Chapter Eight
Eight
The walk to the shop is short and a nice reprieve from the chaos of the house.
After a ten-minute argument with Margot over which towel rack is actually whose, I relish the five minutes of solitude.
Mom has already dropped hints that I’ll have to figure something else out transportation-wise when school starts in the fall.
The tiny high school is a mile and a half away, which is not doable in the dead of winter.
I’ll have to find a bus route or another ride—and seeing as I’ve made no efforts to befriend anyone my age, that’s unlikely.
She wants me to get back behind the wheel. But she won’t force me. For now.
The bell over the door gives its signature ding when I push into the shop, but Nora’s characteristic “Welcome in!” is absent.
It only takes a moment to see what has her attention.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a crisp black suit stands opposite Nora at the counter.
He can’t be older than forty. The corner of a badge on his belt is visible, but he has the rigid stance only officers have.
I’ve met enough to recognize it. Logically, I know the detective being here has nothing to do with me, but I can’t shake the itch running over my skin.
I make a split-second decision to beeline for the back office and wait for him to leave, but before I can, Nora calls my name.
I force what I hope is a passable smile onto my face and slowly make my way to the counter. I linger on the far side as I peel off my jacket and set my bag aside.
“You know I wish I had more to give you,” the detective says.
Nora lets out a sigh. “Not your fault.”
“If I get an update, you’ll be the first to hear,” he says.
“I appreciate it,” Nora says. “You’re pretty much the only one left who’d bother.”
The detective tenses. For a beat, his features twist to match Nora’s—pained and stiff.
“We’re still looking for him, Nora,” he says.
Nora clears her throat and the sound is thick, like she’s forcing back tears.
“Well, you know how to reach me,” she says. The detective doesn’t need another cue to take his exit, exchanging goodbyes with Nora and giving me a sad smile and nod before heading out the door.
As soon as the bell dings, Nora turns my way.
“Another day in paradise,” she says. She drops onto the stool and melts into the counter, head in her hands. When she lifts her chin, blond curls that have sprung free from her ponytail dangle in her face. “How are you?”
“Are we going to ignore the fact that you were talking to a cop when I came in?”
Nora sits up straighter and folds her arms. She lets out a little humph, shaking her head, but she’s smiling.
“Well, well, well. It’s nice to finally meet you, Jo Griffin. Took long enough.”
I shrug, dragging the second stool from under the counter and climbing onto it.
“What was that about?” I ask.
Nora waves a hand dismissively. “He’s the detective on Finn’s case.” She meets my eyes briefly. “My brother.”
I glance toward the corkboard, though it’s too far to make out any clear details.
I know where all the posters are without needing to check.
Off-center is the out-of-town girl, Aisha.
To her right, the girl whose parents I met after the parade: Ingrid.
Two boys on the left, who disappeared a few years apart. And Nora’s brother. Finn.
“I didn’t know—”
“You’re not the only one who doesn’t advertise her traumas,” Nora says, and from anyone else, it might be harsh. From her, it’s more sad than anything.
I’m sorry gets stuck behind my lips. It’s reflexive, and it’s usually well intentioned, but I’ve heard it enough times to know it’s the wrong thing to say. And to know there isn’t a right thing to say.
I look toward the posters again.
“Yeah, the photo? Hardly did him justice. Finn would have a conniption if he saw what they did to his hair.”
“So you’re saying he doesn’t actually have a perm?” Not everyone takes the humor route when it comes to loss, but I’ve always found an odd comfort in it. Better to laugh than break into pieces.
Nora folds her arms over her chest. Her long, dark red nails curl around her biceps.
Her gaze is far away as she says, “Everybody talks about that twin connection thing. Like, if one of us stubs our toe, the other feels it. But it’s bullshit.
I didn’t feel anything when he went missing.
When he died.” His face on the wall is a contradiction to her statement, but the rational part of me knows she’s right.
