CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE MAKAYLA
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
M AKAYLA
In her seat, Makayla stares at the bassinet where she laid Liam down after takeoff before falling asleep herself. She’d slept harder than usual.
Now that she thinks about it, she slept longer than normal last night at her dad’s too. Her dad got up with Liam, and when she woke, she was surprised to discover the room brightly lit with midmorning sun. She runs her hand over the tender spot on the back of her scalp, wondering if her drowsiness could be due to her fall.
Did I hit my head harder than I thought? She pushes her doubts aside. I laid him in that bassinet. I didn’t imagine it. Liam was here, on this plane. And he still is. But where?
She draws Liam’s blanket to the side of her face, recalling her mother’s infectious laugh so vividly she can almost hear it. It was distinctive. Erupting from deep within her.
Her mother was such an incredible person. It’s why Makayla went on a campaign to raise awareness about TGA after her mom died. The disorder is rare, affecting less than 1 percent of people, even after age fifty. If someone at the recording studio had recognized what was happening to Lydia, they could’ve helped her. Called an ambulance instead of letting her mother get into her car that day. But no one knew what was wrong with her mom until it was too late.
Not only that, but what happened to her wasn’t her fault, and Makayla couldn’t have her remembered like that.
Even though her mother became an A-list actress before she turned eighteen, Lydia wanted nothing to do with fame. Her mother’s teenage rise to fame took a toll, as it did on many child stars. Lydia’s mother gave up on pursuing her own acting ambitions after having Lydia at the age of nineteen. Hoping to live out her own dreams through Lydia’s acting success, she started taking Lydia to auditions as a toddler. Lydia’s mother was over the moon when her daughter got her first role in a cereal commercial at the age of three and became known as the Wheat Crunchies Girl.
As an adult, Lydia spoke out about the negative effects stardom can have on mental health at a young, developing age. She became one of the first celebrities to advocate for the mental health of child stars. In Lydia’s memoir, she shared her own battle with depression, revealing how her early fame and acting career also came with rejection and a pressure to perform. Being in the public eye as a child cultivated a need inside her to attain a level of perfection that was impossible to reach.
Makayla’s mother also struggled with the lack of privacy she felt in her childhood, along with a sense of always being watched, especially after her infamous stalker incident. Lydia had been living alone when she woke to the sound of her bedroom window shattering in the middle of the night. She managed to dial 911 on the phone beside her bed before a disheveled man in his early twenties climbed inside the broken window and ripped the phone from the wall.
He sat on her bed, warning her if she tried to get up, he would kill her. Lydia remained stoically still, frozen in fear, as the young man launched into an angry rant about Lydia ignoring his fan mail and how they were meant to be together. Her intruder reached into his sweatshirt pocket, telling Lydia he would rather her be dead than apart from him. At that moment, the police burst through her front door. After handcuffing him, the officers found a loaded 9mm in his sweatshirt pocket.
It was why her mother loved the seclusion of the Bainbridge Island property where Makayla grew up. Makayla recalls all the time she spent combing the beach for shells and sand dollars and playing make-believe on the forested, three-acre property, knowing it was likely the cause for her aversion to the city.
At the age of nineteen, the same year the stalker broke into her home, Lydia went through a highly publicized divorce. After being followed by paparazzi everywhere she went, Lydia quickly became overwhelmed by her worldwide fame and developed severe anxiety. During that time, Lydia’s best friend and fellow actress died of a cocaine overdose.
Following a panic attack, Lydia was hospitalized, which triggered yet another media frenzy. Not long after, she decided her Hollywood lifestyle brought out the worst in her and chose to leave it all behind. She moved to Seattle, where she met Makayla’s father, an architect whom she met through a mutual friend. A year later, she got pregnant with Makayla and never regretted retiring from acting to embrace motherhood and a normal life. When Makayla closes her eyes, a memory of her mother teaching her to ski in the Cascade mountains east of Seattle when she was five flashes in her mind.
