depression eats in one bite.

She tries the “pep talk” (awful, awful, utterly useless phrase) on herself, too. Who, after all, is handed a business right out of high school? A mostly-paying-the-bills business! She could be set up for life! And she and her mom get along great, they do! Maybe later, she could try something different. Even her father, who is pissed she's not going to college, has occasionally said
It's not the worst thing, I guess
and
It will give you work experience, anyway.
Mads is not ungrateful. (She hates that word. Even saying
ungrateful
makes her feel ungrateful.) It's just that the idea of it all is like being in one of those horrible stories where people are buried alive. There's the crush of earth and the last squeak of oxygen. Still. She can't say no. You might not understand this, but
she can't say no.
Her mother would be furious. And she can't let her down. The guilt would kill Mads. She's the kind of person guilt could kill. It'd barely have to try.

Either way, her own self will be swallowed up, gone. Already, she is slowly disappearing.

As she drives to school, her required textbook,
Mastering Real Estate Principles
, 7th Edition, sits on the seat beside her in Thomas's truck. She has her completed homework assignment on valuation, too, which is tucked inside.

But something strange happens as they crest the hill where the school sits. It's as if Thomas's truck has a mind of its own. It speeds right on past the campus. The campus shoots by like Harrison on his bike, when he pedals so fast the wheels blur. Thomas's truck screeches a loop. It goes straight back over 520, into Seattle. Mads attempts to talk some sense into it, but that truck is having none of it. She may be confused and despairing, but that truck isn't. It knows exactly where it wants to go.

•  •  •

The night of that horrible swim a few months ago, the woman was oh-so-briefly on the news. There was a small article in the
Seattle Times
the next day, as well, with a picture of the park. Half of Mads was in it—her arm, her leg, the right side of her face—in the distance. And then, after that, there was nothing. Nothing! The story was over. How could that be? Shouldn't there have been
more
? Shouldn't there have been
why
? Shouldn't everyone know the woman's past and what happened to the people in her life
after
? How could people just go on as if nothing monumental had occurred? Mads realized then how often she herself had gone on, after hearing news like that. How she'd just got up and made some popcorn, or changed the channel, or went back to her biology assignment.

But something important was revealed, even in the brevity. From KING 5 news at five, Madison learned this: Her name was (is?) Anna Youngwolf Floyd. And she jumped off the Aurora Bridge.

Since then—the body, the name, the jump—Mads sees Anna Youngwolf Floyd every time she shuts her eyes. No, wrong. She doesn't even need to shut them to see her. Anna is just with Mads all the time now. She is not a ghost who bangs doors and flutters curtains. She is just a thought that won't leave. She is a gnawing question. This is the most insistent kind of ghost of all.

“What is that, Mads?” Claire asked late one night, not long after the swim. Well, sure, she'd want to know, especially after Mads slammed the lid of her laptop down so she wouldn't see.

“I'm sorry. Am I keeping you awake?”

“It's late, honey,” Claire said. She leaned against the doorjamb of Mads's room. “Really late. It's, what, past one?”

“I'm done now. Homework,” she lied. She's a terrible liar.

“Homework, huh? You're on that thing all hours lately. Mads, was that her picture? That woman?”

Mads said nothing. Aunt Claire didn't deserve to be deceived, anyway. She's a nice person, same as Mads. She does yoga. She's the nice sort of yoga person, not the superior kind of yoga person. She wears yoga person skirts, and yoga person woven things, and she has longish, rust-colored hair. She tries to feed Harrison organic stuff, which is thankfully, what a relief, balanced out when Thomas sneaks him Doritos. Mads feels bad that Claire has gotten stuck with her all spring and summer. Thomas probably felt obliged, given that his brother, Mads's father, ditched them to work in Amsterdam, fleeing Mads's mother like she was the wreckage of a burning plane.

Aunt Claire sighed. She shook her head. “This isn't healthy,” she said finally. “I know what you've been doing all these hours on the computer, Mads. Trying to look her up . . . And you're not sleeping. Not eating . . . This whole thing . . . The other day, when you heard the water running—that's a
flashback
, Mads.”

“I'm going to go brush my teeth,” Mads said.

“She was just a woman. Probably mentally ill, you know that, right? There aren't always real explanations when people do stuff like that. Except that one.”

“I know.”

“If mental illness made sense . . .”

Mads waited. She hoped and hoped Claire would finish, because it might give her some sort of an answer.
Oh, please
, she thought.
Come on, Claire!
But Claire just waved her arms a little, luckless branches riding a sudden wind.

“Are you sure you wouldn't like to go see someone? A therapist? I don't want to keep bugging you about it, but I really think it might be helpful. I mean, you were already struggling, you know, um . . . depressed? And now this. Not to put a label on you, or anything! I mean, after something like that, it might all just be . . . too much, right? An expert seems important.”

Mads snorted. She'd lost belief in that kind of thing a long time ago. Still, Claire and Thomas had been asking her this daily, watching her endlessly, looking for signs that she might be the one to jump off a bridge next. Even her mom was suggesting that Mads come home for
support
.

