When (11 page)

Donny called my cell as I was pedaling up and down the dark streets looking for her. “I can’t find Ma,” I confessed as soon as I answered the call.

I heard him sigh on the other end of the line. I knew he was pretty tired of conversations like these, and I’d gotten better about not calling him in recent years. “How long has she
been gone?”

I blinked hard. It wasn’t just the cold misting up my vision. “I’m not exactly sure, but I think she left sometime after one.”

“Did she take the car?”

“No. It’s still in the garage.”

“Where’re you?”

I braked and came to a stop. I was near the park about a mile from my house. “I’m out looking for her.”

There was a pause, then Donny said, “It’s not even eight o’clock, Maddie. She’s probably at some bar, and she’ll find her way home just like she always does. Go
back to the house and get warm.”

I looked up and down the street, my eyes searching for Ma in vain. I knew most of the bars she liked to go to, all within a bus stop or two of the house, but I’d been by them and she
wasn’t there.

“Maddie?” Donny said. “You there?”

“She doesn’t have her coat, Donny.” I could feel myself getting emotional, and had to swallow hard simply to talk. I felt guilty about our argument, and I was so tired of this.
I wanted Ma to see how tired I was. How worried. How afraid. I wanted her to choose to look out for me for a change. I wanted her to stop pulling stunts like this, because I knew that
she
knew they were really hardest on me.

Donny sighed again. “Maddie,” he said gently. “I’m more worried about you riding around in the dark than I am about your mom. Go home, sweetheart. I’m all the way
over in Jersey tonight, but I’ll drive up in the morning and we’ll have a talk, okay?”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. I was too choked up to reply.

“I’ll be there around ten and we’ll grab breakfast,” Donny was saying. In the background I heard a woman’s voice. “Listen, I gotta go. As long as
Cheryl’s not behind the wheel, she’ll be okay. She always is. Go home, take a bath, and get warm. I can hear your teeth chattering.”

And then he was gone. I tucked my phone into my pocket and again looked up and down the street, and that’s when I noticed something weird. Far down the street I could hear the faint rumble
of an engine, but all the cars parked along the curb had their headlights off. The light from the lone streetlight at my end didn’t let me see into any of the cars, so it was impossible to
tell if someone was inside one of them, but I had the prickly feeling that I was being watched by someone other than Wallace and Faraday.

When I got to the next intersection, I paused at the stop sign and heard that slight rumble behind me again. A quick backward glance revealed a large pickup truck moving toward me with its
lights off. As I stared, the truck pulled over to the curb and sat there idling again, as if the driver didn’t want to pass me before seeing which direction I was going to take.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. Pushing off, I turned right and rode hard up the hilly street. Behind me, I heard the engine rev, and I knew the pickup had pulled away
from the curb and was coming after me. I pumped hard up the hill, and at the intersection I turned the bike around in a tight loop and raced to the right to hop the curb onto the sidewalk.
Crouching low, I pedaled for all I was worth and darted past the truck, gaining momentum on the downward slope. I caught only a blur of movement within the cab of the truck as I whizzed by.

Pumping hard again at the bottom of the hill, I rode my bike back across the street, racing through the metal archway that marked the park’s entrance.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw the pickup finishing its awkward turn at the top of the hill, and that’s when its headlights finally came on.

I knew without a doubt that I was in trouble now, because the truck roared down the hill heading straight for me. I faced forward again and pedaled as fast as I could, at last moving past the
concrete barriers that kept vehicles out and marked the beginning of the trail. The ride immediately got bumpy, forcing me to focus in the dim light of my headlamp on the terrain. But I
didn’t slow down.

Because I had to focus on the dirt path, I couldn’t lift my gaze away to look for the truck, so I kept my ears pricked for the roar of its engine, and I could still hear its loud rumble
keeping pace with me in the distance. I was certain the driver was tracking my escape—intent on cutting me off at the opposite end of the park.

My mind whirred: what should I do? There was nobody in the park to help me, and if I stopped pedaling to dial the police on my cell, the driver could also stop, race across the lawn, and nab me
before I was even done with the call.