I want to tell her I know what it is to carry the weight of the person you lost everywhere you go. I think Nora knows. Recognizes the broken thing in me that’s in her.
But the bravery slips through my fingers too quickly to grasp. I go for the easier route.
“All those kids…They really haven’t found any of them?”
Nora shrugs. I can’t decide if the casual demeanor is an act or an inevitability. A way to stay separate from all the loss. To live around it.
“After all these years, most of the cases are cold. Written off as runaways. There are rumors that a few have been seen in other towns, even other states.” She shrugs again.
“Detective Gonzales stops in every few months to tell me they still have no idea where my brother is,” Nora continues.
“Probably because I bug the hell out of him if he doesn’t. ”
I press my lips together for a beat. “You said he was the only one left who’d bother.”
Nora’s nose scrunches and she nods.
“Not all of those kids made headlines. Some of them were just…written off from the start. The ones who didn’t live in the nice neighborhoods, who didn’t have white skin, who had troubled pasts.
” Nora swallows. “The second those cops saw Finn’s file, it was over.
Didn’t matter that his records were sealed.
He had them, and that was enough. Everyone but Gonzales had him pegged as a runaway. ”
“So, what, they didn’t look for him?”
She lets out a humorless laugh. “I mean, I guess you could call it looking. But the year before him, the daughter of some city council member disappeared and they still pass around posters with her face on it. Her parents make a fuss every few months, trying to get the police to chase down a lead that goes nowhere.”
“I’m guessing the others don’t get floats at the parade,” I say, and I’m angry as I do. I recall the moment of silence, the grief emanating off the parents of the lost kids. A minute of recognition is nowhere near enough.
“Things were harder for Finn than for me. My dad was always an ass, but as we got older…” Nora shakes her head.
“He called the cops on his own kid because he stood between him and his next beer. Finn was trying to survive, like everybody else. And he didn’t run away.
He wouldn’t have left.” She licks her lips.
Drops her eyes. “Not without taking me with him.”
The ever-present stone between my ribs expands, pressing on my organs and stretching against my skin. I don’t realize I’ve reached for Nora until my hand settles on hers atop the counter. I curl my fingers around hers and squeeze once before pulling my hand back.
She looks up at me, tears glittering, and gives me a knowing smile. It makes tears spring to my own eyes, and for once, I don’t push them back. One slips down my cheek and off my chin.
For a few long minutes, neither of us says anything. We sit, letting the seconds tick by around us.
Eventually, I gather the courage to speak again.
“I’m sorry about the other day. I was…”
“Don’t worry about it. If anyone gets it, I do,” she says, though her tone suggests differently. A trace of hurt. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. I’ve been an asshole.”
Nora lifts her eyes to mine. A smile ghosts her lips.
“You said it, not me.”
Honesty is like peeling off layers of skin, one by one, letting the blood drip and pool on the ground at my feet. It goes against every guard I’ve thrown up.
“I haven’t…It’s been a while since I let myself think about what happened, let alone talk about it. It’s easier to…” I gesture at nothing.
“Batten down the hatches?”
“Yeah.”
Nora nibbles on her bottom lip.
“When Finn—” She stops. Takes a small breath. “With him gone, it was like he took all the color with him. The world was gray. I was pretty sure it would stay that way forever.”
“Did it?”
Nora gives me a tight-lipped, pained smile.
“Some days, I wake up and it feels like that first day all over again. Honestly, it was Paige who pulled me back. I wasn’t really old enough, but she gave me this job.
Finn and I were in here all the time when we were kids.
She said it’d give me something to do, or focus on, that wasn’t him and his case.
She let me talk about him. Tell stories that made it feel like he was still here.
And I guess it stopped feeling like I’d disappeared with him. ”
“Sometimes,” I say, “I feel like I died on that road, too.”
She falls silent for a moment, and I risk a glance. The hollow canyon in her eyes is almost too painful to look into.
Her smile turns genuine and a little crooked. “But you didn’t. So now what?”
But I didn’t.