When LD pulls up at the house, it looks like the entire town is there. Parked police cars line the lawn like a crime scene. Chief Gursenburg has his hands on his hips, talking to Mrs. Perez inside. I hesitate, wishing I could stay in this car forever, but I have to get out at some point, I realize, especially now that we’ve pulled into the driveway and they’re looking at me. The police I can handle, but the stony look chiseled onto Micah’s face makes me want to die. He waits on the porch steps for me, twirling his class ring on his finger, and all I can think is, Well, he hasn’t given it to Heather yet, so that’s a good thing.
I can see Grams through the window, rocking back and forth in her favorite recliner with a blanket wrapped around her. She’s nodding to whatever Micah’s mom is telling her. Mrs. Perez has a pinched, unreadable expression on her face only reserved for when she’s trying to control her anger.
“C’mon, we’ll go in together,” LD says, and we get out of the car.
Micah stands to greet us.
“Thanks,” I murmur. My eyes are burning from the tears, but I can’t cry. I’m so mad at myself for everything.
“She was lost,” Micah says, putting his hands into his slacks. His yellow tie is loose, hanging limp around his neck. The way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m a criminal. “Said she didn’t know where she was. Why didn’t you have an eye on her?”
“And where were you, buddy?” LD cuts in. “Why didn’t you look after her?”
“Because it’s not—”
“Not your responsibility?” she finishes for him, and Micah’s face goes slack. I don’t want to hear this fight right now. I try to say as much but LD beats me to it. “So, let me get this straight: you’re allowed to go and live your life and do what you want to do, but Iggy can’t? And then you have the nerve to point your finger at her when you’re just as much to blame?”
Micah purses his lips, but then he says what I don’t want him to. He says it because he’s angry, because she’s right. I know Micah enough to know he doesn’t mean it, but the words slip out of his mouth anyway, and they sting like hornets against my chest. “She’s not my grandma.”
LD squints, stepping up to him. “Is that you talking, or is that your leash?”
“Fuck off—”
“I’m sorry,” I quickly interject, stepping between them. I don’t want a fight. I just want them to leave. I just want everyone to go home. “I’m sorry. Thank you—it won’t happen again.”
“It’s not your fault, North,” Billie rumbles, coming over to us. He must smell the fight brewing.
“Don’t be her white knight, Bleaker. Let her own up to it,” Micah snaps at him. His shoulders are tense, his fists clenched. “Or were you her distraction?”
Billie quirks an eyebrow. He crosses his arms over his chest. He’s easily four inches taller than Micah, and a good deal stronger, but it never occurred to me how scary Billie could look. Not until now, the tension tight in the air. “And what if I was? And so sue me, North let Grams out of her sight for one minute to have a little fun.”
Micah narrows his brown-eyed gaze at us. “Well I hope it was worth it,” is all he says, and shoulders between LD and me. His shoulders slam against ours. His muscles are taut and tense, his fists visibly clenched, as he cuts across my yard to his and stomps up the steps. I can’t remember a time when he looked so furious. Why does he even care?
He hasn’t cared in weeks.
A silence settles between the three of us, so thick you can cut it with one of LD’s six-inch heels.
Billie scratches the stubble on his chin. “At least she’s okay.”
“Yeah,” LD murmurs half-heartedly.
“No she’s not okay,” I snap. Billie’s eyes widen in surprise. I glare at him through tear-clouded eyes. “None of this is okay. Micah’s right, I should’ve paid closer attention to her. I shouldn’t have gotten distracted.”
“So it’s my fault?” Billie points to himself.
“No, it’s mine. For fooling myself.”
“North—”
My fists clench. I hate the way he says my name. Like I mean something. I don’t want to, anymore. “Go home, Billie.”
He bites his words, his shoulders stiffening. “Fine—but for the record? I meant what I said when we were dancing.” Then he’s gone, down the road like a broad, sulking shadow.
LD nudges her head up to the chief talking with Micah’s mom in the doorway. “Go see if Gram’s okay. I’ll see you later.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek, and waits for me to climb the steps to our house before she leaves, too.
After a moment, the chief notices me standing in the doorway and tells me my grandmother is all right. That’s relative, I want to say, because she hasn’t been all right for a while, and no one seems to care. “Sebastian Darling already looked her over,” he says under his thick graying mustache, “and gave her a clean bill but . . . he suggested that she needs extra care. We know you are trying, Ingrid, but her safety comes first.”
“I know,” I quickly reply. “It won't happen again, Scout’s honor.”
He catches me by the arm before I can breeze by him. “This is a serious matter, Ingrid. You need to start thinking about what’s best for her. I’ll have Doctor Darling call you in the morning so we can start setting up something more permanent—”
“I said I’ve got it,” I interrupt. I fist my hands. They’re shaking.
His hard eyebrows soften. “Ingrid, we know you do. Everyone needs a little—”
“Sir.”
He finally gets the gist. “All right, then.” He tips his hat to Grams and leaves.
Mrs. Perez tells me there is leftover lasagna in our refrigerator, and to call if I need anything. I see her to the door and draw the chain lock.
Now it’s just me.
On the couch, Grams is humming another tune from Singing in the Rain. It’s familiar, like a soft radio in another room.
Sometimes, I like to imagine that my mom’s probably in Tahiti or Bora-Bora, interviewing some “retired” twentysomething starlet. Or maybe she’s in Russia, covering the filming of that new superhero movie. Or maybe LA, going to exclusive parties and dating exclusive men and getting exclusives about exclusive lives. Wherever she is, it isn't here.
She isn’t where she should be.
Grams looks up from her celebrity magazine and smiles at me. She doesn't look like she’s been down by the reservoir. She looks like she never went anywhere at all. She probably doesn’t even remember the festival even though she’s still wearing her sunflower dress. “It’s about time you came home!”
I sit on the couch next to her recliner and pull her into a tight, crushing hug. She feels like a bag of bones through her nightgown. “I'm so sorry, Grams.”
“For what?” she asks in good humor, and rubs at the faded mascara under my cheek.
“I wasn't here.”
“Well, where were you?”
I hesitate. I'm so tired of lying. “I was dancing.”
Her gray eyebrows quirk up. “Dancing? Oh, that sounds grand. With a boy? Is he cute?”
“He’s . . . nice. But he’s leaving.”
“That’s silly. So are you! My baby girl going to California. Going to be a real reporter. He can always come visit.”
My heart begins to free-fall from my chest, down, down, down into the pit of my stomach. There are plaques with my mom’s name on them still hanging in the hallway, high school awards for journalism, ribbons and certificates and banners. A reminder every day that my mom left because she was too talented for Steadfast, for me.
“You know what?” Grams grabs my hands and encloses them in her bony ones. There are age marks and splotches on her well-worn hands, calluses as hard as Brillo pads. “I want to tell you something. I can see your father”–grandfather, I correct to myself—“in your eyes, darling, and sometimes people are just too big for the places that keep them.”
She’s wrong. I’m not too big for the town. I’m too small. It’s swallowing me up. I’m stuck in at the bottom of the well, not because I don't have the resources to climb out, but because my ankles are weighted with what I’ll leave behind, and the water’s rising.