Chapter 5
Jack

Mom and I slink along the colorful aisles of the Second Chance to Play toy store, two secret agents on a mission. Mom hums the Mission Impossible theme as she grabs my hand and pulls me around the corner into an aisle of floor-to-ceiling “lightly loved” stuffed animals. Other grown-ups stop to stare, but Mom doesn’t seem to care.

“Is that him?” Mom whispers with a hopeful sparkle in her voice that I haven’t heard since before Dad left.

My eyes follow her gesture to an overstuffed plush lemur that is neither walrusy nor alive. It’s not even a wallaby. “He’s more humany than that, he wears jeans and T-shirts, and he moves.” I try to match her enthusiasm, but my hopes are fading fast. Mom never saw George before he left. I don’t know how she thinks she’ll see him now, or why she even wants to.

Mom frowns before bringing an imaginary walkie-talkie to her lips. “The wallaby is still on the run. I repeat. The wallaby is on the run.”

My cousins and their friend come around the corner, reluctant participants in our frantic journey all over the city, from the bank (George used to love the free mints) to the community pool (I can’t swim, but George was a champ) to this secondhand toy store.

“Are you done kidnapping us yet?” Morgan whines. Nearby parents scan my mother with concerned eyes. A man wearing enough Red Sox merchandise to open a museum takes a step forward.

Blushing, Jason holds up his hand to stop him. “It’s okay,” he reassures the stranger, which seems to be enough.

Morgan’s friend groans. “This place is for babies, and I’m running out of battery.”

“You can always borrow my Six,” Mom shoots back.

“Aunt Ronnie,” Morgan whines, “I thought this was just gonna be pizza.”

My mother is not the least bit concerned. “Then consider yourself lucky getting to spend this extra time with Jack.”

“Can I just take the 86 bus home?” she begs.

“Oh yeah,” Mom replies. “I’m going to let you wander the city on your own. My sister would love that.”

“Rach wouldn’t mind!”

“Gonna have to eighty-six that idea, sweetie, but thanks for trying.” I’m as impressed by Mom's snappy response as I am by Morgan's knowledge of the bus system.

“I’ll be by the door,” Morgan’s friend says. He slinks away. Honestly, I can’t blame him. It’s fun being kinda silly with Mom, but Second Chance to Play is pure cheese, with yellow walls to match. I avoid making eye contact with the drooping dolls and once-loved plushies that remind me all too much of George, not to mention my dad. When Dad was around, sometimes he’d take me here and warn me, “Don’t tell Mom,” as he would sneakily buy me a stuffed animal or a small metal car. No such luck with Mom. “We’ve got to save money,” she would always insist. I’m too old for that kind of stuff now anyway.

“Mom,” I say, “We should just go home.”

She swishes my request away with a flick of her wrist. “Soon,” she promises. “But I want you to be happy, Jack, before . . .” She trails off.

“Before what?” I insist.

Leaning in, Mom boops my nose like I’m not almost eleven. “Before I help you find George.” Without another word, she leans into a large bin of stuffed animals and begins throwing them every which way, as if George might somehow be buried alive in the middle. Morgan, Jason, and other customers duck to avoid being hit by the soft projectiles.

“Mom,” I protest, right before an employee clears his throat and nervously mutters, “Ma’am.”

She snaps upright and glares at him. “I am NOT a ma’am,” she asserts, threateningly whipping around a plush pink bunny.

He steps back, hands up. “Nobody has to get hurt, ma’am. Madam. Miss.”

“Jeez, relax,” says Morgan, rolling her eyes. “It’s a stuffed bunny.” At least she’s like this to everyone.

Mom ignores them both, her mind still fixed on the task at hand. “Where did you first meet George?” she asks me.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I mutter. This is getting ridiculous. Scheming, I respond with a twinge of hope: “Home?”

“Oh come on, Jack,” she protests.

My mind flashes to the moment I did meet George. Mom and Dad were fighting in public again, and as usual, it was all my fault. I shouldn’t have spilled my ice cream, and I probably shouldn’t have even asked for it in the first place. I had slipped away to a nearby bench to pretend that they were talking about something else, that everything was fine. To un-imagine all the bad stuff that I knew was coming. To— “What’re you doing here all alone?” George asked, surprising me as he appeared out of nowhere.

“Come on, Jack, tell me!” Mom insists. People are starting to look at us again.

“The zoo,” I reluctantly tell her. “But we really don’t have to—”

“Of course! To the zoo!” She hurls the pink bunny at the employee, grabs my arm, and yanks me out the door.

Within twenty minutes, we’re parked at the zoo and approaching the ticket booth.

“You swear this is the last stop, Aunt Ronnie?” Even Jason is exhausted.

Mom offers an “Mmm-hmm,” as the zoo employee studies our group through a small glass window.

“Twenty dollars for you and fourteen for each of them,” the zoo employee says.

Mom clutches her chest and takes an exaggerated step back. “Twenty? Isn’t there a discount for wronged single mothers?” She tries to smile.

The attendant looks at her with unmistakable pity and hesitantly repeats the price: “It’ll be seventy-six dollars?”

Mom sighs. “You three want to wait in the car?” she asks, looking at Jason, Morgan, and Morgan’s friend. I honestly can’t tell if she’s joking or not.

“Yes!” Morgan’s friend practically pleads, before Mom shakes the thought from her head and slips her credit card through the slot.

The zoo employee swipes and hands Mom the card along with five tickets. “Have a great time?” It’s more of a question, but maybe we actually will. Mom’s trying, and this is where I met George. Maybe we’re onto something. As soon as we walk through the turnstile, I’m pulling Mom’s hand and leading her from one exhibit to the next.

Giraffes. Elephants. Prairie Dogs. Pigeons.

I know it’s silly, but I kinda have a good feeling about this, and the closer we get to those walruses, the more excited I get.

Just as we’re about to reach the Arctic, the place when I first met George, Mom’s phone starts to ring. Fumbling through her purse, she pulls it out and groans. “Jack, I should get this.”

“Is it Dad?” I ask.

She slips a five and a few loose ones into my hand and pushes the four of us into the nearest gift shop. “Get yourself something. This’ll only take a minute.”

I scan the miscellaneous animal figures and keychains and kazoos, before finally settling on a deck of zoo playing cards. These’ll be perfect for playing one of the only games I know how to play: solitaire. I peek out the window and see Mom on the phone, getting more agitated by the moment. Whoever it is, they’re ruining everything.

I buy the cards. With a quick glance at my cousins, who are buried in their own fancy phones, I slip out of the store.

Mom’s back is to me. “No, Rachel,” she snaps. “I obviously did not know they had haircuts scheduled, so sue me.” It seems Aunt Rachel isn’t too thrilled with the “kidnapping” either. “Jeez, sis. I’ll get ’em home in like thirty minutes.”

I bite my lip, before slipping past the fateful bench where it all began and heading toward the walrus tank. I shove the cards and receipt into my pocket as the handmade flier flashes into my mind. Have you seen this person? A smile spreads across my face.

Soon, George. Soon.