if they’d done a better job with the “search” part.
Because Jake has been gone for twenty-seven days,
and Mom says they haven’t even been looking,
not really.
She never shouts, but she shouts at them tonight.
“Don’t you think I’ve searched this room
for any clue about
where he went?
What are you even looking for?”
“Drugs,” says the short one,
and the tall one looks at him with an angry face,
like maybe
he wasn’t supposed to tell us.
“Drugs,” my mom repeats.
“Are you trying to find my son
or convict him of something?”
“We’ll need you to wait in another room, please,”
says the short one, and my mom says,
“Yes, I’ll do that.
I’ll be in another room
calling my lawyer.”
She shakes her head at me
when they’re not watching
so I won’t tell them
that we don’t have a lawyer,
because lawyers cost money
and we don’t have money, either.
I hold so still,
am so silent,
that they let me stay.
Jake would want somebody
keeping an eye on his stuff.
But when they’re done searching,
the short one turns his laser eyes on me.
“When my partner said ‘drugs,’
you didn’t look surprised.”
“Sometimes people’s facial expressions
don’t match social norms,”
I say,
which I know is true
because the school counselor said so,
but is also not
the whole truth.
“Okay,” he says.
“Were you surprised?”
I try to blend into the wall again.
It doesn’t work.
“You can tell us,” says the tall one.
“We really are trying to find him,
and it might help.”
I look at the clothes folded wrong,
the books stacked wrong,
the rip across the mattress.
If they really wanted to help us,
I could tell them how to
fold the clothes and
stack the books
the way Jake likes them.
If I really wanted to help them,
I could tell them there won’t be anything
hiding in the mattress,
because he always kept the pills
in the little metal tin
that says
FIRST AID
in his nightstand drawer,
and that tin
disappeared
with Jake.
If we both helped each other,
could we help Jake?
Maybe I could have kept all this from happening
if I hadn’t kept my secret.
“You have a story to tell us,”
says the tall one.
“I promise, we’re only trying to find him.
And help him, if he has a problem.”
“Will I be in trouble?” I ask.
“If I should have told somebody before
but I was
too afraid?”
“No, honey,” she says,
and even though
I don’t like being called food words,
I like her better.
“Can I write it down?”
I ask.
“Of course,”
she says.
So I get a pencil
and a piece of paper
and sit at Jake’s desk.
Mom comes in and tells me
I don’t have to tell them anything,
but it’s too late.
I’ve already stepped off the edge.
The story falls from me.
Jake stands on the roof, watching lights blink on across town. It hadn’t even seemed dark to him, but that’s how night comes on. You don’t realize how dark it’s gotten until there’s light again in contrast.
Today was their third day laying this roof. Hours of black underlayment and heavy shingles that would have been unbearable in the summer just felt like a solid workout now that the air had turned cooler. Plus, it’s impossible to look at the straight rows of shingles and not feel a sense of pride. He did that. His work would keep a family safe and dry for years to come.
Jake has come to like these quiet moments when the rest of the guys have gone. He offers to stay and clean up almost every day now. The extra work is worth the moment when he can sit down with a cold Gatorade and look out over the rooftops and unwind. Especially at this house—a two-story on a hillside where you can see all of Ashland, from the community college to the elementary school, from the Dollar Depot to the car dealership. Especially tonight, his last night on the job, since he’s got to get ready for basketball season.
Then a new set of lights comes on, brighter even than the dealership’s. Any other year and Jake would be down there on the football field. He’s never been all that great at football—good enough to make the team but not good enough to make any kind of a difference on the field. After struggling through summer conditioning, though, he talked with the football coach and told him he couldn’t play anymore. He needed to focus on basketball this year, because that’s where his scholarship was coming from. Needed to avoid another injury, especially after he’d already messed up his knee playing summer ball.
The football coach tried to talk him out of it. “I hate to see you miss your senior season because of a hypothetical. And you know, Jake,” he said, “an injury could happen anytime, anywhere.”
But when Jake insisted his mind was made up, they let him go without a fight, and that stung a little. He was helpful on the field, but not essential. Not really enough. Jake tried to tell himself it was because even the football coach knew this was the basketball team’s year, that everything was on the line.
Now, watching the headlights streaming into the high school parking lot, Jake knows his reasoning was stupid. He hasn’t spent any extra time in the gym these last few weeks; he just kept the roofing job. And even though the money has been nice, he wishes he were down there with his friends tonight.
But it’s too late to turn back now. On a lot of things, really.
Jake heads to the boss’s trailer and pulls a Glacier Cherry out of the cooler. He’s not sure whether he always picks it because he likes it or because Daphne does. Either way, he’s looking forward to drinking it.
Back up on the roof, he checks his phone, thinks about texting Kolt and Seth to tell them good luck. Or Luke, to see if he wants to go to the game. Or maybe Daphne, to see if she wants to join him here.
But there’s a distance between them now. He wishes they could go back to the way things were, to the way they fit together at the beginning of the summer.
