“Then why did you even ask me where I was?” I shouted.
She looked down into her mug. And did not answer.
I learned a lot from her face in that moment. I always wanted her to tell me why she was the way she was. But it was clear she didn’t know. She wasn’t concealing an answer from me. She had none. Her life had been set in opposition to the world. To other people. Particularly to me. But she couldn’t explain it any better than I could.
I walked away. Or started to, anyway.
“Don’t you even want to hear his message?”
I stopped. Wondered if I did want to hear it. It was a bit of a toss-up.
“Fine,” I said, because it felt easier. “What did he say?”
“He’s afraid he sounded too uncaring when you were at his house. And he didn’t mean to. He feels very bad for you and Etta. He hopes you find her soon. And that you’ll let him know.”
“Thank you,” I said.
And I finished walking away.
I don’t know how much later it was when I climbed out onto the roof again. Just that it was dark.
I had slept some. Out of sheer necessity.
I did it again. Said my prayer again. Though I don’t suppose it’s right to call it a prayer, since I was talking to a person. To whoever had her.
Then my mind drifted to other possibilities. That no one had her. That she was utterly alone. That she could even be . . .
No. I couldn’t go there. I dragged my attention back again.
Somebody had her. I had to believe that.
So why aren’t they calling? my brain shrieked to me.
I forced my focus back again. And spoke in my heart to that person.
Please help her not be afraid. Please get her home to me.
In that moment it was all I had.
Then I realized it. The thing I’d never wanted to come had arrived: it had been about twenty-four hours.
Chapter Eight
Molly: What’s Your Name?
“My name is Molly,” I said.
We were snuggled up close again, in our hole, and it was getting dark again, and I was getting terrified and she knew it. You can’t be that close to someone and not feel their fear, because fear is a real thing that you can feel and kids are actually very good at that—better than grown-ups sometimes, I think.
“Molly,” she said.
“What’s your name?”
“Molly,” she said.
“Your name is Molly, too?”
“Molly,” she said again, and this time she pointed at me—pointed one tiny little baby finger right against my heart, so I would know who she meant.
We were out of apple juice and we were getting low on crackers, and I was going to have to come out of hiding with her soon, and I knew it. Even though those boys could be out there, and we might run right smack into them, and they might take her away from me. But still I was going to have to do it because I had nothing to give her to drink, so even if the boys took her away, anything was better than her getting too dehydrated, because she could die, and maybe if they took her away at least they would be smart enough to give her some water.
Still, with them it was hard to know, because smart was not exactly a specialty of theirs.
But I would have to come out with her soon because I was about to have no choice, and I had never been so scared in my life and she knew it. Why she wasn’t screaming her head off was beyond me, except she was a very smart little girl, and she knew I desperately needed her to be brave and quiet, and she was trying to do it for me.
Which was pretty amazing for such a little kid. I had so much respect and love for her I almost thought it was going to explode me.
“What’s your name?” I asked her again.
“Molly,” she said, and pointed to my heart with one tiny finger.
“We’re going to have to go out there and flag down a car,” I said, and she fussed and cried some because she could tell I was getting more and more scared.
But I didn’t mean up on the freeway, because I had already decided that was out of the question. The fence was too high to climb with the baby in my arms, and then if we got up there it was too dangerous to be there, and the cars couldn’t really stop for us anyway, like I think I said before.
No, we were going to have to go down to the street right below us, and pretty soon, too, because I knew from last night that after a certain hour of the evening the cars just pretty much stop coming there. It’s all businesses there, but not like little shops that would stay open. Businesses like industries, like people go to work there in shifts and then they stop going there at all, and then we’d be all alone again for another night. But I didn’t know when that would happen, so I figured I’d better hurry.
But here was the thing—the big problem. I didn’t hurry—I didn’t go at all, because I was so scared I couldn’t move, because I kept thinking of running into those boys, and the looks on their faces when they took her away from me. And even worse than that, I thought of the look on her face when she lost me—not that I’m so much or so great, but I knew she trusted me and I was the only thing she had and it had been that way for just about a whole day. I pictured how she would cry and reach her arms out to me and call, “Molly!” I saw that in my head even though I really, really wanted not to.
And then I just got
