Page 73 of Fragments of the Lost
But she brushed the question aside. “I need to pack up his room.”
It’s then that I saw the question, heard it lingering between the spoken lines. She licked her lips. “This isn’t something a mother should ever have to do.” And then, “The room is full of you, Jessa.” It was both an invitation and a request, and I seized it.
“Okay,” I said.
“We’ll be ready for you this weekend.” Then she started the car, with one look back at my house.
She looked so small, with me standing over her on the curb, and the childlike notebook in the passenger seat, which must’ve been Mia’s.
My parents were due back with Julian at any moment. Memories of Caleb circled in the silence again. I was never so grateful for the headlights coming down the road, and Julian crammed in the backseat, like an oversized kid.
I was already walking toward the driveway when he exited the car.
“If I knew you’d be waiting on the curb, I would’ve caught an earlier train,” he joked. He tucked my head under his chin and said, “Good to see you, kid.”
I patted him twice on the back, thrown by the sudden display of affection. My parents averted their gaze, and I knew: they had spoken to him, warned him that I was a fragile thing that must now be handled with care.
Like a glass figurine in the box.
—
Now I see the notebook in the trash can, under the placemats and utensils and cookbooks, nothing else of Mia’s on top or underneath.
I open the cover, expecting to see Mia’s writing. But instead it looks like a ledger. Row after row of times, dates, locations. I flip the page, and it keeps going. A diary. A file. Propping it on the edge of the garbage can lid, I try to read the words in the fading light. I cup my hand around the pages, to protect it from the steady drizzle.
There is a list. An annotated schedule. I’m confused at first. It says things like:school, home, school,with predictable times, in an unwavering pattern of regularity.
The dates don’t make sense, because Caleb wasn’t there. These are more recent.
Then there are a few diversions.Walk, 10 p.m.Another:Run.Out for 1 hr.And another:Girl shows up. Leaves after 10 min.And then an address follows.
I look again. I know that address. It belongs to my best friend. To Hailey. I don’t understand why Eve would be following Hailey. What Hailey has to do with anything atall.
I look at the dates again. This is the day after the service, and I realize where Hailey had been for those ten minutes on that day. Where Eve must’ve followed her from.
It was my house. She was at my house, trying to talk me out of the darkness, and I sent her away.
I see the dates again. The walks I took at night, when everyone else was sleeping. Running in the dark, where I could hear a steady rumbling, like a river.
But no, not a river. A car engine in the distance, followingme.
My hands shake, and the paper trembles faintly in my grip. These are my movements. This is my path. She’s been following me.
—
“Jessa?” Eve calls from the back door. “Is that you?”
I look up to Caleb’s window, then down at my feet again. I start to slowly ease the garbage can aside, but his mother stands at the back door, watching me, frowning.
“Can I help you with something?” she asks.
I drop the notebook into the container, wipe the rain residue from my face. “I was emptying his garbage,” I say, holding the can up to her. A proclamation of innocence. I didn’t see. I want to force the words into her mind.I didn’t see.
“It’s getting late,” she says. “Bring that back up, and we’ll call it a day.”
But I suddenly don’t want to be alone in the house with her. Not up on the third floor, with no exit, trapped behind crooked stairs.
“I need to go home,” I say, taking a step back.I didn’t see. I didn’t see. I didn’t see.
