chapter thirty-one
Switching on the light, I lurch out of Peter’s arms and out of bed.
“Lauren?” Peter’s voice is thick with sleep. Lit by moonlight, he blinks at me from the bed and then rolls onto his back.
Half-nude, he looks beyond handsome. I think maybe I’ll ask to paint him someday. But that’s not why I’m awake.
“Can’t sleep,” I explain. My dreams are full of lost pennies, socks, and Rembrandts, and I can’t shake the feeling that there
is something I have missed—something oh-so-very important. Propped on his elbow, Peter watches me as I check behind the curtains,
under the bed, in the bathroom, and in all the dresser drawers, bathroom drawers, and bedside table drawers. Oddly, there
aren’t any lost items. It’s simply a motel room.
Finishing, I stand in front of the closet. I know Victoria already checked it, but still I hesitate. I think of dead bodies,
(literal) skeletons in the closet, monsters, and murderers, and then I slide open the door.
It’s empty, except for a single briefcase on the floor, tucked into the shadows.
Peter is fully awake now. “You could leave it. Until you’re ready.”
“You knew this was here?” I take the briefcase out of the closet and heft it onto the bedspread. It doesn’t seem to have any name tag or other markings, but it doesn’t matter because I recognize it.
The Missing Man carried it with him.
Leaning across the bed to me, Peter puts his hands over mine. “Be sure you’re ready.”
“You know what’s in it?” And more importantly: “Ready for what?”
His hands are warm, enveloping mine completely. “Pandora’s Box. Or not.”
“I’m stunningly tired, Peter. Can you not be cryptic? Do you know what’s inside?”
“Answers or questions.” When I glare at him, he says, “I don’t know which it’ll be to you. You’ll need to see and decide.”
He removes his hands. He scoots back toward the pillows and watches me.
I flip the clasps and open it.
It is mostly empty: three pairs of black socks, a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, a house key and a car key, and a manila
envelope with a Post-it stuck to it that reads “Lauren Chase.” My heart squeezes tight as a fist.
Taking out the envelope, I hold it flat on my palms. “The Missing Man left this for me.” I drag my eyes from my name in cramped
black letters up to Peter’s enigmatic black eyes.
His expression is utterly unreadable. “This was his room. Room twelve.”
“But he didn’t know I’d come back. I didn’t know.”
Peter shrugs. “He believed you would.”
I turn over the envelope, slide my thumb into the gap, and open it. It holds a slew of photographs. I tilt the envelope so
that they spill into my hands, and then I spread them out on the bed.
All the photos are of the same person: a young woman with my eyes and a smile that beams with bubbling laughter. I touch one of the photos as if I could touch her.
Mom.
It’s the photos of her I’ve never seen, from when she was my age and younger, with wrinkle-less skin and thick auburn hair
that curls around her face. In one, she’s sunbathing on the beach. She has a book open on her stomach, and she’s smiling at
the camera. In another, she sits on a park bench holding an ice cream cone, strawberry-flavored. Another, she’s in front of
the apartment where Mom and I lived when I was a kid. Another, she’s in profile, pregnant, her hands cradling her swollen
stomach. Another, there’s a baby in a teal-and-pink-striped hospital blanket, just born, with eyes squished shut, face red
and wrinkled. Mom is cradling me. And then me again as a newborn—in this photo, I’m in the arms of the Missing Man. His lips
are parted, cooing at me, maybe even singing, and his eyes are fixed on my face, as if it’s the most wondrous sight he’s ever
seen. A stuffed rabbit sits next to us.
“Thirty years ago he left Lost,” Peter says. “The town was destroyed. When he came back five years later, we had to rebuild
from scratch. He swore never to leave again. He kept that promise, until the day you arrived.”
“You knew he’s . . .” I have to swallow. My voice is shaking too badly. But I say the words: “He’s my father.” I want to laugh,
and I want to cry. Of course he is. That’s why he knew my name. That’s why I have his powers. “Why didn’t you tell me?” And
why didn’t I see it?
“I didn’t know, not at first,” Peter says. “Claire told me you could enter and leave, but I didn’t begin to suspect until
you found the cook’s ring. Even then . . . I wasn’t certain, and it wasn’t my secret to tell.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Peter nods at the briefcase. “He is now, in his own way.”
“Himself. In person.”
Gently, he says, “He isn’t here.”
I remember the cemetery and how I’d seen him walk away, and then I think of the traffic light and how I didn’t turn left.
“Running away must run in the family.” I try and fail to smile.
“When he saw you, heard your name, he knew.” Peter brushes my hair back out of my face, and he hands me a tissue. It’s dusty.
I wipe my nose with it anyway, using the least dust-filled side. “This last time, when he left this for you . . . he told
me if he couldn’t save the woman he loved—your mother—then he didn’t want to save anyone.”
