Chapter 4 #3
The cold hadn’t seemed to bother my sister.
Willow was already back asleep and even though I was so tired, I couldn’t nod off myself.
She had refused to talk to me when we’d gotten into my car, absolutely ignoring all my questions about Boyd and what they had done tonight, how long they’d been in communication, and if he had really broken up with his girlfriend or if he was just lying about that.
What I’d really been asking was if he was the same awful jerk that he’d always been or if he’d actually matured and changed, like Everett thought was possible.
She had looked out the car window and pretended not to hear me, but she had spoken up one time when she’d gotten into bed.
“Be careful with this guy, Zoey.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think?” she’d asked, annoyed. “Everett Ford!”
She was probably right, because my sister was so good at understanding and dealing with men.
“What do you think he’s doing?” I remembered my idea about using his stepson for distraction as he robbed a bank, but the Junior Woodsmen couldn’t have been paid that badly.
“I don’t really think that he’s a criminal. ”
“A criminal? No, who said that? Just be careful. You’re really na?ve.”
Now she was probably happy in her dreams about Boyd but I was still thinking about what she’d said.
I actually wasn’t na?ve, because I had more experience with people than my sister did.
I was at the bar dealing with all kinds and now I was working at the front desk of the motel.
So far, there hadn’t been many guests but I was prepared for anyone, due to not being na?ve.
Maybe I didn’t have the kissing experience that others had, and also the experience with activities that went beyond kissing…
Oh, geez. Even out of his presence and with the motel walls and several miles separating us, I felt a wave of embarrassment when I thought of Everett hearing that stuff about me.
He certainly didn’t need to know how I was a little behind in the arena of kissing and other things like that.
Anyway, we weren’t supposed to make comparisons between people, not according to what I’d learned during my teacher training.
We all needed to strive and achieve to the best of our own abilities and not worry about what other people did.
Therefore, I didn’t have to worry that in comparison to every other adult my age, I was really lagging in that arena of kissing and other things.
There was no need to cover my eyes in shame in the cold darkness with my sister snoring next to me.
I didn’t need to think about how I’d seen his expression in the glow of the dashboard lights when Willow had announced that I better stop talking about Boyd, because my opinion meant nothing due to my lack of experience.
Except she’d spelled it out a lot more clearly, and I had stopped looking at him because the sight of his raised eyebrows, slack jaw, wide eyes…
Anyway, my future boyfriend wouldn’t care that I was lacking that knowledge.
He wouldn’t think that I was slow and that kissing didn’t count unless it was with tongue.
He would be more than happy to put his tongue into my mouth and also use it on other areas of my body.
I finally fell asleep thinking about that.
But then, just a moment later, I opened my eyes.
I heard something, something annoying and loud—my phone, that was what it was.
It wasn’t my alarm sounding off, not quite yet, but it was making the whistle that indicated I had gotten a text.
I had turned up the volume because I’d been waiting to hear from my sister as we drove to pick her up and I hadn’t turned it down.
I’d assumed no one would be contacting me in the middle of the night and also, that I’d need the extra decibels to wake me up in the morning.
Willow sighed and kicked out at me as my fingers scrabbled across the nightstand to find my phone, and then I stumbled out of the bed and into the bathroom when I saw who had been texting me.
It was my mom. “I’m in Virginia,” she had started off by writing, and then she’d sent a few pictures of what seemed to be a large body of water. The Atlantic Ocean? As I stared, the messages kept coming.
“We drove over some mountains to get here.”
“It’s warmer than Michigan. Not hot, but not as cold.”
“I saw a cute dog.”
I continued to stare, not understanding.
My mother and I had never texted like this before—if we were communicating, it was for a distinct purpose, like asking if we needed milk or saying that the neighbor was acting whacko in the street so watch out.
Another of those purposes had been when I had asked why she hadn’t been paying our utility bills, and I had also wondered what had happened to the money that I’d given her out of my paychecks (almost the entirety of my paychecks).
But since she’d left our house for the final time, she had maintained total silence, not even answering when I asked for one word to show that she was still alive.
It was now four-thirty in the morning and I was confused by a lack of sleep, but I was also confused by how she was acting.
So that was what I said. “I don’t understand. Are you ok? You’re in Virginia? Why are you writing to me now?”
Nothing. No response.
“Mom? Is that really you?” I’d been thinking about criminals and crime tonight, and it would have been pretty easy for someone else to have gotten ahold of her phone and imitated her.
I asked something that I thought only she would know the answer to: “What year did Dad leave?” It was a trick question, because he had walked out on us on New Year’s Eve, but we hadn’t told anyone until about two weeks later because we’d all been hoping that he would return. He had, but then he’d died.
She still didn’t answer and I got nervous. I could have been writing to the thief who had stolen my mom’s phone and then, for an unknown reason, had started to tell me about the weather in Virginia. I called the police.
Not too many hours later, when I arrived at the elementary school, I was not at my best. The administrative assistant noticed that when I used the machine near her desk to make a few copies. “Are you doing ok?” she wondered.
I was not. “I’m really, really tired,” I admitted. “I think I only slept for about an hour last night.”
She looked concerned. “Are you coming down with something? There’s that flu going around the high school. I was going to mention it to you for your exposé because they’re having problems with absences.”
“Oh, thanks. I’m actually not going to work on that project anymore,” I told her. Everett had enough to use about the schools and I couldn’t see how any of it would help him. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him raising that little boy, anyway.
“I’m glad you gave it up. It made me concerned,” she said. “Sometimes it’s best if we don’t look too deeply into things, you know? I’m not talking about anything specific going on here, but just in general. Sometimes it’s better to keep to your own business.”
“I guess so,” I agreed. The police had basically told me the same thing when I’d talked to them early this morning, or maybe that counted as last night.
They’d gone over the facts: my mom had told me that she was leaving, she had quit her job, she had given up her car.
Before she’d left, we hadn’t been close—we had never talked much or hung out together, even if we had lived in the same house.
That had been true for years, starting long before the issue with the unpaid bills.
So what, exactly, made me think that there was anything wrong?
Where was the proof that she had been kidnapped or was being held against her will?
What made me believe that reaching out with a few texts about a cute dog was a sign of something bad?
Nothing. I had to admit that there was nothing that made me believe any of those things. “I was kind of hoping,” I had admitted to the person on the phone with me, and he had been shocked.
“You were hoping that your mother was in danger?” he’d demanded, and of course the answer was no!
But I had been hoping that there was a reason that she hadn’t been in touch with us before now—like, she had wanted to, but something had prevented her.
If she had been kidnapped, then she wouldn’t have been able to respond to my emails, texts, and voicemails.
But the officer didn’t understand that, and I guessed that it didn’t make much sense.
I had been looking for a reason that she would ignore us, a reason besides the obvious one that she just didn’t care.
It boiled down to hope, but that was a little bit tricky.
When my dad had left on New Year’s Eve years before, I had hoped that he would return.
I’d also hoped that he wouldn’t ever come back, and it had been awful and confusing.
I had hoped that Boyd would have a terrible accident and suffer like my sister but at the same time, I didn’t really want anyone to go through what Willow had.
I didn’t actually wish him harm…maybe a little. Just a little.
In a way, I hoped that Everett wouldn’t get custody of his stepson because he didn’t seem ready to be a parent, but I was also happy that a little boy might have someone who wasn’t only interested in him as an accessory. Hope was—
“Zoey?”
I blinked and saw Anita, our nice admin, watching me. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes, sorry. I need to get back to work,” I told her. I yawned as I went, and I made sure that the volume was turned down on my phone. No more hope, no more distractions.