Jane is more imaginative than her sister, and likes that she is. She easily creates worlds, whereas Ginny gets hung up on the details or, worse, demands realism.
“Pretend we’re escaping from prison,” Jane poses.
“Are we criminals?”
“Yeah, but we were right. We live in a police state. You be the secret police. I’ll be the underground.”
If Nathan were paying attention to his daughters in the backyard, he would be proud. He would talk about it at dinner parties to charm the wives of his friends.
Ginny interrogates various characters played by Jane. Ginny demands to know where the criminal is hiding. Is she in the attic? Is she in the basement? Jane’s characters clutch babushkas and wipe brows. The pizza slice is in the dirt. Jane climbs the tree, despite its dampness, to escape Ginny. Ginny marches. Jane swings.
Ginny was embarrassed by her mother at school and later at the diner. She’ll be required to explain to her teachers why her mother is gone. She’ll tell the truth, but it will look like she’s lying, so she’ll need her father’s confirmation, and it will be difficult to reach him on the phone.
Ginny believes her mother is in some great trouble, so she’s playing with her sister, even though she is too old for it. Her mother and her father have both lied to her today. Her parents have lied to her before, but she thought those lies were purposefully designed. The randomness of the day makes Ginny think of disease, even though no one is sick.
Inside the house, Nathan’s back on the phone. He dials and redials his wife’s cell. Marion’s voice tells him repeatedly to leave a message, and he leaves several. The messages escalate, and this is the last one:
“Where the fuck are you? Why didn’t you tell me you were visiting Shelley? I’m sorry. Okay. Is this you leaving me? Is it real this time? Did you forget to tell me? Are you insane? I’m sorry. Are you angry? Who does this? I don’t understand.”
Homeless at Penn Station
There is an area devoted to waiting for Amtrak trains at Penn Station, and one must have a ticket to enter it. Or so the signs claim. Marion passes the guard without a problem. She believes that the required ticket is a legal way to keep the homeless men and women away from the seats, where they could really set up camp. The gentleman who asked for Marion’s spare change, for instance, is barred from this central waiting area.
The waiting area is not conducive to waiting for a train. There are no timetables within most lines of sight, and the announcements on the loudspeaker, while frequent, are often unintelligible, and so a train could arrive and depart without one’s having been informed. There are televisions, and they perhaps once displayed track information, but these screens are now devoted to safety videos. They instruct the waiting on how to react to a terrorist attack or a lone shooter. Actors mime various scenarios, such as dialing 911 and correctly hiding behind a large pillar or a fern. The final scenario instructs individuals on how to engage with the terrorist, but this is advisable only if one’s death is imminent. It is suggested that by engaging with the terrorist, one will probably die but may save others in the process. Again, Amtrak does not want one to lose one’s life, but it feels it has to mention the possibility.
The best way to wait for a train at Penn Station is to stand in the central atrium and watch the flicking timetable with one’s luggage resting between one’s feet. One must be prepared to run when the track number is announced; one must be prepared to elbow fellow passengers—it’s the only way to get a window seat. Marion’s taking a break from waiting correctly. Besides, she was only pretending to wait for a train, too frightened to pick one. Her feet hurt from standing, and she kept finding her children in her peripheral vision. She kept extending her hand, expecting Jane to reach up and take it.
She wonders if she should buy a train ticket to a closer city. She could buy a ticket to New Jersey with cash without arousing suspicion. Once there, she could buy another, and see the country for a while; there is no need to arrive at a destination. But the knapsack is heavy, and with every interaction there is the chance of being found out.
She’s also too organized for that kind of unfocused escape. She wanted to buy the ticket to the midwestern city because it seemed like a good solution. She liked the idea of going West as an outlaw. In the abstract, it seemed funny.
She is 6.4 miles away from home. It is 7:04 p.m. She’s been at Penn Station for five hours.
She should buy a ticket for the next train no matter where it goes. But the woman behind the ticket counter will absolutely remember her. Buying a ticket from a human and with cash is an obsolete act. She may also remember that Marion looked for daughters who were not there.
Marion puts on the knapsack, heads out of the waiting area, and does not look once more at the timetable. She walks past the ticket kiosk, past the ticketing machines. She’s on an escalator, rising back to the street. She’s opening a glass door and leaving the dreary station. Hooking her thumbs underneath the straps of her knapsack, she walks confidently into the crowd.
Bedrooms
Nathan Palm’s stomach extends from the pizza and the scotch. He is winded on the stairs, following Ginny and Jane to bed. He finished his voicemails and doesn’t know what else to do. Should he call their friends? Should he call the police? But he’s not concerned; he’s abandoned. And he’s been through this before. Police and friends will take the disappearance the wrong way, and he’ll appear foolish.
So he’ll get domestic. He’ll play single dad. He’ll get his daughters ready for bed.
Ginny reminds him, not gently, that she is thirteen years old.
Jane, however, is glad when he watches her brush her teeth. He turns down the bedsheet for her, pulls the wrinkles smooth, and she slips in. He offers to tell her a story.
Ginny listens from her bedroom down the hall. It is not comforting. Jane pretends to be younger than she is. Nathan pretends too. They act idyllic to subdue themselves. Ginny must do the dangerous thinking.
She sneaks downstairs to her father and mother’s room. The blinds are down. Paperbacks tower. Her mother’s jewelry and mail crowd the top of the low bureau. Her father’s clothes are on the floor.
She finds his wallet in the pocket of a pair of jeans. There are three twenties in it, and Ginny takes two. She folds the twenties small and goes back up. Her father still murmurs magically. Ginny sits on her made bed, turns off the light, and hides the two twenties under the base of her lamp. She looks out the window at the passing cars and counts the red taillights in the dark.
A Missing Boy