I’m supposed to go to a student council meeting at four. I’m vice president of my class. Homecoming’s next week, and we have to decide on our parade float design, the nominations for homecoming court, stuff like that. After that, I’ll go home and do my homework. I’m making all As so far, just like I did all through middle school. Everyone said high school was so tough, so different, but so far it’s been a piece of cake.
Dad thinks I’m taking on too much. He teases me, says that it’s okay if I relax now and then, but what can I say? I like to stay busy.
I guess I take after Mom in that way. She works long hours at a big firm in town—well, big for Tuscaloosa—doing bankruptcy law. She’s never home early. She has to prove herself by putting in a lot of time. Just like Nick and I are doing on the court. Dad’s a geology professor at the university, so his hours are more flexible. He’s usually the one who makes dinner nowadays, and who picks me up in the afternoons.
So I’m surprised to see Mom’s car drive up and pull into a parking spot alongside the courts. At first I think maybe it’s someone else’s car that just looks like hers. But then Mom gets out. I smack a forehand into the net. I drop my racket head and look over again. She waves. She’s wearing shades, even though it’s an overcast day.
“Hold on,” I shout to Nick, who’s staring over at her, too, maybe annoyed she messed up our rally. I cross two empty courts to get to the tall chain-link fence that separates the courts from the lot, and when I do, before I can even say hi and ask what she’s doing here, she says, “You need to come with me.”
“What is it?” I ask. It’s not like Mom to just show up like this, and the sunglasses are hiding her expression, so my heart starts going a million miles a minute. “Where’s Dad?” I say.
“Dad’s fine. Just grab your stuff and come to the car. I’ll tell you then. Everything’s okay.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling a little reassured, but still a little weirded out. I cross the courts again and grab my stuff. “I have to go,” I yell at Nick, who’s still standing on the baseline fingering his racket strings.
“What’s up?” he asks. He starts walking over. Nick is my best friend. He’s the reason I started playing tennis, to be honest.
“I don’t know. My mom’s being strange.”
“Wait up,” Nick calls as he gathers his things, but I head toward the gate without him. I see Mom watching me. She has her hands in her coat pockets, like she’s cold. When I finally get to the car, I ask, “What is it?”
Mom takes her hands out of her pockets and removes her sunglasses. Her eyes are red. “I have some . . . good news,” she says, but in a way that makes it seem like she has bad news.
Nick jogs up right behind me.
“Nick, you may as well know, too,” she says. “Word’s starting to spread.”
“About what?” I ask.
She clears her throat, looks right at me. “They found Sam Walsh. He’s home—he’s alive.”
For a second there’s just the noise of cars whizzing by on Fifteenth Street. Just the sound of my own breathing.
“Whoa,” Nick says, breaking the silence.
I just stare at her. At first it doesn’t make sense. Sam? Who is Sam?
But I know.
“The police found him, in Anniston.”
“Anniston?” Do I even know where that is? “He’s alive?” I ask, but really I’m just repeating the words to make them real to myself. When I thought about Sam, he wasn’t someone who was alive. But he wasn’t someone who was dead, either. He was just gone. And, to be honest, I tried not to think about him at all.
“There’s going to be a news conference at Pine Forest Elementary. Sam’s going to be there, with his family. I want—I think we need to be there.”
“Whoa,” Nick says again.
“Nick, you should call your mother,” Mom says.
He nods and starts digging in his bag for his cell. Nick was friends with Sam, too. In fact, he and Sam were best friends back in elementary school. It was only after Sam went away that Nick and I became close.
I look at Mom and she smiles at me, but it’s a weird smile, like she’s faking it to cover for some other feeling. I feel my heart start to beat faster and faster, how it does before a big match. Sam’s back. Sam’s alive. It’s unbelievable.
I need to focus. Like when I’m losing a match and have to tell myself to just take it point by point, to not panic. “Should I change?” I ask Mom. I’m in my tennis clothes.
“Yes, okay,” Mom says, nodding distractedly. “But hurry.”
I jog through the side door of the gymnasium and into the empty locker room and start to change back into my regular clothes. If I keep my mind busy—if I focus on tying my shoes and buttoning my shirt—then I can trap out other things. Nick barges in.
“Dude, this is insane,” he says. “I mean, I thought Sam was, like, dead. He’s been missing for what—?”
“Three years,” I say. Three years, three months. How many days?
“Holy shit. I mean, what happened to him?”
“How should I know?” I say. I stop tying my shoes and look up at him. “How should I know?”
“Hey, chill.” He sits on a bench across from me, leans forward. “You okay?”
I nod again. I continue tying my shoe. “I’m fine,” I say, speaking to the floor.
===
It was July. July 12. Mom was still in law school then, taking a course so she could finish that fall. She was always studying. Dad was teaching summer school, so he was on campus a lot.
Sam lived across the street with his mom, stepdad, and his sister. I guess Sam and I were what you would call friends. I don’t think he really liked me much, honestly. But we were the same age. I’d known him since I was in first grade, and we were neighbors. During the summer, we’d ride our bikes around Pine Forest, or into the woods that butted up against our backyard, which had these well-worn trails and small mounds of dirt we could jump, though I never had the nerve to do anything too tricky, like shake my wheels about while flying through the air, which Sam did all the time.
“Pussy,” Sam would always say when I refused to do any tricks. Then he would laugh, so I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or if he was joking.
When it got really hot, Sam and I would stay inside and play video games or watch movies—usually at my house. I think he liked my house better because he fought with his sister a lot, and with his stepdad, who he called Earl but who I called Mr. Manderson. And his mom was tired and grumpy most of the time.
Mom and Dad liked Sam. He always put on his best face with them. Mom called him a charmer. But to me he was unpredictable. Nice one minute, mean the next.
That day in July, Sam was at my house and wanted to play this video game he’d heard about, but which I didn’t own. What was it called? Alien Invasion or something dumb like that. I never really liked video games; I only ever played when Sam came over. So he thought we should go buy it—we could put in together, with our allowances. That sounded fine to me. I didn’t really care.
The only problem was that Mom was studying and wouldn’t drive us, and Sam’s mom was at work.
I pressed Mom once more. “Please?”
“Honey, I have way too much to do. Besides, you don’t need another video game. Play with the ones you have.” Then she turned back to her big red legal books.