“Why did you come out here?” Amanda asked the woman softly. The sun flashed again, and flocks of tiny sandpipers raced across the sand. Suddenly, everything felt too much for her. There was too much going on, and yet nothing much was happening. It was confusing to her. She felt like her mind was tracking a million things at once.
“I remember this fellow, from back in the day,” Gertrude said in her husky voice. She used the toe of her brogan to touch the dirty man’s leg. “It’s true, what he says. He knew my husband. They’d go rousing, sometimes. Asshole, is what he is. And maybe more, from what my husband told me, over the years. Right, Ike?”
He stared at her, his mouth trembling. Then he reached for his bills, trying to grab them back out of her hands. She held them tight. “I’ll wash these when I’m done,” she called over her shoulder as she walked away. “I’ll have your wine coming right up, Ike.”
“What was that about?” Amanda asked as they watched her back retreat into the market, the door swinging behind her.
“Yeah, what was that about?” Larry asked, turning to the man.
“Nothing,” he said sullenly. He yawned, showing the remains of his teeth. Then he sunk into his three jackets and waited for his wine.
Amanda tried to count the sandpipers on the beach—she was always practicing with numbers—but they were too far away.
“Why did my brother try to kill himself?”
“I think he succeeded.”
“I know. How come?”
He shrugged. “They were just kids. Do you think you could spare a few dollars, for the information?”
“I knew it,” Larry said.
That evening, Patty met Larry and Amanda in a Seaside restaurant. She was wearing her leather jacket paired with a sparkly purple scarf, and she gave Amanda one of the warmest smiles Amanda had ever seen.
“Larry told me about you,” she said.
Amanda took her seat, looking up at the chalkboard menu. She hated chalkboard menus—they dripped all over with curlicues and drawings, confusing the words. Amanda liked her words in a straight line.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” Patty said. “We don’t talk enough about sibling bonds in our culture. We expect to outlive our parents. It’s our brothers and sisters we hope to keep for life.”
“Yes,” Amanda said. She was glad someone understood.
“Were you in foster care too?” Patty asked.
“I was adopted at birth.”
The waitress appeared.
“I’m having the seafood special,” Larry said.
“Me too,” said Patty.
“I’ll have—the ham sandwich,” Amanda said, picking something at random and then feeling foolish.
“Coming right up,” the waitress said.
“A ham sandwich is a funny thing to order in a seafood place,” Larry said.
“Maybe she feels like having a ham sandwich,” Patty said, smiling at Amanda. “Men,” she whispered. “Always wanting to criticize.
“I found your runaway reports,” Patty added, passing a manila envelope across the table to Larry.
“Hey,” he said, surprised and pleased. He opened the envelope to see three reports, each stampedConfidential.
“If anyone asks, they didn’t come from me,” Patty said.
Larry passed each one to Amanda after he read it. The reports were short, only a page long each. Each had a name, and a brief description of the boy. All three boys were said to have run away in the middle of the night. Amanda had seen missing pet reports with more information.
