“Mrs. Oliver?”
“Yes?” She sat up. She felt hungover, or like she’d been asleep for eighteen hours, her senses simultaneously sharp and dull.
“Is Meredith there?”
She thought for a moment, then remembered. “No,” she said. “She’s spending the night at a friend’s house.”
“This is the friend.” A pause. “This is Becca. Becca Nichols.”
Claire swung her legs out of the bed. The carpet was cold under her bare feet. For a moment she couldn’t even remember what month it was.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” the girl on the phone said. “I . . . she spent the night somewhere else.”
Claire stood up. The phone felt strange and bulky against her ear. Why did news so often come this way, plastic boxes pressed against our temples? Half the things that mattered in her life had come through this box. Why was she never where the thing was happening?
“She what?”
“It’s okay,” the friend said. “It’s . . . I just . . . I’m sure she’s fine. She spent the night at Lisa’s house. We went over there for a while last night and then I came home and she stayed.”
Claire’s racing heart slowed. Meredith was in a known location. She was in a house. An adult was present. “Why did she stay?” she asked.
“Mrs. Bellow wanted us to. Both of us. She said it was because it was snowing, but I think she was just lonely. She was acting kind of weird. I tried to get Meredith to leave but Meredith said she wanted to stay. I think she was just trying to be nice. But I wanted to let you know and—”
“Thank you,” Claire said. “You were right to let me know. Thank you.”
“I think she was just trying to be nice,” Becca said again. “I think Mrs. Bellow just really needed someone to talk to, you know.”
“Of course,” she said. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll have Meredith let you know when she gets home. I’ll text her right now.”
“I already texted her and she didn’t answer,” Becca said. “That was kinda why I called.”
“Okay,” Claire said. “Okay. I’m sure it’s fine. I’m certain it’s fine.”
She hung up the phone and immediately tried Meredith’s cell. She was bumped to voice mail before the first ring, which meant the phone was dead, which only meant it had gone uncharged, which only meant Meredith had forgotten to take the charger, which happened all the time. She found the Bellows’ number on her own cell and called their house phone. It rang four times before the machine picked up. It was a girl’s voice on the machine—Lisa’s voice, she assumed: “Hey there! Nobody’s home right now, but—”
She hung up and got out of bed and walked into the hall. Evan’s door was open, his room empty but for the intolerant cat sleeping on his pillow. She went downstairs. The house was silent. They were gone. Where were they? She found a note, scrawled from Mark, on the kitchen table: at the park
The park, yes. The baseball field at the park, the rocky, uneven diamond where Evan and his friends had played as little kids, before it really mattered, before it meant anything. Mark was hitting him pop flies. Evan needed them off the bat, was what he’d said, she remembered now. Not tossed from his own hand or rolled off the roof. He needed them off the bat. The bat was unpredictable. Sometimes a ball off a bat went in a straight line, as evidenced by the dark lens of his glasses. But more often the connection of ball and bat created something unpredictable, unique. Every time was different. Every single time, a new line.
She tried Evan’s cell. Evan should definitely be the one to go get Meredith. If she was upset, if Colleen Bellow was upset . . . Evan could handle it. This was his specialty, rescuing sisters. He and Mark could swing by there on their way home from the park. Mark could stay in the van and Evan could just go to the door and say— “Hey, it’s Evan. Leave me a message.”
She frowned, picturing the phone sitting on the weathered bench beside the rocky field, its buzzing unheard or ignored.
“Evan,” she said. “Evan, I need you to go get your sister. Please.” She was struck by the pointless urgency of an unheard message, the way it lay in the box like every other message, carrying no extra weight until it was heard. “Evan. Call me as soon as you get this.”
She hung up. She stood for a moment in the kitchen. The intolerant cat, apparently roused by her visit to Evan’s room, was standing at the back door.
“What?” she asked it. “What do you want?”
She did not like the sound of her voice in the empty house. Her voice, alone, was a hollow thing, as pointless as the message she’d just left for her son. She was not going to wait around for him to pick up his voicemail. She went to get dressed.
?
In the Bellows’ neighborhood only a few dog walkers were out, and even the dogs looked sleepy. It was a cold morning and the holiday was over and the shopping day was over and, miraculously, it was still the beginning of the weekend, and most of the world was celebrating this fact by staying in bed. Which was where she should be, and really where everyone in her family should be, relishing the sleep. But Meredith was in another girl’s bed in another family’s house.
She thought she understood why Meredith had stayed at the Bellows’ while the friend—Becca, it was—had left. She was even a little bit proud of Meredith, or impressed by her, or both. Meredith felt bad that Lisa’s bed was empty, and she saw herself as a body who could fill it. Claire might have even approved the choice, given the chance. If Meredith had called and asked her advice (as if!), she might have said yes, stay there, sleep in her bed, wear her pajamas, if it will allow her mother one moment of peace, one moment of relief, we can take that hit, we can give you to her for a night, for a day and night, every so often, if that helps even the score, if that helps balance the loss. Not share you, no, but let that mother have a share in you. She deserves that; it’s fairer than the all or nothing we are left with, the all of you and the nothing of Lisa, the all of our family and the nothing of hers. Give her that: sleep in her daughter’s bed, eat her daughter’s cereal, use her daughter’s hairbrush. If it helps. If it helps, we can give her that. We can give her you.