I was away for five minutes and now she’s gone. Joan is gone.
I call out her name, go from room to room, check both apartments. She’s nowhere.
I return to the note I found on the kitchen table. It’s not a game. It’s true. Joan went to New York City all by herself.
At least I know where she’s headed.
I grab my wallet and phone, calling Paige as I race out the door. The call goes straight to voice mail. It’s for the best. I hang up without leaving a message. This happened on my watch. I have to be the one to fix it. And quick.
I run down the hill, sprint to the train. I nearly trip over my untied shoelace. Pedestrians pay me no attention as I speed past them.
Down the stairs, through the turnstiles, onto the idle train. I take a seat and then change my mind and stand up. I can’t sit, not now, not with this burning in my chest and my heart stabbing. The other passengers wait patiently while I scan for the conductor. There must be someone who can get this train moving. Someone who can act in a time of emergency.
But there’s no help coming. I force myself onto a bench and manage a deep breath. A pair of women’s flats appear next to my feet. “Excuse me.”
I look up.
“You dropped this,” the woman says.
She hands me a piece of paper. Joan’s note.
The sight of her handwriting puts a shiver in me. She had asked me to go on this dreadful TV show with her but I refused. How could I know she’d resort to this?
I shut my eyes and picture her cowering through the city all alone. My chest can’t take it. I don’t know how Paige and Ollie live like this, how any parents do. How they let these tiny pieces of themselves out of their sight for even a second. I suppose it’s no use. We can be close by and watching like hawks, and those we love can still slip away. Even the ones who are supposed to be old and wise enough to take care of themselves.
It’s happening again, someone escaping from my grasp. Nausea comes over me as the train finally jerks forward. I’m not sure I can hold it back, the sickness. I barely had time to process what happened last night with Mara and now this. I shut my eyes, try to talk myself through the dizziness.
The rest passes like a dream: off the train, up the stairs, into a cab. I lean forward in the backseat. “Please,” I tell the driver. “As fast as you can.”