Adrenaline made my heart thump wildly. I tried to make sense of the app, which was now having trouble connecting. From what I could tell, the dot showed that Charlie wasinsidethe rock.
Impossible.
I pushed deeper, wedging myself into a crevice, breathing hard with exertion. I forced my body between two boulders, gasping, feeling woozy, as if I might pass out. The stone was cool on my flushed face. My eyes adjusted and I looked around. I was standing, it seemed, in a cavern. White and light brown stalactites and stalagmites glowed with refracted light. I looked around in awe.
Secret Cave.
For years, I had heard stories about Secret Cave, a place where speakeasies had held parties during Prohibition, where teenagers hosted raves, where children disappeared and never returned. I had never believed it was real.
Yet here I was.
I started to cry, overwhelmed. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t want to be here.
No one is coming.
No one is coming to help you.
No one.
I wanted to sit down. I felt like that girl again, desperate for anyone to take over, to hold me. But I did not sit. I moved forward as fast as I was able. The cave narrowed and grew darker. I lost track of the turns, at one point dropping to my hands and knees to pull myself along a passageway. Water ranaround me; I could hear it. I emerged into a large space that smelled of cool moss. It was completely black.
I was sobbing now, murmuring words likepleaseandhelp me. I used my phone’s flashlight to look around. At the very back of the cave wall, I saw a narrow line. I approached, and found a hinge.
It was a door.
-6-
Annette
ANNETTE CALLED INTO ROBERT’Sbedroom and asked him to come with her to the 7-Eleven. “What?” he said.
“Ice,” said Annette. “We need some ice. And lottery tickets.” Her father had always bought Annette and her siblings lottery tickets when they went to the filling station, and Annette had carried on the tradition. None of them had ever won a cent.
Robert shrugged, and they set off in his truck. Annette drove. They did not say goodbye. “How are you?” she asked, when they had fastened their seatbelts.
Robert looked at his hands and shrugged.
Annette wanted to end this uncomfortable moment. But she forced herself to wait. Robert mumbled something. Annette put her hand on his shoulder. He spoke again. “There’s something wrong with me,” he said.
“No,” said Annette. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Then why didn’t Lucy stop taking drugs?” said Robert. He turned to Annette. “She said she would stop. Shepromised. I told her I loved her. I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. I just feel like my brain is different, or something. I don’t know how to be normal. I’m trying, but it’s like I’m in a play, like I have to act all the time.”
“We can talk to a doctor about all of this,” said Annette. “Brains are different. Yours is perfect, but there’s no reason to feel so confused.”
He nodded. “Do you ever feel that way, Mom?” he said. “Like you’re pretending to be normal? Like you have to watch everyone all the time and copy them to fit in?”
“I feel that way all the time.” As Annette said it, she realized it was true.
“I thought I could make her stop taking pills,” said Robert. “But she took them anyway. It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Annette. She thought of her kind father, his hard work, his respect for others. And she wanted to be near him. In Laredo, Annette could relax. She could drop the false version of herself she’d been so carefully upholding. She could surround herself with people who built her up.
“Mom,” said Robert, as she breezed past the 7-Eleven, heading for the highway.
“Yes, amor?”
“Do you feel different now that you’re a citizen?”
