This had better not be you, Nancy, thought Lu, when the doorbell rang after Maggie had gone. It was too late for Nancy to be out and about anyway. She tended to stay on her own side of the island once Henry had fixed her her first gin and tonic, and very wisely so.
Sure enough, Nancy was not on the other side of the door. It was Anthony, smelling like a brewery that made very hoppy beer and looking like he’d just crawled out of a Dumpster. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was messed, his signature gray T-shirt had a stain on it in the shape of a cumulus cloud.
“Sorry to bother you.” He was slurring. Oh, boy. Anthony had fallen off the wagon, and he’d fallen really hard.
“No bother,” she said. “Come in.”
“My son took my mother and is missing.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right, my mother took my son. They’re missing. And I can’t get home, because there’s no more ferries.”
Lu glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty. It was a Tuesday; the last ferry departed at seven forty-five on Tuesdays. “Missing?” she said. “What do you mean, missing?”
“I mean gone,” Anthony said. He made a move to sit on the couch but misjudged and ended up on the floor. Lu helped him up. She took off his shoes. “Kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?”
“Maybe.” Anthony wrinkled his forehead. He looked confused.
“Did Cassie call the police?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she put out an Amber Alert?”
“I’m not sure.” Anthony rubbed his face. “I’m—”
“I know,” said Lu. “Drunk. I can tell. Here, sit down on the couch. Let me see your phone, maybe I can figure it out.”
Obediently Anthony handed over his phone. Lu scrolled through the texts. The first one said, Have u heard from ur mother?!!?!! The second one: She and Max are gone. It went on and on from there. I called to tell her I was coming 2 get him and by the time I got there she was gone. Toward the end, R u ever going 2 answer ur phone. And, Ur mother is a psycho.
“Oh, boy,” said Lu. She glanced at Anthony. He was standing in the middle of the living room, swaying like a newly cut tree that had not yet landed. She led him to the couch. “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She took from the refrigerator two of the leftover banana pancakes she had given the boys for dinner two nights ago (Breakfast for dinner always cheers up Charlie and Sammy if they’ve had a rough day!) and spread them with her homemade almond butter (she had unearthed a Cuisinart from the basement—it was ancient, but it had done the trick). She poured a glass of milk—an old college trick, or maybe just an old wives’ tale, something about the protein soaking up the alcohol—and she sat next to Anthony while he ate and drank everything.
“I need to call Cassie back,” he said. Anyway, that’s what she figured he meant to say. What he said sounded more like, I peed in the closet sack. He couldn’t keep his words going straight, even though he looked like he was concentrating very hard on each of them.
“No, you don’t, not now,” she said. “You’re not exactly making sense.”
“I’m not?”
“Not at all. Lie down for a few minutes. You can call when you’ve sobered up a bit. Give me your phone. I’ll hang on to it, and if you fall asleep I’ll wake you when there’s news.”
Anthony obediently lay down. Lu found a white cotton blanket covered with blue seashells and draped it over him. She put Anthony’s phone on the table next to her. She thought about texting Cassie back, but what would she say? I’ll call you when I’m sober? That wouldn’t engender confidence. No, she’d just have to wait, and hope that news came by text or that Anthony would be ready to talk soon. She checked on the boys upstairs; both were sleeping in disorganized lumps. She poured herself a glass of wine and tapped her fingers on the side of the glass, then sat on a chair near the couch and made sure Anthony’s eyes were closed, that his breathing was deep and even, until she could see his eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids.