We sped through Oberlin, craning our necks out open windows, scanning the horizon frantically for a green Ford Explorer with California plates, for any sign of Dad. We passed brick buildings, open green spaces with towering pieces of public art and signs for pizza and twenty-four-hour Laundromats.
Daniel lived here, I reminded myself. As much as I fought it, I couldn’t stop the next thought: Daniel died here.
And then: I can’t let Dad die here, too.
“He’s not here. We’re never going to find him,” I moaned.
“We haven’t been up and down every street yet.”
“Maybe he’s not even here, because maybe Robert Saenz isn’t even here.”
Mom brushed this aside. It was still too early to contact anyone on the phone, to learn anything about a release from prison, terms of parole. “Plan B,” she said, pulling into a gas station. Before I could protest, she left me in the car, the engine running. Madness—it was all madness. Maybe I could slide across the center console, plunk myself in the driver’s seat and leave my parents and all this lunacy behind. Angling my neck out the window, I saw Mom inside the store, gesturing with one hand to the clerk behind the counter.
A few seconds later, she was back, clutching a scrap of paper with a few crudely drawn lines. “His brother lives here in town.” She tossed the map into my lap, and I picked it up, trying to determine the orientation.
“You don’t need the map,” Mom said. “Just look for Morgan Street.”