Page 98 of The Love Losers

I can’t get to her.

I prowl the house like a caged animal, and find my mother sitting alone in the drawing room. “I was wondering when you’dwake up,” she says. “Emma and I thought it was best to let you get some sleep. You looked so exhausted earlier.”

I’m angry, but I know it’s mostly at the situation I’ve found myself in.

“I have to talk to Rosie.”

She gives me a sympathetic smile and nods to the chair across from her seat.

“I’ll stand.”

Shrugging, she says, “Dear, Jake told me she’s decided to go to New York City with her brother as soon as the roads clear up. They plan to stay through New Year’s.”

“New York?” I repeat, feeling like I’ve turned to stone.

“New York,” she agrees.

A feeling of horror overtakes me, creeping in around my hard edges and attempts to wall myself off. I shouldn’t have let her leave like that yesterday. Maybe she’s made this decision because she thinks it’s the best way to keep her family safe. If so, I’d be an asshole to try to convince her otherwise. But I need to at least tell her how I feel. I can’t let her believe that these past weeks have meant nothing to me. “Are my snow shoes still here?”

“Anthony…”

“Are they?”

“Yes, but it’smuchtoo cold. Twenty degrees. And it’s at least eight miles. It would take you all night. If you make it. And how would her brother react if you show up at his door first thing in the morning, half frozen?”

“I don’t care. I can bundle up.”

“What if he thinks you’re an intruder and shoots you?”

“I’ll die knowing I’ve finally taken a stand.”

I’m already heading toward the garage when she gets up, moving much faster than I thought she could, and grips my arm.“She’s not going anywhere tonight. The streets haven’t been plowed.”

“I can’t sit here waiting,” I say, my voice shaking. “I can’t let her slip away from me. I’ll always regret it.”

“So sit with me and make a plan. Emma and I have discussed the situation, and I reached out to those private investigators. They seem confident they can handle Nina.”

But a new conviction grips my chest. “I’m the one who needs to handle Nina, and I will.”

She gives me a sharp look that I feel down to my bones. I see my father, using his knife to make switches. Making me watch him do it.

“I’dneverhurt her physically,” I say vehemently.

“I wouldn’t think that of you. I was only going to caution you not to do anything that could get you into trouble. We have enough of that going around.”

I nod, my throat thick.

“And to remind you, again, that there isn’t a single thing wrong with accepting help when you need it. Especially from people who are eager to offer it.”

“Okay,” I say, because she’s right, of course, and also because it seems easier to be agreeable. “Then help me do this. I need to see Rosie. I feel like I’ll die if I don’t.”

She gives a world-weary sigh, as if she’s sick of handling idiots, then says, “Leave in the morning. We can ask that teenager next door to borrow his snowmobile.”

The thirty-something who steals her paper.

“He has a snowmobile?” I ask.

“His kids have been over there joyriding on it all day.”

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