Every Missing Piece

by Melanie Conklin

I cross my arms. “Just because we’re kids doesn’t mean we’ll mess up.”

  Mom sighs. “I know that, honey. I need you to trust me on this.”

  But I don’t. Part of me still thinks we should call Sheriff Dobbs and let him handle all of this. I’m not even convinced that we should be helping Shailene.

  “You know she tricked him? She told Billy she worked for his dad. She kidnapped him.”

  Mom’s mouth opens in horror. “Maddy!”

  “No, it’s okay,” Shailene says. “I’d think the same thing if I was her.” She looks at me, but for once she’s not staring bloody murder. “Look, I haven’t always made the best choices. I know that. I’m sorry for taking him like that. I couldn’t leave him there another day.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have left him there in the first place.”

  Shailene’s jaw goes tight, but she doesn’t say a word.

  “What’s done is done,” Mom says, giving me a pointed look. “Let’s stay focused on finding you a new place. I spoke with my friend at the Domestic Violence Center. She said to check with the Battered Women’s Ministry to see if they have any low-income housing options.”

  Shailene says, “I can handle it,” but those words echo in my head.

  Domestic violence. Battered women.

  “I saw those scars on Billy’s arm,” I say, and Mom inhales sharply.

  Shailene rubs a hand over her face. “I got married before I really knew Billy’s dad,” she says. “We had a baby, and I thought things might get better. Then I broke a plate and he broke my jaw.” She gives a small, sad laugh. “I knew he’d go after Billy once I was gone. I felt sick every single day, knowing he was there with that man. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

  My heart hurts, hearing all this, but before I can speak the doorbell rings.

  We all jump half out of our skins.

  A split second later, Billy barges into the kitchen from the garage, where Frankie is barking her head off. “It’s the police,” he says. “The police are here.”

  There are moments when time seems to slow down. It’s like I’m inside a bubble where the sounds are muffled and the outside world is blurry. The only thing I can hear is the crash, crash, crash of the waves and my own heart beating like it’s trying to take flight. In these moments, it’s hard to move, the same way that it’s hard to move in a nightmare.

  “Stay calm,” Mom says in her nurse’s voice, the one she uses when I’m bleeding or barfing. “Go sit down while I see what they want. Everything is going to be okay.”

  I look at Billy. He’s clinging to his mother’s arm like a possum to a branch.

  My fingers twitch, and my toes. I can move again. “Come on,” I say, and they follow me into the living room. Billy tucks in next to Shailene on the couch.

  “I got you,” she says, her arm wrapping around him. “I got you.”

  She did a bad thing, kidnapping him, but right now she looks like she would do anything to protect him. I used to think I knew what was bad or good, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe we’re never just good or just bad. Maybe we’re always a mix of both.

  The front door opens, and we hear Mom’s voice and two others—a man and a woman—and then Mom’s walking into the living room with two uniformed officers behind her.

  Billy’s eyes go wide and white.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” the woman officer says. “We’re sorry to disturb you, but we need to inform you that your husband, Robert Holcomb, was arrested in Fayetteville early yesterday morning for violating your court order of protection.”

  My heart ricochets in my chest. Mr. Holcomb was arrested.

  I look at Billy, but he’s staring at the floor like he wants to disappear.

  “You should also be aware that as of this morning, Mr. Holcomb has made bail and has been released pending a hearing on the court order violation.”

  Billy’s eyes snap up. “You let him out?”

  The male officer steps in. “Mr. Holcomb paid the assigned bail and was released this morning. If you hear from him again or if he comes within two hundred feet of you, he will be arrested and charged with further violation of the protection order.”

  Shailene glares at the officer. “That didn’t stop him the first time.”

  The female officer sighs in sympathy. “Well, hopefully he’ll think differently now that he’s spent a night behind bars.”

  “There must be something else we can do,” Mom says.

  The male officer frowns. “If you see him again, call us.”

  They turn to leave, and Mom sees them out. A minute later, their car crunches along our gravel driveway. When Frankie stops barking, we know they’re gone.

  Mom comes back into the living room with a plate of cookies, but there are shiny tracks on her cheeks, and her eyes have that too-bright sheen of tears.

  “We should go,” Shailene says. “I have friends in San Francisco. We can go there.”

  Mom shakes her head, but inside I’m wondering if maybe they should leave.

  If Mr. Holcomb thinks they’re in the area, he could come here looking for them.

  “I don’t want to go to California,” Billy says.

  His voice trembles, and inside my chest, so does my heart.

  Mom raises her hands. “Let’s all catch our breath, okay? No one has to go anywhere right this minute.” She looks at me, and I know what she’s thinking. We’re not letting them leave. We’re not losing anyone else.

  “Are you sure about this?” Shailene asks.

  It’s scary to think that Mr. Holcomb could be out there right now, looking for us, but if they leave, they’ll be on their own. They may not be family, but they are our friends.

  I nod at Mom.

  “Yes,” she says. “We’re sure. We’re sticking to the plan.”

  32

  A DIFFERENT WORLD

  “She’s not as mean as she seems, is she?” I look at Billy as he brushes the dryer vent clean. We’re doing safety checks while the grown-ups talk on the back deck. Shailene is smoking a cigarette, which Mom would normally flip about, but I guess there are exceptions to everything.

  “Who?” Billy says.

  “Your mom.”

  He shrugs. “She’s used to people giving her a hard time.”

  “Why?”

  He finishes with the dryer vent and hands me the brush. Then he looks at me for a long time, long enough for my face to start going hot. The blue has faded from his hair. I can see the dark roots that match his dark eyebrows. “She was in jail.”

  “What?”

  “That’s where she was, when she was gone. She was in jail.” He looks at my list like he hasn’t just blown my mind. “What’s next?”

  We move on to trimming the bushes.

  I want to ask what Shailene went to jail for, but it feels too much like the bad kind of prying I heard so much after Dad died.

  “You were right about my dad,” I blurt out. “He drowned.” I don’t know why, but my heart is racing. I think maybe I’m bracing for Billy to give me that look. The pity one.

  But he doesn’t.

  He gives me this serious nod and goes back to trimming the bushes.

  I think of how hard Billy worked to protect that trailer with his traps, and how gentle he is with Frankie, and how his face lights up at the sight of a pie, and it’s impossible to imagine a father who would hurt him. I think about how his father might be out there right now and wish we had a motion-sensor alarm. I think of the little person growing in Mom’s belly, and how I know Stan will be a good dad. When the baby cries, he’ll hold her in his arms and rock her to sleep. I think back to the beginning of the school year, when Mom and Stan had just gotten married, and my biggest struggle was figuring out how to hang out with him.

  It feels like a very long time ago. It feels like a whole different world.

  We go about our lives like everything is normal. We play board games. We have Sunday dinner. We wake up Monday morning and get ready fo
r school. Stan offers to drive us, but I want to talk to Cress. She hasn’t answered any of my texts since I slept over at her house, and I know she has phone privileges.

  This time, when I climb the bus steps with Billy, Cress isn’t in our seat. She’s in the back with Diesel. She must know I’m there, but she won’t meet my eyes.

  I drop into our seat and pretend to work on my Living Museum packet. I brought it to show to Cress, but she’s not there to give me a thumbs-up.

  This time, the answers are up to me.

  When I walk into the library, Miss Rivera gives me a little wave. She’s wearing a shirt that says Never Argue with a Librarian. They Know Too Much! There are five minutes until the bell rings.

  That’s long enough to look something up, if I want to.

  That tipping feeling pulls at me again, but I remind myself that I was the one who found Billy Holcomb. Cress helped me with the binder, but I was the one who did it. If I can do that, then I can do this.

  “Here goes nothing,” I text Dad.

  I take a deep breath and put my fingers on the keyboard.