“Do you know how many psychologists and psychiatrists and other ists Mom has been to?”

“You're not her.”

God. She hoped not. It sounded unkind, and she didn't even want to
think
unkind, but wow. That idea could make a person nervous. She loves her mother. Her mom is sometimes her best friend, the way they talk and hang out and joke; the way she's there for Mads like no one else. But Mads also has certain permanent images that knock-knock-knock. The constant, cruel jabs at her father when he still lived with them. The rages that cause Mads to flee to her room. The inability to manage, which Mads must manage. “I know.”

“And you don't have to
become
her.” Aunt Claire seemed angry. She shoved her hands down into her robe pockets. She's seen years of stuff she thinks is wrong, and she's had it with her sister-in-law. Mads should live her own life, Claire has told her. Mads shouldn't be the nurse or the mother or the best friend.

“Okay.”

“All this time on the computer . . .”

“I'm just curious,” Mads said.

Aunt Claire tipped her head and scrunched her nose, an all-purpose face that covered a lot of territory.
If you're just curious
, the face said,
you shouldn't be. But you're not just curious
.

And it's true. Mads is beyond curiosity. She is in need. Dire, downright
need
. She needs to understand just how sad a person has to be to do something like that. Not able to even eat scrambled eggs sad? Ex-husband in Amsterdam sad? Running off in the middle of an open house sad?

Or worse. Returning to Apple Valley forever sad? A signature that decides your whole life sad? Murray & Murray Realtors, the business cards already printed up and waiting sad? Hearing Suzanne and Carl Bellarose fight in the driveway as baby Ivy looks on with worried eyes sad? Because she is clearly this sad, this sad and more, and she has been for what already feels like a long, long time.

Every night since the body in the water (no, that, too, is a lie—more than that, every day and every night, many times a day), Mads has looked at the satellite image of the bridge. She zooms in, click, click, click. Anna Youngwolf Floyd would have had to walk up those stairs, right there. She would have stepped onto that narrow grating. There is the cement wall she would have put one leg over. What was she thinking, just before she lifted her second leg? On the satellite image, Mads sees the view she had. Worse, she sees the view she herself might have.

The thing is, there were two bodies in the water that day, hers and Anna Youngwolf Floyd's. What keeps Mads up at night, what keeps her on the computer trying to find out more, more, more, is the question, the big question, the only question much of the time:
why.
The
why
feels like something about to happen. The
why
is a mystery that might lead to a way out. Or else, to the last locked door.

•  •  •

Thomas's truck leaves the community college in the dust and heads away like it has an automotive mission. Mads rolls down the windows, and the breeze ruffles the bits of her homework that stick out from
Mastering Real Estate Principles
, 7th Edition. The truck heads to a place Mads has been before. Once she had Anna's name, the address was easy to find. Now she parks across the street from the house, in the spot where she usually studies it. She visualizes the layout, as always. Standard Seattle Craftsman bungalow: living room in front, kitchen in back, bedrooms upstairs. She'll say . . . two bedrooms. Three. Bathrooms need updating, probably. One fireplace; creepy unfinished basement where the laundry room is, she'll bet. She pictures Anna Youngwolf Floyd down there, tossing a load into the washing machine. At least, Mads pictures Anna as she was in the 1976 La Conner High School yearbook photo Mads found online. Anna had long, straight dark hair parted on the side, and she was wearing the usual dreamy-but-looking-toward-the-future 1 x 1 inch yearbook expression (as well as a white shirt with a collar big enough for liftoff). She was next to Steve Yepa, who had a grown-man moustache and was sporting a suit and tie, and Gene Yu, whose bouffy hair could have its own moons and orbit the sun.

Anna is about to pour the liquid soap into the washer of Mads's imagination when a black SUV drives up. Her heart lurches, and she scooches down in her seat, fast. She starts to sweat. She's seen that truck here twice before. The first time, a mattress was tied to the top, and the back was stuffed with boxes. The second time was very late at night. She likes this place best at late hours, when she can park in the dark space between streetlamps and gaze at the still, secretive house under the light of the moon. But that time, this same SUV had been in the driveway. And she swore someone was in it, sleeping in there, maybe. At least she thought she saw the truck rock slightly, and then she'd gotten out of there, fast.

Well, now she's been caught. Definitely caught. The truck drives right past Thomas's. She acts like she's there with good reason, punches nonsense into her phone, pretends to talk while sneaking glances. She may look small and cringing right then, but inside—here's the funny thing—there's an odd boldness rising. It fills her like some magical, powerful, pink-smoke summons. It's some kind of wish and wanting and it feels amazing. She wants to see who that truck belongs to. She wants to see a living connection, a face, a moving body. Someone who is proof that Anna Youngwolf Floyd was a real human being. Mads is scared to see what she might find, though. If it makes her feel worse than she does already, this will likely be a mistake.