“Everything okay?” The motel manager ducks out of the office as I pass.
“You scared me!”
“Thought maybe you’d done a moonlight.”
I look toward our room. The car’s gone. But light shines between the closed drapes.
“Your mom left a while back,” he tells me. “Seemed a bit upset.”
“Upset how?”
“I heard yelling. In a real hurry she was, when she left.”
She could have been shouting at the weatherman or a game-show host. “I’m sure she’s fine,” I tell him. Then I ask, “How did you know this?”
“I keep an eye out. Many people who come here, they are, well…” He looks around.
“Are what?”
“I could tell your mom was—”
“Nuts? My mom is nuts. As you have obviously noticed.”
He frowns. “That’s a bit harsh. She did seem a bit erratic.”
Erratic is right. “Is there anything else?” Most of the time, I feel like I can’t cope with my mother. But when anyone else notices? All I feel is their judgment. Of her. And me. I should be able to control her, I hear them thinking. “Look. I better go.”
“Of course. You go,” he says. “And I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You mean well,” I say. It’s probably true.
“I mean for scaring you like that.” He smiles gently.
My gut twists every time I come back to a dark, empty place. It’s as if Mom leaves something dark and toxic behind her.
There’s no sign of her. But the tv is blaring and the bathroom light is on.
I avoid looking toward the office as I head out again.
If there’s one thing Mom likes better than a playground, it’s a playground at night. I make the rounds, but the place is empty. Everything is in shadow. A swing creaks in a breeze. A piece of paper rattles across the ground. I sit down on the bench, pull my zipper up to my chin and shove my hands into my pockets. “Where are you, you silly cow?”
I’m talking to myself again. I clamp my mouth shut. But everyone does it, don’t they?
When I scuff my feet on the ground, I discover a hole in my runners. I check under the bench to make sure Bandit’s not on the loose. “What am I doing?” My laugh sounds crazy in the dark.
I bite the inside of my cheek until it hurts so much that tears fill my eyes. I try to swallow the feeling that I’m losing it. Any day it will be me yelling at servers at the coffee shop. Making rude remarks about people to their faces.
It’s no wonder Grand always keeps us at arm’s length.
On the street, a cop car slows down. I hold still until it moves off, its light smearing the dark.
I do another slow circuit of the playground, and then the community center. When I poke my head into the arena, all I see is a dad standing over his kid, yelling. I hear echoing voices, skates banging against boards, the hiss of skates on ice.
At Tim Hortons, the customers are all lit up in the windows. Even though I don’t see Mom, I go in and ask for the washroom key. When the server in a dorky hairnet gives it to me right away, I tell him, “I changed my mind.”
If the key’s still here, my mother’s not inside.
I feel him watching me as I leave. “Where can she be?” I ask myself.
A man stands aside to let me pass. “I’m sorry?” he says.
I don’t answer.
She’s done this before, taking off with no notice. Dozens of times. Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes for a whole day—or three. And when she gets back, she is mad, as if I am making a fuss over nothing.
When I run out of places to look for her, I head back to the room.
I plan to call Grand. I should call Grand. I had it all figured out, what I was going to say. Someone has to be the grownup. And it can’t be me.
I think of how Jake moved between his furry and feathered creatures. Petting, stroking, murmuring. And how hard it is for me to touch my own bitter-smelling mother, to pick up after her, to hear her nighttime mumblings, her daytime rants.
Where is she?
I slump onto the bed and pull the covers over my head. The tv drones in the background. I wish I had something warm and soft to hang on to.
I don’t know how much later I am startled awake by Mom looming over me. “Where is it? What did you do with it?”
“With what?” I squint up at her.
She whacks me with her shoe. “The ticket.” She pulls off her other shoe. She bangs them together. “I was keeping it safe. You were the last person wearing my shoes—you know what I mean.”
“Calm down.”
“Where is my ticket?” Her cheeks are flushed.
“It’s somewhere safe.”
She yanks the bedspread so hard I hear it rip. “I went to claim the winnings. You made me look like a real jerk. I emptied my whole purse. Then I remembered it wasn’t there. You should have heard the guy. Just because I took off my shoe—”
“Please don’t tell me you hit him.”
“Why would I hit anyone?”
“You just hit me.”
“You deserved it. I checked both shoes. No ticket. Where is it?”
I can imagine the scene. Mom dumping the contents of her purse on the counter. Adding her shoes to the pile. Ranting and raving while the poor store clerk edges away, reaching for the phone, a panic button.
I guess it wasn’t that store where the lady was so nice to me. The way she managed those two kids, she could have handled my mother. I pull myself up against the headboard. “So what happened?”
“When?”
“After you took off your shoes?”
“I put them right back on again. It’s cold out, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I mean, in the store?”
She waves a hand in the air. “They said they would call the cops. For what? It’s a crime to take your shoes off?”
“Did the police come?”
“I passed a squad car on my way back here. But nothing to do with me.” She drops into the armchair, mumbling to herself now. “I remember putting it in my shoe. Maybe another shoe. Another pair.”
I don’t bother to point out that she doesn’t have another pair.
“If someone else finds that ticket, they will be living the high life while we—” Mom looks around. Suddenly her voice evens out, as if we were having a completely normal conversation. “Have you had supper? I’m starving.”
“Have you taken your pills?”
“Why are you asking me that now?”
“You’re acting like someone who is behind on their pills.”
“I have to take them with food. You know that. You coming to find supper, or what?”
She doesn’t give me time to tell her about supper at Jake’s or to follow.
She’s forgotten about the ticket. Again. There are benefits to having a mother with the attention span of a flea.
I stand at the door, staring into the night. The motel sign swings in the dark. A shadow of something—a cat, a rat, a ferret?—streaks along the sidewalk opposite me.
I half-expect Jake to appear in the dark.
Mom stalks past the car and across the motel forecourt without looking back. I step outside. Then duck back in. “Just go, then, why don’t you,” I mutter. “And don’t come back.”
Hours later, when I hear the door handle rattle, I stagger across the room.
“Jake!”
“Hi.”
I’m aware of my crumpled clothes, my messy hair. The thick, stale taste in my mouth. “What time is it? How did you find me?”
He checks his watch. “Almost ten. You told me where you were staying, remember?” He comes in and closes the door. He looks around. “You alone?”
I look around.
Yes. I am alone.
I slump onto the bed.
He comes closer. Stands so close I feel the warmth from his legs on my knees. “What’s wrong?”
When tears fill my eyes, I look away. “If you must know, my mom’s gone.” I bite my lip to stop my chin from trembling.
“Gone?”
“She left.” My phone buzzes from somewhere under the covers.
“You going to get that?” he asks.
I stare the bed into silence. Grab the phone from under the covers and shove it in my pocket.
I will talk to Grand soon. I will make him listen. Make him do something more than just worry.
But right now… “Will you help me find my mother?” It is so hard to ask.
“Sure.” And it seems so easy for Jake to answer.