Page 9 of Good Half Gone

I shake off the thought. If everything works out as planned, I’ll have my answers soon. But then what? That’s the next obvious question. Will I be free to move forward, or still be addicted to chasing the past—a trauma-drunk Indiana Jones? I’ve been raising a boy and going to school for the last nine years, but every second in between has been spent on my sister’s case. I honor her with those minutes and hours and days—because the police never did.

“It’s kookamatoo,” Gran says—her word for something that is crooked or wrong. Gran has a long list of things that are kookamatoo: the internet, men, the prices at Whole Foods,Game of Thrones, electric can openers…

I glance sideways at her. “It’s a hospital for the criminally insane, it’s supposed to feel kookamatoo.”

Shoal is behind us now, and I’m shivering from the cold. The fog hangs over the water, which has suddenly become choppy.

“Want to go inside and get a coffee?” I ask.

She turns toward the doors that lead inside the ferry, beelining to the snack kiosk and warmth. I know she is struggling to understand my reasoning for this. I’m past trying to understand it, years past—I’m at the acceptance stage. It is a nice place to be, unless you’re Gran.

I follow her inside as she silently rumbles. She is wearing jeans and the sweatshirt I asked her not to wear:I’m with Crazy—which at the moment insinuatesme! Hiding her shock of white hair is a knitted Seahawks hat, the pompom on top bobbing viscously.

“Gran, can you slow down?”

She speeds up.

Cal says that when Gran and I get like this we act like children, which is a humbling statement from an eight-year-old. It doesn’t stop me though.

“The Seahawks suck, Gran! And everyone but you knows it!”

She doesn’t turn around, but her middle finger shoots up.

I laugh, because man, do I love Emele Dickinson.

Chapter4Past

Gran Was Wearingher work clothes: a floral blazer over a black dress. Her shoes were the same coral shade as her lipstick. Her face wasn’t just pale, it was gray. She’d only just arrived, ushered into the room by a female cop and seated next to me. She grabbed my hand, searching my face for some clue as to what was going on. I didn’t know what they told her. I looked away, ashamed, and waited for the guy detective, Audrain, to speak.

“Mrs. Walsh—” Audrain started.

“Ms. Walsh,” Gran interrupted.

“Excuse me. Ms. Walsh, are you Iris’s guardian?”

“Yes. And Piper’s—her twin sister who is missing.”

“Of course…”

I don’t like his tone. I look at Gran; her hands, veiny and age-spotted, are trembling.

He stares down at his notes. “Your granddaughter says she saw two boys—”

“Men, they were men.” My voice was scratchy but loud. I knew that because Poley flinched. I reached for the Dr. Pepper,taking two long swigs. It was as I screwed the cap back on that I remembered their clothes as suddenly as I’d forgotten them, and then their names came back to me as well: RJ and Angel. The movie I didn’t want to see, Dupont—and the soda! They must have put something in the drinks they carried in for us. It all came tumbling out of my mouth, and Gran’s face got whiter and whiter as she listened.

“Are you sure she didn’t go with them willingly, Iris?” Poley repeats.

I’d already told them she hadn’t. I glared hard at the female cop with the round face and slicked-back hair.

“Maybe they left you behind, huh?” She tilted her head to the side, coaxing. “Or maybe they were into your sister more than you, and now you’re angry…you want to get them in trouble…” She left it open-ended, her eyes trying to wedge something out that wasn’t there.

“No,” I said. I was not on trial here.

She lifted her rear from where it sat on the edge of the table and walked toward a water cooler in the corner. Tag, you’re it—her partner moved to fill her spot, standing above me instead of sitting.

“This is ridiculous,” Gran said. “If she says it happened that way, it happened. My granddaughter is not a liar.” Her voice was clipped.

The guy cop—Audrain—looked at Gran. “We’re just trying to help, Miss Walsh…”

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