4

STAN SATURDAY

Stan was all smiles on the way into Greensboro. Mom had decided that he and I should do something fun together, just the two of us. This was our first official Stan Saturday. Maybe Mom wanted to keep me busy, or maybe she was worried about how Stan and I still weren’t clicking. Either way, that’s how we ended up at the ropes course in Greensboro, which is at the zoo and over forty feet tall. I’d never been there, but Stan thought it sounded fun.

The trouble with this plan was that Stan is not an outdoor guy. Like I said, he’s from New York City. His idea of adventure is ordering takeout from a new restaurant. Stan works as a computer programmer. He likes things neat and orderly, not messy and unpredictable, which was why I had a really hard time imagining him swinging through the woods on the end of a rope.

When we pulled up to the course, Stan’s eyes widened behind his glasses. The ropes course looks like a giant spiderweb hanging from the trees with nothing but a flimsy net to catch you if you fall.

“You really want to do that?” I asked.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Trees are cool.”

Meanwhile, all I could think about was the boy in the woods. After the Skate-A-Thon, Mom had banned me from watching America’s Most Wanted, and Cress had made me promise never to freak out again. For six months, I’d been good. I hadn’t called the police once. But seeing that strange boy made my fingers itch to call.

A strange boy who matched parts of Billy Holcomb’s description. A strange boy who had no reason to be out in those woods. A strange boy who could very well be a missing kid.

I knew what I’d seen, but the tip line was for serious inquiries only, not “hysterical children.” I’d been told that a dozen times. I’d be in trouble if I was wrong. So, instead of calling Sheriff Dobbs, I followed Stan toward the ropes course and certain death.

It was overcast, so there weren’t many people in line. The air had that chill we can get on spring days in North Carolina, a crisp coolness that fades as soon as the sun appears. While we waited, a nervous jiggle took up residence in Stan’s foot. I could have cut him a break—after all, I was the one who’d agreed to come here—but knowing you should do something and being able to do it are two very different things.

When it comes to Stan, there’s this invisible barrier between us. We’re like goldfish swimming in separate bowls. What makes it even worse is that the barrier is entirely my fault. When Mom told me she thought Stan and I should spend more time together, I got upset and said some things I shouldn’t have said. And Stan heard them. And now there is a barrier between us.

After a while, Stan pulled out his little red notebook and started writing. That’s why he didn’t notice when we reached the front of the line and the attendant asked for our tickets.

“Stan,” I said.

“Hmm?” His eyes were still on his notebook. Gone.

The teenage attendant gave me a look like he wished we’d disappear, too.

“It’s our turn,” I said louder, and Stan finally snapped out of it.

He apologized, handed over our tickets, and led us to the fitting area. While we got our harnesses, I watched the people in front of us: a mother and daughter. They were good climbers. They worked together, and when they messed up, they just laughed. They clicked.

While we waited, Stan’s knee started bopping again. When they told us to go, he went the wrong way and our ropes got tangled up. Then we reached a split in the course and he turned in the opposite direction when we were supposed to be working together.

“We should go this way,” I said. “See the wooden steps?”

He tilted his head, gears turning. “I don’t know about that.”

“Steps are better than one little rope,” I snapped, followed by a quick rush of guilt.

Stan was only trying to help. He didn’t even say anything back, which made it even worse. He worked his way over to me and waited while I wiped my sweaty hands and wished we’d never come to this awful ropes course in the first place.

Ahead of us, wooden steps hung from ropes like swings.

I stepped forward, and the board that had looked so stable shot out from under me, flipping me head over heels. We were in harnesses so we couldn’t fall far, but I still screamed as I tipped over. For a split second, I heard the crash of the ocean and felt my father’s hands on my sides, but when I opened my eyes, it was Stan who’d grabbed me. He’d fallen, too, trying to catch me. We hung there like two puppets on strings.

“Having fun yet?” he asked with a goofy smile.

My mouth fell open. “We could have died.”

He shook his head. “No way. You checked the harnesses five times.”

“You’re trusting an eleven-year-old to keep you alive,” I said slowly.

“Not any eleven-year-old. A vigilant one.”

I rolled my eyes. “This was a bad idea.”

“Maybe. But I like ‘hanging out’ with you.”

He did the air quotes and everything. Then he laughed at his own corny joke.

That night, I lay in bed stiff and scraped from fighting my way through the rest of the ropes course. Earlier, when Mom asked if we’d had fun, Stan had said yes, even though I’m pretty sure he hadn’t had any more fun than I did. Which was pretty cool of him.

Before I go to sleep, I always check three things: First, I make sure my lamp is unplugged. Electrical appliances are major fire starters. I also make sure the path from my bed to the window is clear, in case I need to escape during the night. Most people don’t know this, but you’re more at risk from fire when you’re asleep. We have a safety ladder below my window, just in case. Finally, I make sure that Croc is right next to me in case we need to split. As you might have guessed, Croc is a stuffed crocodile. Cress and I won him at the county fair in fourth grade. I threw the ring, but she bought the ticket, so technically he belonged to both of us. We even made up a contract to schedule sharing him, though I had custody more often those days, probably because Cress was being nice about Mom and Stan getting married and everything.

I rolled over to where Dad’s picture faced me from my nightstand. He would have loved rope climbing. Dad worked as a surveyor, and in his spare time he restored the wildflower field behind our house and built a bridge across the gully, where he showed me how to catch the tiny fishes that spawned in the shallows.

My memories of Dad are like movies I can play in my mind. All it takes is a smell or a sound to trigger a memory. Only lately, the movies are playing less and less and the pictures are getting blurry. Sometimes I can’t see Dad’s face and I have to rush to my photo albums to remember what he looked like. It feels like I’m losing him piece by piece, and one day, he’ll be gone.

“Hey,” I texted him, waiting for the reply that would never come.

In the picture, Dad’s smiling, his handlebar mustache tipped up at the corners. He looks like some kind of biker, but Mom says he was growing a beard for the hockey playoffs, which is when lots of hockey fans stop shaving out of superstition. I’m not in the picture with him, but the camera caught him at the perfect moment, when his eyes were looking straight into the lens.

When I stare at the picture, it feels like he’s looking right at me. Like he’s saying, “What is it, Maddy? What’s wrong?”

I lay there for a while, telling him about Stan and rope climbing and the strange boy in the woods and how I had not called Sheriff Dobbs. When I finished, I felt better. I know it’s just a picture and Dad can’t really hear me, but it feels like he does.