Chapter 17
Pick Up
ZOE
Jonah Holt’s been pretending he isn’t nervous for the six-minute drive to Dickens Elementary, which would be a lot more convincing if he hadn’t checked his rearview mirror eleven times to look at the empty backseat where his son will be sitting.
I’m counting. What can I say?
“You realize we’re gonna be early, Jonah.”
He pulls into a pickup spot. “We’re not early.”
“I could knit a sweater.”
He’s wearing a navy hoodie and a baseball cap pulled low, and despite all that, he is still, unmistakably, six-foot-two of obvious. His attire is fooling no one.
But…
Eli asked him to come to pickup.
The first time. After fourteen days of Jonah hovering at the kitchen counter at two -forty-five p.m., pretending to scroll his phone while I grabbed my keys.
Fourteen days of “Tell him I said hi.” Fourteen days of the man tracking his son’s phone during school dismissal time.
And then last night, over spaghetti, the kid said, mouth half full: “You can come tomorrow if you want.”
Jonah’s fork had stopped midair. I’d almost cried into my noodles. Jonah said, “Yeah, okay, sure,” like it was nothing.
So now we are painfully early.
We climb out of the SUV, the afternoon sun slanting through the maples on Cedar Avenue and turning everything pumpkin-colored. “You don’t have to do anything except just be a guy with a face.”
“A guy with a face.”
“Well, your own face.”
He huffs out something that’s almost a laugh.
We post up by the flagpole. A handful of moms already cluster near the kindergarten door, and one of them does a double take so violent, I’m worried for her neck.
Jonah pretends not to notice. I pretend not to notice him pretending not to notice.
The school smells like cut grass and the ghost of cafeteria pizza, and somewhere, a kickball is bouncing off a wall in steady thumps.
“What if he gets embarrassed?” Jonah’s eyes zero in on the side doors where Eli will exit.
“He’s got a friend or two now. He got the lead in a play. He’s a badass, he’ll be fine.”
“I’m so happy he got the lead.” Jonah jams his hands into his pockets. “And I hope he meant this offer.”
I bump my shoulder into his arm because I can’t reach his actual shoulder without a stepladder. “He told you to come, and he doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.”
“True.”
I shrug. “He’s also always right. He and I spent twenty minutes debating whether a hot dog is technically a taco because of the structural starch. I Googled it, and he was right.”
That earns me a real laugh, short then gone again. He tugs the brim of his cap.
The bell rings.
Kids spill out in waves: the kindergarteners in a teacher-led crocodile line, the second graders shrieking, the older kids ambling out trying to look bored. Backpacks bigger than torsos. A million little high-tops. A boy carrying a paper-maché volcano with one hand and a juice box with the other.
Jonah scans. I scan.
The fourth graders come out in a clump near the side door—Eli’s teacher, Ms. Lark, guides each child toward each parent.
She's the kind that doesn’t miss details.
She’s smiling, and I know she’s ticking off names in her head.
Kids peel off to cars, crossing guards, and the little knot of waiting parents.
The clump thins. The clump thins more. The clump is now four kids. Now two. Now—
Now Ms. Lark is looking at us, then down at her clipboard with the furrow of a woman who doesn’t make mistakes, but somehow has.
I don’t even consciously decide. My feet are already moving.
“Ms. Lark?” I fight to keep my voice cheerful and not reflect what’s happening to my heart. “Where is Eli Anders?”
Jonah’s already at my elbow.
The panic starts in her eyes—a flicker—and travels down to her mouth, where it erases her polite smile. The clipboard tilts. She glances at it as if hoping it will lie to her. It does not. “Eli was picked up early.”
Jonah goes still next to me. Not normal still. Not even hockey-still, that controlled coiled thing he does at the blue line. This is the kind before an explosion.
“By who?” he grits.
Ms. Lark looks at her clipboard again. “His grandmother. Gwen Anders.”
No one says anything. The flagpole rope tings against its pole. A car horn honks somewhere. I’m aware of my own hands clenching at my sides.
“How,” I say, and I’m proud of how level it comes out, “did Gwen Anders get on the pickup list?”
Ms. Lark’s face flicker’s becomes a full storm system.
“She—she came in this morning with documentation. The principal approved it. She said she was on the family contact form, and—” She stops, visibly adding things up in her own head and finding a sum she does not like.
Her hand drifts toward her mouth. “Oh, no.”
Jonah doesn’t shout. He doesn’t grab her clipboard. He doesn’t do any of the things a person who looks like Jonah Holt could plausibly do. He takes one step closer, removes his cap, and his voice, when he speaks, is the lowest I’ve ever heard it.
“Ms. Lark.” His jaw twitches. “I need Gwen Anders removed from every list. Every form. Every document in this building. Today. She’s not on any approved list. She’s never been. I want it in writing.”
“Yes,” Ms. Lark croaks. “Yes, I’ll—I’ll go to the principal’s office, Mr. Holt.”
“Now.” The quiet way he says it is worse than yelling.
She’s already moving, the clipboard pressed to her chest like a shield. Jonah doesn’t watch her go. He’s pulling his phone out of his pocket. The cap is dangling from two fingers.
After calling the police, we’re running back toward the SUV.
When we’re off down the road, I’m dialing Eli, which goes straight to voicemail, while Jonah’s dialing Gwen through the car’s speakers.
It rings. And rings. I watch his jaw. It rings.
An automated voicemail answers.
He hangs up. His hands shake on the wheel, which I pretend not to notice.
He calls again. I call again. Same thing.
“Jonah,” I say.
He looks at me with the expression of a man whose worst nightmare has just unleashed itself.
“Give me your phone,” I say. “I’m calling Lily Hernandez.”
He does, and I scroll to Ms. Hernandez’s contact and tap call. She picks up on the second ring, brisk and warm, and I cut her off mid-greeting.
“Lily, it’s Zoe. I’m with Jonah. We’re at Dickens Elementary. Eli’s gone. Gwen Anders picked him up from school saying she had authorization. We can’t reach Gwen or Eli. Jonah’s driving to her house.”
Jonah opens his mouth, and his voice, which he’s been holding for the last five minutes, finally cracks when he says, “Gwen.” Then he stops, jaw locked, and says, low and steady, “She took him. The hearing’s in nine days, and she has my kid.”
“I’ll make some calls right now,” is all she says before she disconnects.
Jonah stares down the road, twenty feet of asphalt. I put my hand on his arm, just above the elbow, and I don’t say anything because there’s nothing to say.
His chest rises. Falls. Rises.
We drive for thirty two minutes. I count those, too.