22. Zoey #2
“Oh good,” my mother said. “You answered. I lost my itinerary,” she continued cheerfully. “The one I printed out before the cruise. Could you text it to me?”
My brain stalled for half a second. “Mom.”
“Yes?”
“It’s in your email.”
“I know, but I don’t want to dig through all that right now,” she said. “Couldn’t you just write it out for me again? You’re so much better at that logistical stuff.”
A few days ago, I would have done it without hesitation. I would have opened the email, copied the information, and sent it, because that was the role I had always played.
Fix the problem. Soften the inconvenience. Make things easier.
My therapist’s words surfaced quietly in my mind: Boundaries. Safe people. You are allowed to say no.
I looked down the street where neighbors were beginning to gather.
People were spreading out in different directions, looking for a small girl who liked to wander.
“Mom,” I said calmly, “there’s a little girl missing right now.”
She paused. “What?”
“One of the kids in my building slipped out of her apartment and no one knows where she is.”
“Oh.”
I started walking faster toward the cluster of people near the sidewalk. “I can’t do this for you.”
There was a beat of silence.
“It would only take a second,” she said.
The old phrasing landed exactly where it always did. Small thing. Quick thing. Easy thing. Language designed to make refusal sound unreasonable before I had even made it.
“No,” I said.
“Zoey, I’m asking for one simple favor.”
I stepped around a flower bed and spotted Bobbi’s mother halfway down the block, talking too fast into her phone.
“I heard you,” I said. “And the answer is still no.”
My mother exhaled in that injured way she had perfected years ago. “I just thought maybe you’d care that I’m trying to get everything together for once.”
There it was. The emotional invoice attached to the request.
“I do care,” I said. “That’s not the issue.”
“Then why are you acting like I’m bothering you?” she asked. “You don’t even respond to my text messages anymore.”
I tightened my grip around the phone. I could feel the old structure trying to snap back into place.
The implication that closeness meant access.
That love meant immediate compliance. That if I said no, I was not protecting my time or attention.
I was betraying something sacred and sad and maternal.
A few weeks ago, that probably would have worked. I would have caved and resented it later.
Not tonight.
Not with Bobbi missing.
“Mom,” I said, and my tone came out flatter than before. “This is not a closeness issue. This is a grown woman not wanting to search her own email while I’m in the middle of an actual emergency.”
She went quiet for half a second, then said, “You do not have to talk to me like I’m incompetent.”
That almost impressed me. Ask me to do the task because I’m better at it, then punish me. A classic.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m saying you are capable of doing this yourself.”
“I was just asking for help.”
“And I’m saying no.”
“You’ve been so different since you moved.”
Yes, less available for unpaid administrative labor.
But to my surprise, I didn’t feel guilty. I didn’t feel cruel. Bobbi was still missing. My mother was still standing somewhere with a phone in her hand and full access to her own inbox. These two things were not morally equivalent, no matter how hard she tried to drag them onto the same level.
“I love you,” I continued. “But you are capable of managing your own life.”
“Wow,” she said.
“You can be annoyed with me later,” I said. “Right now, I have to go help find a child.”
She let out a huff. “Fine. Go save the neighborhood. I’ll just figure it out myself.”
Petty. Predictable.
Then my mother sighed. “Okay, good luck finding her.”
We hung up.
I stared down at my phone for a moment.
For the first time I could remember, I had not rushed to fix my mother’s problem.
My heart was beating hard in my chest—mostly from nerves, but also from pride and disbelief.
Shaking my head, I turned back toward the street.
The search continued. Minutes passed. Then more minutes. And the longer we searched, the worse the possibilities became.
My thoughts drifted unwillingly to Liam.
The way he had circled the neighborhood the other night. Checking everything. Watching everything.
I had been furious with him for that.
But standing here now, waiting for updates that weren’t coming fast enough, I suddenly understood that kind of vigilance came from fear. The kind of fear that settled deep in your chest when someone you cared about might be in danger.
If that was what Liam had been feeling that night, I could not imagine carrying it for long, because the small slice I was experiencing right now already felt unbearable.
My phone buzzed again.
No new leads.
I paced across the sidewalk.
Think. Think. Think.
Then something obvious occurred to me.
Bobbi might be unpredictable, but she wasn’t invisible.
And I knew one person with a very particular skill set when it came to finding things.
I pulled up his contact before I could talk myself out of it.
My thumb hovered over the call button for half a second, then I pressed it.
The phone rang for what felt like an eternity, but it was only three rings.
When he answered, I spoke immediately.
“Liam,” I said, “I need your help.”