In Plain View

herself time to figure things out.

If she went home, Aunt Maddy would ask her why she wasn’t at school. What could she say? She had to think of something. She had to have an answer. Something bad would happen if she didn’t think of a way to explain.

Her head hurt.

Everyone at school would be mad at her too, now. Worse than when she hid in the bathroom.

She was gonna be in trouble.

Now her stomach felt horrible, too.

Why was this happening? It was all wrong. She didn’t used to get in trouble. She used to believe she was a good kid. Her mom always said it-like every day.

But that couldn’t be true, could it? Because she was the same kid, and now she was always in trouble and everybody hated her. Being a good kid must be when other people thought you were good.

Grown-ups were so tricky.

Why did he do it? Why did he make everybody mad at her? She thought he was nice. He used to bring her stuff, like candy, and tell her mom to order her a pizza with plain cheese, nothing on it. He even gave her a piggyback ride to bed that one time and everyone laughed.

Jenny felt her nose tickle because of another drip. She looked for a dry spot on her jacket sleeve.

Stranger danger was such a joke. The people she knew were the scary ones.

Her fingers were getting stiff. Jenny tried to push them into the front pockets of her jeans to warm them up and touched the square of medicine tablets. She took it out and looked at it. It was exactly like the one that Tonya had. The thought gave her such a rush of guilt and excitement she stuffed it back in her pocket and shut her eyes.

What would it be like to feel no pain?

A tornado started whirling in her stomach. The inside of her throat got all thick and sticky. If she swallowed she might even vomit.

Her mother always told her to use the word vomit. Not puke or barf. Vomit was a medical word. People got sick sometimes; it was normal. People got hurt, too. And sometimes they needed medicine to get better. Her mother told her that, too.

What time was it? The sun hadn’t quite gone down, but it was so low in the sky the tall trees made it seem like night where she sat. She couldn’t even see lights from houses or anything, only trees and fences and road.

Nothing looked the same. A car passed her on the road, fast and loud.

Jenny pressed her forehead to her knees and folded her arms tight around her legs. She sniffed and rubbed her nose on her sleeve again. It burned.

She was in so much trouble she couldn’t even think what would come next. It was like trying to imagine fifth grade. Those kids had hardcover books and homework, like, every day.

How could she ever do it all by herself?

Jenny wiggled her fingers in her pocket and felt the medicine move under fingers.

What would it be like to feel no pain?

That part wasn’t so hard to imagine.

She could try to remember.

Or she could take some medicine.

6:14:46 p.m.

I was on Peg, so there was no hiding my arrival at the Jost farm. Older bikes, like the Super X, had very little covering around the engine and pipes. Peg roared.

I shut the engine down before I turned into the driveway. I left the bike propped on the far side of the road near the cow fence. Yes, Ainsley, I can be taught.

It was third-world dark out there. No street lights. No landscape highlighting. One window in the entire house showed a glow. Anywhere else in the state of Illinois, you’d think the family had gone out, leaving nothing but a kitchen light to guide their return.

In this house it was a sign someone must be home.

I knocked hard on the front door and called out, “Mr. Jost? It’s Maddy O’Hara.”

My metabolism rarely lets me cool down, but tonight my hands felt frozen stiff. I tried stamping my feet to throw off the nervy chill creeping up my back. I knocked again with the side of my fist, bam, bam, bam.

“Mr. Jost? It’s important. It’s about Rachel.”

His face appeared through the small square of window. The white skin around his eyes and the sharp profile of his nose was all I could see.

“What about my daughter?” he said.

“Open the door, Mr. Jost. I’m not going to talk to you through a door.” The ridiculousness of the situation took some of the edge off.

The door opened slowly. He wasn’t wearing his hat or his jacket. His suspenders followed the line of his chest to the forward hunch of an older man’s shoulders. He didn’t step back. Didn’t invite me in. He was being so obvious about it, I almost laughed. Why was I so afraid of this guy?

“Look, Mr. Jost. I thought you ought to know, your daughter came and spoke to me last Friday. She seemed pretty upset.” I didn’t like narcing on Rachel, but Ainsley was right. I’d feel better knowing that somebody understood how deep she was in. The only one I could think to tell was her father. “I thought you should know, she and Tom were still pretty close. She blames herself for his death.”

“What are you saying to me? What is this?” His voice was aggressive but his eyes winced with confusion. That wiry gray hair, ringing his head from skull to chin, had a life all its own.

“Help her. She’s too young. Don’t let her blame herself.” I looked him in the eye and said it out loud-the thing he feared, the thing I feared. “You were more to blame than she was.”

He stared at me, silent.

I don’t know why I waited.

“I would do most anything for her,” he told me quietly. “For my daughter.”

“Talk to her. Let her talk to you. Did you and Tom fight before he died?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, no. Quietly, as if he were talking to himself or thought I couldn’t understand, he mumbled, “The sinning comes with knowing.”

“You think you can avoid the sin through ignorance?”

“The road is hard enough. Turn away. Be separate. That is the choice we make.”

“But once you know, what then?” He wouldn’t answer. His whole way of understanding the world made me hot. “Once Tom knew things that no one else around him knew, what could he do? Did he tell you what it was like to be a kid and watch the whole world dissolve or did you make him hold it in to protect your separateness?”

“Not so well enough,” the old man growled. “Oh ja, it came out, all right.” His accent gave the sarcasm an edge. “How could I keep him in this house with Rachel? I had to keep her safe.”

“You brought him here. You were the only father he knew.”

“My pride brought him here. That is my shame. And my error to put right.”

“So you sent Tom away. You banished him.”

Silently, the man who gave Tom Jost a name, shook his head. No.

I couldn’t believe he would deny it. He might not have said the words out loud, but Tom had known he wasn’t welcome. I lost it. Couldn’t listen anymore, couldn’t hear his side of it. I got furious and something clicked. “The sin comes with knowing.” The next thought was whispered. “You knew. You saw him standing there on those boxes. Alone. For how long? You watched him die, didn’t you?”

His eyes popped and his whiskers twitched all directions. Then he growled at me in non-English, stepped back and slammed the door in my face.

My phone rang about three seconds later. I was still standing there facing a closed door.

“What?”

“It’s Ainsley, Maddy. I’m at the school. You won’t believe this. They can’t find Jenny.”