“That’s not important right now,” her mother said. “But apparently they’re not Buddhists.”
She waited for Zoe to answer the question still hovering in the air.
“Talk to me,” she said.
Zoe’s instinct was always to tell her mother everything, and she wished she could pour out every crazy, hallucinogenic detail about the lake glowing orange, about the movie of Stan’s sins—about X. But what could she say about him? What did she even know apart from the fact that he radiated loneliness? And that she’d been drawn to him.
She fought back the image of his face. She knew if she said too much, she’d make no sense at all.
“The short version,” Zoe said, “is that Jonah and the dogs went in the woods—and I let them.”
Her mother let a few moments go by, like she was waiting for a train to pass.
“Okay, look, I’m sorry to be pushy,” she said. “But I’m going to need a slightly longer version.”
“I can’t, Mom,” Zoe said. “Not yet.”
“Zo—”
“I mean, the longer version is that I suck and I almost got him killed.”
“Zoe, stop. Don’t do that to yourself.”
“All I keep thinking is that when Jonah wakes up, he’s going to look at me like I let him down. And I did. I let the little bug down.”
She shouldn’t have spoken at all. She began sobbing in that awful, hiccupy way. Her mother reached over Jonah to touch her face, but had trouble locating it in the darkness.
“I’m trying to stroke your cheek sweetly,” she said. “Is this your cheek? Am I stroking it sweetly?”
“No, that’s my forehead,” Zoe said. “And that is my nose.”
“Okay, well, picture me stroking your cheek,” her mother said.
“I’m picturing it,” Zoe said, and laughed despite herself as her mother’s hand groped around blindly. “Now stop it, Helen Keller. Please. That’s my ear.”
“Zoe,” her mother said, “your brother loves you like a crazy person—and that will never, ever change. The kid tied a skateboard around your leg.”
Zoe started to say something but was interrupted by a commotion downstairs. She and her mother listened as one of the men stood, his chair screeching against the floor, and said, “Enough of this horseshit, boys.” They listened to the heavy tread of the man’s boots coming up the stairs. Zoe’s mother didn’t allow shoes in the house, so the noise sounded almost like violence.
“I wish I could give you more time,” her mom said. “But I can’t, baby. You’re going to have to tell your story—because the police are here.”
Zoe’s mother shooed the cop out of the bedroom immediately, and asked Zoe to come downstairs when she was ready. Zoe hadn’t seen the police since her father died, and knowing they were in the house stirred some prickly memories. The police were the ones who’d left her dad’s body in the cave. The cop who had just banged on Zoe’s door—Chief Baldino—had decided it was too dangerous to go get it.
Zoe slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Jonah, and dressed in the dark. Minutes later, she padded down the stairs, and peeked out at the kitchen table, where her mother sat with Baldino and two of his troopers. Baldino was big, blustery, unpleasant—and actually bald. Just now, he was scratching like a dog at a scaly red rash below the collar of his shirt.
The chief sat next to a skinny young trooper whose last name was Maerz. Zoe remembered him being slightly dopey, but harmless. The chief obviously detested him.
The third cop at the table was Sergeant Vilkomerson. He was the only one who’d ever bothered to tell the Bissells his first name—it was Brian—and the only one to hug them at her dad’s funeral service in town. When Zoe entered the kitchen, Vilkomerson stood and pulled out a chair for her. Unlike Baldino and Maerz, he’d taken his shoes off out of respect for the rules of the house, which were posted at every door.
Officer Maerz had been asking Zoe’s mom boring background questions about Zoe—where she went to school and if she had any hobbies. Zoe’s mom had been stalling so Zoe could get dressed and think through what she wanted to say. Her mother had her laptop in front of her on the table. It was open, for all to see, to a page entitled, “The Rights of Minors During Police Questioning.”