  I search the name Todd Gaines.

  And I begin to read.

  33

  THE FACTS

  The day my father died, it was eighty-two degrees at the beach.

  The date was June 2.

  The wind was blowing from the southeast at nine miles per hour.

  High tide occurred between two and three o’clock.

  We did not notice the red flags on the lifeguard’s station.

  We weren’t worried that the station was empty.

  We could not see the rip current in the water.

  34

  CODE YELLOW

  When we get home from school in the afternoon, Shailene’s pacing in the kitchen, twisting her hands something fierce. “It was his car,” she says. “I know it.”

  “What model was it again?” Mom asks.

  “A midnight-blue Mustang. Right out there in your court.”

  Mom jots something down on the little pad of paper she keeps by the phone.

  “I should’ve known better,” Shailene says. “Why did I file that police report?”

  In some emergency warning systems, color-coding is used to indicate how bad the threat is. Green means things are normal and there’s nothing to worry about. Red means you’re in huge trouble. And code yellow means trouble is on the horizon.

  This is a code yellow at least.

  “What is it?” I ask Mom. “What happened?”

  “Is it Dad?” Billy says. “Did he find us?”

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” Shailene says, her voice tight. “I think he did.”

  That’s when we go to code red.

  Shailene tries to hug Billy, but he dodges her and goes into the living room.

  Mom hugs her instead. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” She looks at me over Shailene’s shoulder, and I know she’s saying it to me, too. Every fiber of my being wants to call Sheriff Dobbs right that second, but I force myself to walk into the living room, where Billy is crouched on the floor, hacking at a stick with a Swiss Army knife over an old towel.

  This one time after Dad died, there was a grocery clerk at the Food Lion who recognized me from the news. She had big hair and red lips. When she looked at me, her face all excited, I felt like I had three heads. I wanted to disappear, the way Billy is trying to disappear now.

  I crouch next to him. “What’re you making?”

  “Spike balls. You hang them in the trees. When someone trips the trigger, bam.” He holds up a clump of spikes tied together with twine and lets it drop. The spikes stab the air.

  “Good idea.” I unroll a loop of twine and join him.

  When Stan gets home, Mom is quick to fill him in. Shailene is finally calm enough to sit on the couch and watch a movie with Billy, who has worn himself out carving wood spikes.

  I try to imagine what it’s like to need booby traps to protect yourself from your own father, but I can’t. Fathers are supposed to protect you. They’re bigger, stronger, and tougher—all so they can keep you alive. Even if it costs them everything.

  Stan leaves to meet Mr. Jessup, and I follow him into the garage. Frankie pops up from her bed. I drop down and hug her side, like that’s the reason I’m out there in the first place.

  “What are you gonna do?” I ask Stan.

  “We’ll start at the top of the subdivision and work our way back. We’ll have to check each street individually. Still, it shouldn’t take too long.”

  I nod like I’m approving his plan, when really I’m wondering what will happen if they find Mr. Holcomb out there in his midnight-blue Mustang. Stan’s not exactly a tough guy.

  Frankie licks my face. “What if you find him?”

  “I don’t think we will,” Stan says matter-of-factly. “If he wanted to confront us, he would have done it already. I doubt he would stick around and risk being discovered.”

  “Why does he keep coming after them?”

  “I imagine he thinks that if he finds them, he’ll get his way.”

  I think of the scars on Billy’s arm. “He’s a bully.”

  Stan stops and looks at me. “Sometimes when people are hurting, they lash out. They might have addiction or anger issues. What grown-ups do doesn’t always make sense.”

  “Like hurting your own kid?”

  He nods. “Abuse isn’t about love. It’s about control. And it’s wrong.”

  I know that. But I also know it’s wrong for Mr. Holcomb to be out there, free as a bird.

  “What did Shailene go to jail for?”

  He considers me for a second. “Drugs. She has an addiction, which isn’t a choice. It’s an illness. My father struggled with alcohol addiction his whole life. He passed away from liver disease when I was twenty-six.”