Then I had a sudden insight. As I started to pass a large clump of evergreen trees, I reached down to click off my headlamp. I lost sight of the path and braked slowly until I came to a stop,
huddling next to the largest tree in the cluster. Listening hard, I heard the slight squeak of brakes and then the low rumble of the truck in idle. I gathered my courage and stepped off my bike,
running it in a straight line directly in front of the trees, keeping them between me and the pickup as I headed through the grass toward the street I’d been on when Donny had called.

It was then that I heard the rumble of the engine pick up and the truck moved on at a rapid pace again. I wanted nothing more than to jump on the bike and pedal for the street, but I
couldn’t see the ground clearly. If I hit a log or a rock, I’d be toast. I settled for trotting the bike quickly across the open field, stumbling a few times as my feet met with uneven
terrain.

At last I came out onto the street and quickly mounted the bike again. At the top of the street, I moved right over to the first house I came to and huddled in the shadows next to a garage. At
the entrance to the park the truck appeared again, moving along slowly while the driver hunted for any glimpse of me in the park. After it passed, I stepped out of the shadows and raced in the
opposite direction, which was also the way home. Once I was safely up the drive, I didn’t even put the bike away; I simply leaned it against the garage and bolted for the back door. I’d
left it open because I didn’t know if Ma would be able to get her key into the lock if she came home, but once I was through the door I slammed it shut and threw the dead bolt, then I leaned
against it and tried to catch my breath.

Finally, I pushed away from the door and was about to head to the front window, when I tripped over something on the kitchen floor. I heard a muffled grunt. Scrambling backward in the dark, my
heart racing, I flicked on the lights and saw Ma sprawled out on the floor, her clothes bunched up around her. She mumbled something incoherent, then she settled into a soft snore.

I stared at her for a long moment, waiting to catch my breath. When I wasn’t so panicked, I turned off the lights again and made my way to the front window to peek through the curtains.
The street was empty—no sign of the truck anywhere—and no black sedans parked on the street, either.

Next, I went into the bathroom and peeked out the small window on the side of our house. There was no one lurking outside, but I could see Mrs. Duncan in her kitchen doing the dishes. Seeing her
helped calm me down, and at last I moved back toward the kitchen.

My eyes were adjusted to the darkness by then and I could see Ma’s sleeping form on the linoleum floor. I felt a sudden and unexpected surge of anger. I was so sick of all this that I
wanted to scream. But I didn’t. Instead I dutifully got her to wake up enough to get her to the couch, and I put her to bed. “Luff you, baby,” she slurred after I tucked the
afghan around her.

“Then why won’t you stop drinking?” I whispered. She didn’t answer, so I turned to the stairs.

In my room I tried to decide what I should do about the truck. I thought about calling Donny and telling him about it, but he’d only get upset and tell me to call the police. I knew I
couldn’t do that because they’d come to the house, take one look at Ma, and then we’d have CPS to deal with, and didn’t I already have enough trouble on my hands? I
shuddered at the memory of being so scared in the park, and not knowing who was after me. Downstairs, Dad’s clock began to chime and I sighed, wishing he were here and could chase the
bogeyman away.

By the time I crawled into bed, I’d decided to tell Donny about it in the morning when Ma was sober. Maybe he could even be there when the police came to take my statement. That way
they’d know there was a responsible adult in the house, and I could report the incident without worry. It seemed like the only way to go without bringing myself a whole lot of extra
trouble.

The next morning I met Donny at the curb. I wanted to avoid having him go into the house, but he was onto me. He got out as I was trying to get into his car, and eyed me across
the roof. “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s inside. Asleep.”

Donny’s lips pressed together, and he marched up the drive. I trailed behind him, wishing I didn’t have such a screwed-up life.

I stood in the kitchen by the back door while he had a look at Ma. “Cheryl,” I heard him say. I imagined him standing over her, that look of disgust on his face that he didn’t
even try to hide anymore. I heard Ma mutter something, and I figured she was trying to roll away from Donny.