Did my mother know? I’m not lost, she’d said. I told him that too. I’d thought she meant Dr. Barrett, but could she have meant my father? I can’t ask her. And I can’t ask him either. He’s not
coming back. The briefcase and the existence of this envelope of photos proves it.
This is his confession. And his goodbye.
I gaze at the photos one by one for a long time. He wanted me to return and find these, to return and take up his job—a job
he was too heartbroken or just too broken to continue—and I discover I can’t hate him for that. Blame him maybe, a little,
for leaving all these people with no hope . . . except did he? I am certain now that it was him I saw in the cemetery. Perhaps
it was also him who left the string tied in a noose, the puffer fish, the menu from the diner . . . He left me clues, hoping
I’d figure out what I wanted and do what he couldn’t.
Peter sits silently beside me while a thousand thoughts tumble through me. Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t Mom? Did they
think it was a kindness? Perhaps they wanted to make it my choice? Or they wanted me to be sure I was ready? I wish I could
ask them. I wish I could talk to them, see them, say I am ready. I am ready for everything but saying goodbye. I don’t think anyone is ever ready for that. And I think maybe that’s the way
it is. We’re all a bit lost, even when we’re found.
I don’t feel as if I’ve had an epiphany, though. I just feel a little sad.
At last, I slide them back into the envelope and back in the briefcase. I store the briefcase in the closet, exactly where
I found it, and slide the closet door shut.
“Little Red?” There’s a question in Peter’s voice.
I lie down on the bed.
He waits.
“I think I want to sleep now.” I crawl under the covers, and he clicks off the light.
The sadness comes in waves, sweeping through me, shuddering my body. I bite the pillow to keep from sobbing loudly. Soon,
I feel arms around me. It’s Peter, holding me.
He holds me for a long time.
I wake with Peter’s arms still around me, and I turn in the bed to see him. He’s awake, looking at me with his beautiful black
fathomless eyes. And I feel safe. Better. Well.
Even with my mother gone, my father absent, my old life abandoned.
Even with the void out there, waiting to encroach again.
Even with the people of Lost outside the motel room door, waiting to be saved, hungry for it.
Even with ninety percent of the town decimated.
I have chosen to be here. Chosen my future and my fate. I have chosen to reclaim lost art and forgotten hope. I have chosen
myself. And Peter. And this place.
“How do we fix it?” I ask.
He props himself up on his elbow to look down at me. With one finger, he twirls a lock of my hair. “You already fixed it.
You came back.”
I wave my hand at the door. “The town. And the people.”
“Lost will rebuild itself. There are always houses that are lost, streets that are abandoned, buildings that are forgotten. The void will deposit them, like the ocean gifts driftwood to the shore. And the people—we’ll help, one by one, best we can.”
I like the “we,” but I shake my head. “What about my ocean? And my dolphin?”
“Come with me.” He swings out of bed and holds out his hand. I haven’t showered or any of that, but I don’t care. I take his
hand and stand. He leads me to the door and out, and then waits while I lock the door behind us. The people in the parking
lot, sleeping in rolls of blankets and coats, stir as we walk between them. A few call out to us.
“Alphabetical,” I remind them.
Peter sings the alphabet song in a minor key.
The petitioners subside, thinking that we are helping someone else.
He leads me past the diner, and I feel a pang when I think of Victoria and Sean. I miss them. Selfish, maybe. But true. I wonder
if Sean left any of his meatloaf in the diner fridge, and I wonder who will replace them to run the diner. It won’t be the
same, whoever it is.
I suppose I will always miss them, the people who came into my life, however briefly or however long: Claire, Victoria and
Sean, Tiffany, Dr. Barrett. My mother. Especially her. It’ll be a while before it doesn’t feel so raw and painful, but here
with Peter, I believe that I will be okay.
I’ll always regret losing them.
I’ll never regret loving them.
Peter keeps walking, leading me out of town. The void fills the horizon, blotting it out, much farther than it was only yesterday.
He doesn’t slow. Gripping my hand tighter, he walks toward it and then directly in. Dust curls around us, picks at our clasped
hands.
“Find what you need,” he says. “Whatever you need to help you stay. Your ocean. Your dolphin. The yellow house. The Rembrandt.
Think of it.”
I look at him, his eyes earnest and so very vulnerable. He isn’t the feral man that I met on an empty road. He’s Peter, who surprises me, who keeps me safe, who needs me. “Already found it,” I say.
Leaning forward, I kiss him.
His arms wrap tight around me, and he kisses me as if he’d been starving for the taste of me. I kiss him back just as hard,
as if his lips can chase away every bit of pain inside me, or at least hold it at bay for a little while.
At last, we break apart.
He grins at me, joy in his eyes.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
And we walk out of the dust toward Lost. We pass the wooden welcome sign, and I see the diner with its neon lights, the lobby
of the motel, the antiquated post office, and the lonely red balloon. In the distance, I hear the crash of ocean waves.
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