Chapter 14
George

As soon as Jack leaves for the night, I flip open his mom’s laptop and settle onto the colorful living room sofa. I’d never been allowed to sit on this couch before. Jack usually sat on one end while his mom, at the other end, put her feet on the middle cushion, so I always got stuck sitting on the hardwood floor. It was okay, I guess, as long as you could avoid the splinters.

Jack’s dad was usually tucked away at the desk in that little nook in the corner, working. I glance toward the nook and see that it’s completely empty now. Jack wasn’t kidding. His dad is officially gone.

The computer glows awake on my lap. I open an internet browser and begin my search. “How to use magic to make a disappearing father reappear,” I read aloud as I type. Jack wants only one thing, and my magic isn’t strong enough to help. Yet. But you can learn anything on the internet.

I scroll through, but all I get are instructional magic videos about how to bend spoons and make coins disappear. I’ve got to remember those for later, but that’s not what I need right now.

I try again: “Use magic to get Jack’s dad back.” These articles seem to be about characters on TV shows I’ve never heard of. I wonder if watching any of them would help.

I groan. It’s going to be a long night.

I close the laptop and wander over to Jack’s dad’s office nook. It feels so big now without the furniture that used to be so tightly wedged in there. A desk, cluttered with paperwork. A filing cabinet underneath, always locked. And on the wall, a framed picture of Jack and his dad at a ball game. I remember their matching smiles more than anything. I reach up and rub the hole in the wall where the nail used to be. I’m glad his dad took that picture with him.

Next, I squat where the desk chair used to be and try to get into his dad’s head. Tucked away over here, you can’t see much of the rest of the living room, except for the corner of the couch where Jack used to sit. I smile, hoping his dad arranged things like that on purpose.

I can’t imagine what it would be like sitting here from eight in the morning to five in the evening, and then “five more minutes,” “five more minutes,” “just five more minutes,” until it was time for Jack to go to bed and they didn’t get a chance to play catch or checkers or Monopoly or anything at all. I’m sure his dad could see Jack getting sadder and sadder from here.

I don’t want to think about that part of the memory, so I dart back to the couch and open the laptop. I look up walrus fun facts and magic tricks that might wow even the Great Macaroni himself for the rest of the night.

Jack escapes from his cousin’s house around one-thirty the next day, so eager to talk about his dad. I try to distract him with a million questions: “How was your night? What did you have for breakfast? Did you know that a walrus’s tusks can grow up to three feet long? Mine’d almost be touching the floor! Can you imagine? Do you want to see another trick?”

Jack grunts in response, only asking me one question: “Did my parents stop by?”

They didn’t, and all I can remember are Jack’s sagging smiles as he waited for his dad to play, day after day after day.

I can’t bring his dad back, but maybe I don’t need to. After all, Jack always had way more fun with me than he did with his dad. I know how to cheer him up. “Knock knock who’s there it’s a game and we’re gonna play ‘em all!” I blurt out as quickly as possible. “So what do you wanna do first?” I ask. “Catch, checkers, Monopoly, you name it!”

“George, I don’t want—” he tries to argue, but I’m already off to grab everything we’ll need.

The next morning, I decide on a new plan: I’ll find Jack’s mom instead.

When the internet just gives me stories on the Magic of Motherhood, I decide to find her the old-fashioned way. The best way to solve a mystery is to return to the scene of the crime. If the mess she left behind in her bedroom isn’t criminal, then I don’t know what is.

I study each discarded item of clothing, looking for clues, before I carefully fold and toss it into the closet, hoping that’s where everything goes. I never spent a lot of time in Jack’s parents’ room before, so I’m not exactly sure. Three dresses, five pairs of jeans, an uncountable number of unmentionables because I close my eyes when I pick them up, six socks, two shirts, and one heel later, I still know absolutely nothing, but at least her room looks better.

The only thing left is a bulgy purple purse. I hurl it toward the closet, which isn’t my best idea. Loose change and breath mints spill all over the floor, but nothing is quite so loud as the yellow plastic container that rattles as it rolls under the bed.

I stuff everything back into the bag but pause after I’ve retrieved Jack’s mom’s pills. Take 1 tablet by mouth daily, the label instructs. I scan through the science-y words I’d never be able to pronounce and find a list of warnings. Nothing about disappearing. Darn.

As I examine the bottle in my hands, I remember the one week I did spend in this room, years ago.

Jack was at school. I was doing what I always did when Jack was at school: absolutely nothing. Jack’s dad was away on a work trip, which meant I should have had the house to myself, but his mom stayed home sick.

Still in her pajamas and a faded orange robe, she crawled into bed after Jack left and lay there. I waited for her to come out and put on the TV or do something entertaining, but when she didn’t emerge by noon, I poked my head in to check on her.

The lights were off. The blinds were drawn. The room was gray. She was on her side with her back to the door. Before I could slip away, I heard the sniffling. Was she . . . crying? I crept farther into the room and crawled onto the edge of her bed. “There, there,” I whispered, wrapping my fingers around her warm foot. She gasped, then sniffed again, but more softly.

Unsure what else to do, I held her foot the rest of the day and listened to her crying.

Sometime around two o’clock, she pushed herself up out of bed, wiped her face with a cloth, and took a pill from a bottle just like this one. Minutes later, Jack got home from school, and she was all “Oh sweetie,” and “That’s great, babe!” Jack never noticed how clammy her skin looked; he never heard the strain in her voice; and I never told him she called in sick that whole week. I held her foot the entire time.

“GEORGE?” I hear Jack’s voice downstairs. He’s here.

I study the pill bottle one last time and wonder if his mom forgot to take it with her. I stuff it back into her bag, then throw everything into her closet before slamming the bedroom door and leaving that memory behind me.

“Did my parents stop by?” he asks again, and I think he really believes they might.

My mind darts to that yellow plastic bottle, and I kinda believe they should.

But the fact is, I’m not their friend, I’m Jack’s. He’s the only person I can really help. I smile widely. “You go get the ice cream, the pickles, and all the bread you can find. I’ll go get the checkers,” I say before Jack can stop me.

On Monday, Jack shows up even later. It’s got to be at least three o’clock, and he finds me in the backyard on my hands and knees, searching for a bunny that I can use in my magic tricks. Clearly, the only way I’m going to get his parents back is to dive deeper into my magic. I haven’t found a hat to pull the rabbit from yet, but one thing at a time.

The knees of my jeans are coated in grass stains. Leaves and tiny twigs have formed a nest in my hair.

“Did my parents stop by?” Jack asks as I rub my hands along my head to shake out the garden debris.

“Not today,” I reply.

He frowns. “Great. So what are we going to do then?” His tone is so annoyed, as if I’m the problem. “Tiddlywinks? Duck, Duck, Goose?” He crosses his arms. “Hide-and-seek?”

I stumble backward into a shrub as Jack summons the worst memory of all.

Hide –and-seek.

I waited in that bathroom closet for three days before realizing Jack wasn’t even looking. Before understanding he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. Before hiding a key in his front yard and hitting the road.

Jack pulls me from the shrub. “George?” All traces of annoyance are gone from his voice, replaced by concern mixed with a hint of alarm. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

I have. This house is full of them. Not the OooooOoooo spooky kind that would be really fun to talk to while Jack was off suffering at his aunt’s place. Jack’s house is haunted with awful memories I was hoping to never think about again, but when you’re all alone waiting for your best friend to come back and you know you’re not who he’s really seeking anyway, it’s hard not to.

I can’t decide if this is better or worse than disappearing, but when I see the worry scribbled across my friend’s face, I sigh, suck it up, and say, “You hide first.”