When I’d said goodbye at the bus station in Seattle, I’d told my mom I’d tell her everything. I’ll email you every day, I said. You’ll know everything.
But she didn’t know everything, because it was so much harder to tell her than I’d thought it would be. She hardly knew anything. Sure, I told her about Mrs. Patel. I told her about Dad. But not really. I didn’t tell her that I was the one who found Mrs. Patel, and how I thought I was the one who killed her. I didn’t tell her that Dad’s drinking was getting worse, and how he was messing everything up. I told her about my date, but not how I ruined it. And she had no idea that I was planning to get on a bus and go to Dan’s. After what happened with the pizza, I emailed him. He said I could come. I told him it was just for a visit. I told him that I was so depressed and lonely that only a piece of his red velvet cake would make it all better. But I was planning to stay.
Who would stop me from leaving? Who would actually stop me? Dad and the boys wouldn’t have a clue. Claire was too busy barely holding everything together. She’d probably be relieved to have one less person to worry about.
Mrs. Patel would’ve cared. Now, now, Maeve, she’d have said. Come. Sit. Think this through. I’ll put on the kettle. You deal the cards.
But I couldn’t leave. Not until I knew that Claire would be okay.
Two days after Dad’s pizza fit and a week after falling flat on my face, figuratively and almost literally—the scrapes on my knees had finally healed—I was in the park checking the bus times while the boys played. There was a bus at five a.m. and a bus at seven p.m., the same as every other day since I’d started checking. It was comforting to see the times in their little boxes on the schedule grid. As soon as I could, I’d get on one of those buses and cross the border and get off in Seattle and call Dan to come get me.
I put my phone away and opened my sketchbook. I scanned the park to find someone to draw. A man sitting against a tree, reading a book, sunglasses perched on his head. Sneakers kicked off, socks stuffed inside, his jeans rolled up, bony white feet pointed at the sun. A long nose and bushy eyebrows. Ears that stuck out. And then someone was standing in front of me, blocking the light.
“Hey.”
Salix.
Books scattered on the sidewalk. Oranges rolling into the road. Django Reinhardt. Everybody watching. So much embarrassment that it was coming off the pavement in hot waves.
Salix pointed up the grassy hill, to where a man was playing the trumpet. “Is that the dying goose?”
“Look, about the other day. I’m really sorry.”
“It sounds like it.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t text you back.”
“That was rude.”
“It was, and I—”
“Why, though?” She put up a hand and shook her head. “No, I can guess. You were upset. You were embarrassed. You didn’t know what to say.”
“All those things.”
“All those things that I don’t mind. All those things that don’t matter. I mean, I’m sorry that I upset you—”
“It wasn’t you. It wasn’t anything you said.”
“How was I supposed to know that? You never texted me back after. You just figured you’d let me be worried about you? You just figured that I wouldn’t care? You just figured you had somewhere else to be? Somewhere better?” Salix paused. “Help me out here.”
“I’m sorry.”
Salix put her hands in her pockets. Then she took them out. She looked away for a moment, up at the trumpet player, and then back at me. “You’re okay, though?”
“Now.” I lifted a knee. “I did end up falling. Just over there.”
Salix crouched beside me and touched the yellow bruise that circled the scrape. “Ouch.”
Her fingers felt soft and warm. My breath quickened. “Wh-wh-what are you doing in the park?”
“You texted me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Salix pulled out her phone and showed me. A text, from about twenty minutes ago. The one I had composed a week before and had never sent. In all my fiddling to find the bus times and text Claire that yes, I’d pick up bread and milk, I’d somehow sent the text that I’d never deleted. Maeve Glover, technical genius.
“Right,” I said. “The trumpet guy.”
“The trumpet guy.” Salix sat beside me.
“You don’t have your violin with you.”
“Nope.”
Neither of us said anything for a minute or two, and then Salix reached into her pack and pulled out a little waxy bag. I knew what it was right away.
“The cookie.”
“The cookie.” Salix offered it to me. “It might be a bit stale.”
I held the cookie in my lap.
“So.” Salix bumped my shoulder with hers. “If I said that I’d be back in ten minutes, would you still be here?”
I nodded.
“You won’t run away?”
“I’m watching my brothers. They’re in the playground.” I pointed.
“I’ll be right back.” And then she was walking away, across the grassy hill. I put my hand over the bruise on my knee. Salix’s fingers there, and her shoulder pressing against mine. This wasn’t the plan. I was going home. As soon as I knew that Claire and the boys would be okay. When would that be? When she kicked Dad out? When he got himself together? After the baby came? I wasn’t sure, but I was sure that I wanted to leave. That was my focus. Get on one of those buses and cross the border and go home with Dan: a dark drive through the forest and then my house in the woods and the garden all in a tangle. My dad’s mess, my mom and Raymond in Haiti, even the cookie in my lap—none of it added up. Salix was supposed to be out of the equation. But here she was, coming down the path with a tray of plastic cups. She headed to the playground first and offered drinks to the boys, who took them happily and chatted with her, even though they hardly knew her. I’d have to talk to them about that. It was far more likely that they’d be abducted by someone they knew than a stranger.
She headed my way, and at the last minute I realized that she was watching me watching her.
“Iced mocha, part two.” She sat beside me and handed me a cup. “I got chocolate milk for the boys. In case you were wondering.”
I’d been too nervous to wonder. The noise of the playground got louder all of a sudden; the children’s colorful T-shirts and shorts were little pops of light bouncing and flashing. I wanted to look at Salix. I wanted to look at her up close. Study the line of her jaw, the curve of her lips. But I couldn’t look at her like that. I found Corbin instead and watched him on the swing, holding on to one chain with his hand, his cast hooked around the other, pumping higher and higher.
“Hey.” I did look at her then, but I tried not to stare. Salix took the cookie back. “Let’s give this to the birds.”
“Good idea.”
Salix broke off a little bit at a time and sprinkled it at our feet. Starlings fluttered down nearby and hopped skittishly toward the crumbs.
“Tell me about the funeral.”
“What?”
“That’s what you were going to tell me about before I scared you off.”