Makayla clung to her mother’s ski poles as her mom skied behind her on the groomed trail at Snoqualmie Pass, keeping her larger skis on the outsides of Makayla’s. Thick patches of snow-covered evergreens lined the slope on either side. The first time her mom let go, Makayla’s heart raced as she picked up speed on the slope. A snowboarder whizzed past her, and Makayla lost her concentration—and her balance.
Instead of slowing down with the snowplow position her mom had taught her, she turned off the groomed trail—heading straight for the tree line. Makayla panicked and wiped out, face-planting in the snow. By the time her mom reached her, she was crying.
“I can’t do it!” she cried.
“Yes, you can.”
Her mom tried to pull Makayla to her feet, but Makayla went rigid.
“No, I can’t! Look what happened!” She reached to take off her skis. “I’m horrible at this.”
“Failure isn’t falling.” Her mom put a gloved hand on hers. “It’s not getting back up.” She extended her hand to her daughter. “Let’s go.”
Her mother was the most radiant person Makayla had ever known. She had a magnetism that could light up a room. People were drawn to her mom in a way they weren’t to Makayla. For as long as she could remember, Makayla had been introverted and struggled to make friends, preferring the solitary hours spent in nature and with her camera. Although Makayla wonders if her solitary tendencies stemmed from her mother.
While Lydia was naturally charismatic, she also had depressive periods during which she was distant and withdrawn. As a child, it was hard for Makayla to understand. She remembers there were times growing up when her mom was in bed for a week at a time.
Makayla thinks of her own withdrawal after her mom died. She’d gone to therapy, knowing her mother eventually had too, and it helped tremendously.
By the time Lydia wrote her memoir, she’d put years of effort into working through the scars left from her early rise to fame. Her mother was so much more than that final interview, which was why after Lydia died, Makayla went on an awareness campaign for transient global amnesia. She wanted her mother to be remembered for her achievements, not losing her memory. She wanted everyone to see her mother’s love for life, for others, and for her family. The true woman that she was.
Makayla glances at the young woman across the aisle, back to scrolling on her phone. Why are people so quick to label others and draw conclusions based on a single moment in their lives? How could she really think I’ve lost my memory? I’ve been coherent this whole time. The girl has no reason not to believe Makayla. Unless she’s taken Liam, Makayla thinks.
Makayla’s gaze darts to the girl’s phone. Could she be working with someone? Maybe she’s texting them right now. But if she has taken Liam, then where is he? And why is everyone doubting me?
Guilt hits her like a log to the head. Her mom was such a good mother, while Makayla lost her baby on this flight.
She lifts her phone from the seat beside her to call Jack again. A new message from Cori appears on her home screen. Are you holding up okay? Have you found him?
Makayla sees that she never responded to Cori’s last message. She starts to type a reply as Cori sends another text. I just had a thought. Maybe a confused older person took him by mistake? When my grandma had Alzheimer’s, she used to try to pick up strangers’ babies at the grocery store. Are there any elderly people on board?
Makayla thinks of Rose sitting a few rows behind her. If only that’s what happened. If Rose took Liam out of confusion, they would’ve found him by now. She glances over her shoulder, but her view of the elderly woman is blocked by the seats in between them. With a ripple of uneasiness, she recalls the woman’s clear memory of watching Friends when Makayla emerged from the lavatory.
Makayla faces forward and taps out a reply with her thumbs. At this point, I’m sure whoever took him did it on purpose.
Do you need me to call the police or something?
The FBI is involved. But there’s only so much they can do on the ground. He’s here—somewhere. But the crew doesn’t believe me.
I am so sorry, my friend! I wish I could help in some way. I’m in total shock, but I know you’ll find him!
Makayla wipes away the second tear that slides down her face. At least someone believes her. But what matters is finding Liam. And there’s nothing Cori can do for her on the ground.
She calls Jack through her internet messaging app and puts the phone to her ear as it starts to ring. Jack will be outraged when he learns they’ve put the search for Liam on hold. Hopefully, he can relay the crew’s incompetence to the FBI, and get them to help her find Liam before it’s too late.