Gone

Janie tilts her head. “Yanno, Cabe, maybe neighbors, the entire town of Fieldridge . . . maybe what they think actually does matter to me. I mean, God. Forget it. I’m just so tired of all of this. Sheesh, what next?”

After a pause, Cabel says, “Straight to the hospital, then, right?”

“Yeah, I figure that’s the best thing we can do. She could just be sitting, waiting in the ER. We’ll try that first . . . you think?”

“Yeah.”

9:57 p.m.

Janie and Cabel stand in the ER, unsure of what to do. No sign of Carrie or Janie’s mother anywhere among the assortment of ill and injured. No one at the desk has any record of her either.

Cabel taps his fingers against his lips, thinking. “Is Hannagan your mom’s married name?”

Janie squinches her eyes shut and sighs. “No.” She’s never told Cabel much about her mother, and he’s never asked. Which was just the way Janie liked it. Until now.

“Um . . . ?” Cabel prompts. “How do I put this PC. Let’s see. Okay, has your mom ever gone by any other name besides Hannagan?”

“No. Her name’s Dorothea Hannagan, and that’s the only name she’s ever had. I’m a bastard. Okay?”

“Janie, seriously. Nobody cares about that.”

“Yeah, well, I care. At least you know who both your parents are.”

Cabel stares at Janie. “Fat lot of good that did me.”

“Oh, jeez, Cabe.” Janie grimaces. “I’m sorry. Major verbal typo. I’m stressed—I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Cabel looks like he’s about to say something, but he holds back. Looks around again, futilely. “Come on,” he says, grabbing Janie’s hand. “Elevator. We’ll walk around, check waiting rooms. Ten minutes, tops, and if we don’t find Carrie, we head back to your house and wait. I don’t know what else to do.”

A shiver crawls over Janie’s skin. Her mother, the drunk, is missing.

10:02 p.m.

There, in the third-floor waiting room.

ICU.

Elbows on her knees and face in her hands, fingers threaded through her long dark curls. Leaning forward. Like she’s ready to jump to her feet at any second and run like hell.

“Carrie!” Janie says.

Carrie pops up. “Oh, good, you got my note.”

“Where’s . . . Is my mother . . . ?”

“She’s in the room with him.”

“What? Who?”

“Didn’t you get my note?”

“What note? All I know is what you left on my voice mail.”

“I left a note on Ethel—in the parking lot. Figured you’re a detective now, or whatever. You oughta think to look for my car. Anyways, how the hell did you find me, then? Never mind. Your mom—she’s fine. I mean, she’s still drunk but I think she’s coming down now . . . like way down. She’s all weepy and shaky. But—”

“Carrie,” Janie says firmly. “Focus. Tell me what’s wrong with my mother and where I can find her.”

Carrie sighs. She looks tired. “Your mom is fine. Just drunk.”

Janie glances nervously through the open door to the hallway as a nurse walks by. Her voice is low and urgent. “Okay, okay, I get that she’s drunk. She’s always drunk. Can we stop shouting that please? And if she’s fine, why the fuck are we all in Intensive Care?”

“Oh, man,” Carrie says. She shakes her head. “Where to start?”

Cabel nudges Janie and Carrie toward the chairs and sits down with them. “Who’s ‘him’, Carrie? Who is she with?” he says gently.

Janie nods, echoing the question.

But she already knows.

There’s only one “him” it could possibly be. There is no one else in the world. No one else that would make Janie’s mother react this way. No one else Janie’s mother dreams about.

Carrie, whose normally dancing eyes are dulled from the weariness of the unusual day, looks at Janie. “Apparently, it’s your father, Janers. He’s, like, really sick.”

Janie just looks at Carrie. “My father?”

“They don’t think he’s going to make it.”

10:06 p.m.

Janie falls back into the chair. Numb. No idea how she’s supposed to feel about this news. No. Freaking. Clue.

Cabel lifts his hand to pause the conversation. The three sit in the waiting room in silence for a moment, Janie looking blank, Carrie working a piece of gum, Cabel closing his eyes and shaking his head ever so slightly. “Start from the beginning,” he says.

Carrie nods. Thinks. “Yeah, so, this afternoon, probably around three o’clock, I heard somebody hollering outside. I ignored it ’cause there’s always somebody yelling around our neighborhood, right? And I’m folding laundry on the bed and then through my window I see Janie’s mom, which is so weird, because she, like, never goes outside unless she’s walking to the gas station or the bus stop to get booze, right? But today she’s in her nightgown wandering around the yard—”

Janie flushes and puts her hands to her face. “Oh, God,” she says.

“—and, uh, she’s calling ‘Janie! Janie!’ and then she sort of stumbles and I go running outside to see what’s wrong with her. And Dorothea, she’s crying and says, ‘The phone! I gotta go to the hospital,’ over and over about twenty times, and I’m calling you and leaving you messages and finally I just drive her here ’cause I don’t know what else to do. And it takes us like an hour of sitting in the ER and talking to the receptionist before she’s . . . um . . . calmed down and able to explain that she’s not sick—that she got a phone call and she needs to see Henry.”