I close my eyes.
“She took the money,” I repeat to myself. “She’s going to be okay. She’s going to have a wonderful life.”
Without you in it.
Mom knocks on my window.
I start, shocked. “Mom?” I roll down the window.
She’s changed and put her hair in a ponytail.
“Scoot over. Let’s go for a drive.”
I clamber over the center console.
“You got gas in this thing?”
“What are you—”
She turns on the radio. “God, your taste in music. I tried to steer you right, kid. I really did.” She gives me a shaky smile as we head away from the house.
She plugs in her phone, one hand on the wheel.
“Mom, let me do that—you’re going to crash the car.”
“I got it!”
Seventies music blares out of the stereo as the car roars down the highway.
Mom taps along with the beat.
“Can you believe people think Fleetwood Mac is overrated? Best album of the decade,” she says as she pulls onto a gravel road. “Hands down.”
“Where are we going?” My heart thuds in my chest as Stevie Nicks wails on the radio.
Mom parks the car in front of a run-down farmhouse. The paint’s peeling. The porch looks like it’ll cave in in a couple of years.
Mom parks the car and hops out.
I sit there and stare at the house.
Mom opens my door. “Come on, kid.”
I follow her like a puppy as we walk slowly through the tall grass. It’s dead and breaks under our feet. It snowed recently, and we kick through the pristine white powder.
I balk before my mom can lead me up onto the porch.
“Have you ever come back here?” she asks after a moment.
“No, of course not! You were locked in a basement here. They should have burned it down, bulldozed it, filled in the cellar.” My voice sounds too forceful in the silence.
“Doing that wouldn’t have made it not happen.” Mom shrugs.
“Have you been back here?” I ask cautiously.
“Yeah, a few times.”
“Why?”