  “Wait, your dad died?”

  Stan nods. “He did.”

  A shock wave passes through me, and it’s like I’m seeing Stan in a whole new light. Same glasses, same skinny frame, but we have this one huge thing in common.

  How didn’t I know this about him?

  Then I remember that I haven’t really asked Stan these kinds of questions. We talk, but I don’t know much about his life before us. And he doesn’t know much about my life before him.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He smiles. “It’s okay. He stopped drinking for a while, but in the end he couldn’t quit. It’s hard not to be mad at him, but it helps to remember all the good things he did. He took me to museums. He got me my first computer. He wasn’t a bad person, he made bad choices. Shailene got clean, got her GED, and did rehab. She’s turned her life around.”

  I think of the sign in the Jessups’ trailer. Life Is a Work in Progress.

  “There’s no such thing as good guys and bad guys,” Stan says. “There are just people. We can save a life on Monday and take a life on Tuesday. It all depends on what we do on any given day. I like to believe that every human being has a chance at redemption.”

  “Even Mr. Holcomb?”

  “I hope so.”

  I wish I could be as hopeful as Stan, but I don’t think there’s a lick of good in Mr. Holcomb. Stan finishes getting the car ready while I pet Frankie, who slowly melts to the floor and rolls over into her favorite position, upside down with her paws hanging in the air. She doesn’t even have to think about loving. It’s what she does.

  Stan climbs into the car and my heart squeezes tight. What am I afraid of, anyway? If I try and we don’t click, the world won’t end. We will still be here.

  Before he shuts the door, I call out, “Hey, Stan!”

  He looks at me, his brows raised.

  “Be careful, okay?”

  35

  PLAYING PRETEND

  Stan and Mr. Jessup don’t find any sign of Mr. Holcomb, but Shailene still says Billy needs to stay home from school. They have lots of packing to do, anyway, now that she’s signed a lease on a new place. I have to go to school, b
ut I ask Stan to drive me instead of riding the bus. It hurts too much to see Cress sitting with Diesel.

  I know I should forget my promise to Mom and tell Cress what’s going on, but I can’t get over the fact that she would ditch me for Diesel Jessup. A real friend wouldn’t do that, no matter how weird I was acting. At least that’s what I tell myself.

  At school, I keep my eyes on the floor and ignore everyone around me. If I don’t see Cress, I can pretend she doesn’t exist. She can’t hurt me if she doesn’t exist.

  My strategy works until art class on Thursday.

  Everyone’s finishing their models for the Living Museum. My site level is nearly complete. I’ve added three coats of newspaper and painted it bright yellow with orange lettering and black trim. After I carefully glue a circle of plastic to the end as a lens, it’s finished.

  When I set my model on the rack to dry, I see that kids have made all kinds of things, like an old-fashioned camera, an Olympic torch, a big curly beard out of shredded paper, and even a full-size voting booth. I keep looking until I find Cress’s Friendship 7 model. It’s in the very back, and it’s kind of a mess. I can see what she was trying to do, but the papier-mâché is too floppy to make the steel legs that prop up the bottom of the capsule. She needs to use straws to make the legs stiffer and hold the body of the model off the table.

  It makes it worse, knowing she needs me and I’m letting her down. Just because you can’t see someone doesn’t mean you won’t miss them. I should know. I’m the one who talks to Dad’s photo every night and texts him all the time, half hoping he’ll text me back one day.

  Before I leave, I put a few straws next to Cress’s model where she’s sure to find them.

  Billy’s been quiet in the days since Shailene saw Mr. Holcomb’s car, but when I get home there’s a strange light in his eyes. “Let’s go for a bike ride,” he says.

  “No,” Shailene says. “No going outside.”

  Billy braces his arms on the kitchen doorframe and starts climbing. His bare toes grip the edges of the molding like a frog, propelling him upward in goofy, scrambling hops.