“Cheryl,” Donny repeated, more sternly this time. “We need to talk.” Ma didn’t reply, which was typical. “This is getting untenable, Cheryl. Scott would never
want Maddie to grow up like this.”

I heard Ma then, loud and clear. “Go to hell, Donny.”

I bit my lip. I wanted Donny to come out of there. I wanted him to take me to breakfast and to tell me a story about my dad when they were kids. A story that maybe I hadn’t heard before. I
didn’t want him to come back around the corner looking so disgusted and mean that he looked less like my dad and more like a total stranger.

Donny tried to talk to Ma a few more times, but she wasn’t taking the bait, and at last he came into the kitchen again.

“Come on,” he growled angrily, moving past me and out the door. I hustled after him.

Donny drove in silence to a local breakfast joint in downtown Jupiter. The place was crowded, but Donny flashed his smile at one of the waitresses and she got us a booth. After we took our seats
he started in. “I want you to think seriously about coming to live with me.”

I stared hard at the menu.

“It’s not safe living with her like that,” he continued.

With a pang of alarm, I knew right then that I could never tell him anything about what had happened the night before with the truck in the park. “She always has a harder time in the
fall,” I said defensively.

He didn’t say anything, so I finally picked my chin up out of the menu. He was looking at me with a mixture of sadness and determination and something else that looked a lot like guilt.
“If your dad were alive today, he’d never let you live like this.”

“If Dad were alive today she wouldn’t
be
like this.”

Donny winced, but I wasn’t sorry I’d said it.

And then he seemed to soften. “Kid,” he said, reaching out to put a hand over mine, “I only mean that I want you to remember that, when you’re ready, my place is your
place. Okay?”

I gave him a crooked smile. “That’s the last thing you need. What’ll all your girlfriends think?”

Donny grinned. “They’ll think what a good uncle I am to take care of my brother’s kid, and then they’ll want to marry me even more.”

I rolled my eyes. Donny had a new girlfriend every month, and he was always complaining that they all wanted him to settle down. Donny wasn’t the settling down type—even I knew that,
and I was only sixteen.

After breakfast Donny dropped me off back at home, and I went in to face the music. Ma was up and filling the living room with smoke. “Why does my face hurt?” she asked, rubbing the
side of her cheek where it had been resting on the linoleum when I found her.

“Don’t know. Where’d you go last night?”

Ma scowled, scratching her matted hair. “Can’t remember. So what’d Donny want to talk to you about?”

I sat down in Dad’s old leather chair. Ma didn’t like me to sit in it, but I was still pretty mad at her and feeling defiant. She cocked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
“He just wanted to take me to breakfast.”

Ma reached out to flick the ashes of her cigarette into the ashtray. “He ask you to move to the city with him?”

I was surprised by the bluntness of her question and the fact that she knew Donny had asked me that. I decided if Ma wanted to be honest, so could I. “Yeah.”

She took a drag on her cigarette. “You’d hate the city. It used to give you panic attacks, you know.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It’s loud and noisy, and you’d have to leave all your friends,” Ma continued, like I had a whole horde of people to hang out with.

I also noticed she didn’t mention that I’d have to leave her, too.

“And it’s dangerous,” Ma added, waving her cigarette at me. “We’ve got no crime here, Maddie. You can leave your doors unlocked and nobody bothers you.”

I folded my arms and looked away. “Unless you’re a kid named Tevon Tibbolt,” I said, thinking again about the truck that had chased me into the park.

It was Ma’s turn to be silent, and when I finally turned to her again, I was shocked to see her crying. But these weren’t drunk tears. These were real. All of the sudden I felt
ashamed. “If you go,” she whispered, “I’ll never get to see you again.”

I shook my head at her. She was talking crazy.

“No,” Ma insisted. “It’s true. Donny’s never forgiven me for Scott’s death. He thinks I should’ve told your dad that day to—” Ma seemed to
catch herself, and then her tears took over and she covered her face with her hands. I got out of my chair and moved over to the couch to hug her. I felt the guilt coming off her in waves, they
crashed into my own and swirled around us in a riptide that tugged and pulled and threatened to tear out my heart.