“Sarah!” Mom cried. She pushed past me into the room, falling beside the girl and wrapping her arms around her waist. I looked over to Dad and saw what looked like tears on his face.
“My God,” he said. “It’s her, it’s really her.” He shook his head and moved to embrace Sarah too as I stood in the doorway, hearing his words over and over again in my head: It’s her. It’s her. It’s really her.
CHAPTER 6
“ARE YOU TRAVELING ALONE?” the flight attendant asked. I glanced up at her, then shook my head. “Those are my parents and my, um . . .” I trailed off. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say the word.
“We’re together,” Dad said. They hadn’t thought to book four seats on the return flight, so this was the only way we could all travel home together from Florida. The shelter had released Sarah to my parents with no DNA tests, no fingerprints—she was over the age of eighteen, an adult, and could leave at any time, with anyone she wanted. Now she sat between Mom and Dad, and I was a row ahead and a few seats over.
Sarah. It felt weird to even think her name connected to an actual person. I was used to Sarah meaning an empty spot, a blank space, a bottomless pit of anger and hurt.
The flight attendant glanced at my parents, probably wondering why their older daughter sat between them while I sat alone, but of course she couldn’t know. Sarah also looked a bit rumpled and worn, in the same clothes she’d had on at the shelter. Mom gave her a sweater to wear over her tank top.
The last time I saw Sarah, she was wearing her white sleeveless dress. It had been a favorite all that summer. She’d dressed it up for her date with a brown leather belt, worn loose around her hips, and she’d paired it with slouchy brown suede boots. It was the day she’d yelled at me for borrowing her gray sweater.
Later, I was so thankful that she had come into my room, stood over me as I lay on the bed, curled up with my paperback romance novel. Screamed at me. Told me I was fat. Because otherwise, when the police asked “What was she wearing?” we wouldn’t have been able to answer.
I knew where she was going too: to meet Max at the park. The summer had not been easy for them. First our parents forbade Sarah to date him, then Max’s parents also decided things were getting too serious, too fast. But no one could seem to keep them apart; they were constantly finding ways around the rules, meeting at other people’s houses, skipping school to be together. Finally, our parents relented and let Sarah see Max, on the condition that she complete her summer school sessions with a tutor. But Max’s parents stepped in and put an end to Sarah’s hot summer plans: they sent Max away to work as a counselor at a camp in Maine for two months, saying he needed to earn money for college. Worse: there were no phones or internet access allowed at the camp. Sarah stormed around the house with a gray cloud over her head, the only bright spot an occasional letter or postcard from Camp Cumberland. Then, finally, in late August, he was back and Sarah was dying to see him.
“Can’t I blow off Mr. Page for once?” Sarah had pleaded the night before at dinner. “I haven’t seen Max all summer and he’s about to leave for school.”
Sarah usually got what she wanted, and what she wanted now was to skip her weekly session with her summer tutor. Without twenty-four hours’ notice, I knew he would charge for the missed session, and it wasn’t cheap—I had heard enough grumbling from Dad about how much Mr. Page’s tutoring cost. Mom glanced at Dad across the table, and his mouth was set in a firm line. “Your junior year is around the corner, you’ve got to be ready. This is serious, Sarah. Your grades this year mean college—”
Sarah finished his sentence for him. “And college means the rest of your life, I know, I’ve got it. But I’ve been going three hours every week, all summer. I did what you guys said. Come on.” She tilted her head and met his eyes.
Dad relented. “A compromise.” He looked over at Mom, getting a nod of approval from her, as if they had already discussed this. “If you promise to study for a few hours here at home, we’ll cancel Mr. Page. Then you can go to the park and meet your friend.” It was not lost on anyone that Dad pointedly referred to Max as Sarah’s “friend” and not her boyfriend.
A smile spread across Sarah’s face—too fast, because Dad kept talking. “But you can’t leave Nico here by herself, so you’ll have to take her too.” He stabbed a tomato on his plate and ate it like he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on us.
As Sarah took in this news, I could feel the icy chill of her anger move across the table. Her eyes landed on me, but I just focused on my plate, moving salad and pasta around.