Then she disappeared into her office. I don’t know if she had planned to go into the tiny bathroom or if she was trying to get away from me. But when I raced after her and she closed the bathroom door between us, I started to scream, “Mom! You can’t do this to me! Mom!” And at that moment I hated her so much. It was like my skin was on fire.
I don’t remember deciding to lock the bathroom door. But I do remember doing it. Turning that key so hard and fast, it left my fingers throbbing. And I remember staring at the door after it was done, breathless and scared but maybe also a little thrilled. Then the sound of my mom’s voice calling through the door, trying to hide how nervous she was: “Cleo, please unlock this door. Unlock it right now.”
She went so fast from calm to mad, then really mad, then frantic and, finally, terrified. Her voice cracked as she started to beg. I remember knowing that my dad wouldn’t be home for at least two weeks. That she didn’t have her cell phone in there. That I had all the power. In the end, I only let her out for totally selfish reasons. I needed money to meet my friends at the tarot cardreader on Fourteenth Street. Otherwise, I can’t say for sure what would have happened.
Another person might have removed the key permanently from the bathroom after that. Not my mom. Maybe she left it in the lock because she wanted me to know that she still trusted me. But every time I saw that key it always felt like she wanted me to remember what I’d done. That she was shaming me. And yet, somehow, I never really felt that terrible about the whole thing. Even now it feels … complicated. The way everything always is with my mom.
I turn my attention to a cabinet, filled, it turns out, with neat rows of law school textbooks. Another cabinet has files with labels likeTax ReturnsandMedical Records,with different years. Cabinet after cabinet of boring, responsible, predictable nothing—nothing that could explain where my mom went. It isn’t until I reach the tall cabinet in the corner that I find anything even remotely interesting, a box labeledHaven House.
It’s heavier than I expect when I pull it out and set it on the floor. Inside are some school papers (all As) and some notebooks and a few photos of my mom as a kid, looking so much like me at that age, it’s creepy. I’ve seen some of these pictures before, when I asked to see my mom’s childhood photos. I remember my mom explaining why she was with so many other kids in every picture; she’d lived in a group home for a bit before she was adopted by Gladys, who maybe had some issues but also sounded like a total character, warm and kind and silly. So not a normal childhood, but not horrible, either. But I’ve never seen these pictures before. She’s so much younger in them. She was alittle,little kid, at Haven House, and she stayed all the way until she was a teenager? She lived there a lot longer than I realized.
At the bottom of the box is also Walt Whitman’sLeaves of Grass—I’ve never known my mom to read poetry in her life. There’s even an inscription on the first page:Promise me you’ll be a writer, Katrina. God gives the gift to few. xx Reed
A writer? And my mom never thought to mention that when all I’ve ever talked about is wanting to be a writer myself? Classic.
Under the book, I find what looks to be a journal. My mother’s journal. I stare at it for a minute, feeling a mix of intrigue and dread. I smooth my hand over the cover a couple times before I flip it open to the middle and begin to read.
Olivia took my soap and my towel and then she called me a fucking cunt. Because that makes sense. It’s not even like she kept them for herself. She threw them in the garbage AFTER putting them in the toilet. She put my washcloth in the toilet, too. Then tried to shove it in my mouth. I got away, though. I really thought about telling on her this time, but to who? Silas? Anyway, she has that broken spoon.
I snap the journal closed.A broken spoon?
“You’re still here?” My dad’s voice in the doorway. “I thought you were—Did you find something?”
He comes closer, looks over my shoulder into the box. I tuck the journal into my bag. I’m not sure why I don’t want him to see it, only that I don’t.
“How long was Mom at Haven House? I thought she was adopted by that woman Gladys?”
He shakes his head. “But not until she was a teenager—she was at Haven House foryearsbefore that. Longer than most kids. There were issues in her earlier foster homes. Bad luck mostly.” I can see the lightbulb go on. “Wait, you don’t think …”
“Don’t think what?”
“Well, I guess, I’m just saying … that kind of childhood. Maybe your mom was struggling more than we realized.”
“So now you’re saying shedidleave?”
“No, no, of course not. I’m saying … Your mom’s had a hard life. Maybe all of this is related somehow. I don’t know.”
But I don’t want to think about that. I only want to think about her coming home.
“Listen, I’m tired. I need to go.” I stand up and walk toward the door. The journal and computer feel so heavy in my bag.
“Are you going to be okay?” he calls after me.
“Yeah,” I say. “As soon as we know where Mom is.”
Katrina
FOUR DAYS BEFORE
Advantage Consulting’s waiting room was lovely. In fact, the entire building was stunning, a converted nineteenth-century limestone mansion on East Eighty-sixth, right off the park. The upper edge of the Metropolitan Museum was barely visible through the huge windows. There were two bold abstracts on the wall opposite the couch, nearby an artful black-and-white photo—dark skies over the western plains, a single horse off center in the distance. Brian Carmichael had been raised in rural Montana, or so his bio claimed, before finding his way to the Ivy League. This cast him perfectly in the role of an earthy, wholesome, erudite man who understood how to navigate success without losing sight of his moral compass. Surely the wealthy parents who hired him felt much less terrible by association. Actually, they probably didn’t feel terrible at all.
Looking around the room, it was again hard to fathom that Brian Carmichael would spend years establishing a well-run, moneymaking machine only to risk it all by blackmailing someone like Doug, then staging an accident when he didn’t immediately pay up. But even those adept at criminal operations made mistakes. That’s how they got caught.
But even if it was a dead end, at least meeting with Carmichael was a distraction from thinking about whether the blissed-out look on Cleo’s face had had to do with Kyle.
I’d known the second I laid eyes on Kyle that he would bea real problem. The way he’d barely nodded at Aidan and me before sauntering out of Cleo’s room seconds after we arrived. I’d been glaring at him so hard, I was surprised he didn’t combust. And Cleo had been on me like a hawk.
“Mom, stop,” she’d said before I even uttered a word. “I like him. I’m not doing this.”
