Page 17 of Good Half Gone

I tried to read the expression on her face. Did what I said make a difference to her? I wanted it to. I was pathetic. I hated her and wanted her so badly. Her daughter was missing, my twin, we’d grown in her. Why couldn’t she care? Didn’t it mean something that we were hers?

“Gran, she’s not here. Let’s go!” I got back into the car and slammed the door, glaring out the window. Gran lingered for another few moments, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I closed my eyes tight and waited. It was only when we were moving that I opened them. I could see yellow-yellow in the side mirror, shrinking. My mother was still standing in the open doorway watching us.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked once we were on the freeway. Gran was speeding, and every few minutes a streetlight would illuminate the worry on her face. I tried calling Piper’s phone again with Gran’s cell, but it went straight to voicemail. Piper was always on her phone, her texting game strong.

“Start texting your friends, hers—anyone and everyone, ask if they’ve seen her or heard anything. What were those guys’ names again?”

“Angel and RJ. And you don’t have anyone’s numbers stored in your phone. I have no way to get a hold of anyone.”

“Find someone else who knows them.”

I had like…five friends, and we barely spoke outside of school. Piper was the popular one. She had hundreds of contacts stored in her phone, and she grouped them according to how relevant they were in her life. As soon as Piper and I walked through the doors of our high school, we parted ways and acted like we didn’t know each other. It was a precedent she set on the first day of ninth grade:“We’re not doing the twin thing this year.I need a life—”and so she’d gone out and gotten one while I had not.

I closed my eyes, trying to recall the names of people who knew a lot of people. The most popular person I knew was Piper’s friend Molly Sharpon. Molly was in Hawaii with her family, I knew that because Piper had been griping about it the week before. We never went to Hawaii—we never got to go anywhere.

When we got back to the apartment, I hopped out of the car ahead of Gran and took the stairs two at a time, almost colliding with our elderly neighbor, Mr. Vottum.She’ll be at the door waiting for us because she doesn’t have her key. But when I reached the second-floor landing, the only thing in front of the door was an Amazon package.

I was still staring at the empty space where Piper was supposed to be when Gran came up the stairs behind me. She stooped to retrieve the package, then unlocked the door in silence. We stepped into the tiny tiled square that was the living room, staring around like we’d never seen it before. Gran was the first to move. Clearing her throat, she dropped her purse into the armchair and turned right into the kitchen.

I couldn’t see her from where I stood, and it panicked me. It was stupid—there was no back door in the apartment, only a tiny window above the sink that maybe a cat could fit through. I held my breath as I passed the armchair and then the couch with the cigarette burn holes along the back cushion, and there she was, drinking a glass of water next to the fridge. Gran didn’t look well. Neither of us had eaten.

I moved into action, opening the fridge and taking out sandwich meat and cheese. I made sandwiches and cut them into the tiny triangles Gran liked—tea party sandwiches, Piper called them. Gran had gone into her bedroom to change, so I set everything out on the counter where we usually ate and waited. When she emerged, she was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt,all the makeup scrubbed from her face. She slid onto the barstool next to me and squeezed my knee.

“Thanks.”

We weren’t hungry, but we ate while we waited for something—anything—about Piper. My phone was gone, and Gran’s didn’t have texting available. Our only hope was the landline. I half expected her to come through the door at any moment, full of excuses and laughter. She’d charm her way out of trouble with Gran, and then we could put this horrible day behind us.

Or…

She might never come back.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, the bread catching in my throat. Piper wouldn’t disappear for a night and not tell us. She was a free spirit but a considerate one. Our mother used to disappear for days at a time when she was on one of her binges. It was an unspoken rule, an understanding that developed between siblings.

Gran called the station. They put her on hold, so she hit speaker and waited. Detective Audrain got on the phone after five minutes of nothing.

“Mrs. Walsh?”

“Yes, it’s me, Detective…” Her voice was strained. “Have you found anything?”

I sat tense on my chair, waiting for him to speak. He cleared his throat, which sent bolts of fear down my legs and puddling to my feet. I knew from experience that adults cleared their throats before imparting bad news.

Ahem…your mother is in the hospital after an overdose…

Ahem…we found your dog on Amherst, he’d been run over by a car…

Ahem…you can’t go on the field trip because your mother didn’t sign the form…

Ahem…

Ahem…

“Were you at 1137 East Cherry Street this evening around 8:00 p.m.?”

“I—I’m not sure—”

“It’s the home of Linda Dupont and her son, Chris Dupont—he attends high school with your granddaughters, the young man Iris mentioned in her interview?”

Our eyes met, and Gran’s lips folded in on themselves. I pushed the plate of mangled sandwich away from me; I needed something to do with my hands. Did his mother call the police after we left? It didn’t seem likely that Chris wanted to get the police involved in whatever this was—he’d become violent at the mention of them. I could feel the ache along various parts of my back.

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