Whether it’s dead or alive, we can’t change the past.
There are a million more questions I could ask, the whens and the hows and the whys. But whatever facts I might collect, however I might chip away at the pain of this past week, there’s only a single “because” that really matters. Because Dad isn’t well right now, and there are reasons for that, but no one perfect answer. So all of the truths in the world aren’t as important as this one:
“I want you to come home,” I tell him. I thought knocking on my mom’s door was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but as I sit up and look up at my dad and he stares back at me, damp-eyed and wilting, I think this might be it. “And I want you to take your meds and get help again, for me. I know it’s like . . . if you could fix whatever was wrong by pouring dry cement . . . I’m not saying it right. Just, I know it’s really hard. But . . . I’m a kid. You have to be around for me and take care of me. ’Cause you’re my dad. And I love you and whatever.”
“And whatever.” He sniffles. “I’m not right, bou bui.”
“I know. You’ll come with me?”
“I’ll come.”
“Okay. Oh, except I don’t exactly have a car, in the technical sense.” Before he can change his mind or mine, I smudge the tears out of my eyes, pick up the telephone on the lampless nightstand, and dial our home number.
“Hel-lo?” a high-pitched, un-Lindy-ish voice answers cautiously.
“Jessa?”
“Imogene-fucking-Scott!” she screams into the speaker. “Where are you? You know everyone is going batshit over here?”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Uh, your stepmother, for one? And your actual mom? And my mom? And me?”
She tells me the story of last night. How Lindy came home to an empty house around nine and knocked on the Prices’ door right away, assuming I’d skipped out to see Jessa. Chad was staying overnight with Omar Wolcott in his dorm room at BU, and Jessa was on a date with Jeremy; still pissed after our fight, she’d officially gotten back together with him, to spite me (or so she says). They had gone to the movies in Framingham, and by the time they emerged from the theater and answered their phones, it was after ten. Under the pressure of Lindy’s Authority Voice, Jessa folded like a paper airplane. She told my stepmother we’d been searching for Dad since the start of vacation, and in the process had found my real mother. After giving Lindy my mother’s number, Jessa was promptly grounded for aiding and abetting.
It was midnight when Lindy called Sidonie, and by then I definitely should’ve made it back to Sugarbrook station. They compared notes and figured out pretty quickly that I was headed to Victory Island. This is when Lindy called the police.
“Ugh,” I groan.
“As if she wouldn’t,” Jessa points out. “You’re lucky there’s not, like, an Amber Alert about you.”
Who was called out of bed but Officer Griffin. She showed up in the early a.m. to interview Jessa and Lindy and assure them I couldn’t have gotten as far as the island. Not a seventeen-year-old without a car, not in this weather. I was probably stuck at a station in between—probably in Boston—and they would notify the police right away to look out for me. Lindy was to stay by the phone. When Officer Griffin left to set things in motion, it was after five, and I was just about to board the early train from North Station to Newburyport.
Lindy did not stay by the phone. After a restless few hours, she asked Dr. Van Tassel to babysit the landline at 42 Cedar Lane, with Jessa keeping her mother company. Lindy was presently headed east to Victory Island to cruise along the beach.
“Huh.” I struggle to take this all in while keeping an eye on Dad, now pacing back and forth in front of the curtained windows. “And where’s your mom?”
“In the bathroom. I’m in your room. I was freaking out and just waiting, so I’ve been reading that book by your bed. Rebecca? Not super romantic.”
“No, that’s the cool thing! It’s not about love, it’s about obsession. Rebecca-the-person was horrible, but Rebecca-the-mystery was this fixation that almost kept this girl from loving and being loved. It’s like a mystery about the dangers of a mystery and—” I notice Dad watching me. “Never mind. Not the time for this. Can you tell your mom we’re okay? I should probably call Lindy ASAP.”
“Wait, we? You found your dad? You actually found him?”
I smile, though she can’t see. “I did. Look, Jessa, I’m sorry I was so horrible and you were all going batshit. You’re a really great friend.”
“Me too. I am also sorry that you were so horrible.”
“Hmm. See you when I’m not grounded?”
“Yeah,” she says, and laughs. “We should be in our late thirties by then. I love you, Im.”
After that, the only thing left to do is call Lindy’s cell and ask for her help, so I do, and she yells a little and cries a little and so do I, and then I ask her to come get us and take us home.
NINETEEN