Notice the difference: I’d been missing for two, maybe three, hours tops, and Ma had half the congregation out looking for me. Monday had been missing for months and no one even considered it strange.
“Ma—”
“Just WAIT until your father gets home! We ought to ground you until you’re ninety!”
The house felt like there were ten ovens on broil all at once. Ma cooks when she’s nervous.
“Oh my Lord! What happened to your face?”
I blinked. “Huh? What?”
“Your face, Claudia! You’re bleeding,” she shirked, lifting my chin. “And why are you limping?”
I glanced at the mirror in the hall, slowly picking the clump of dust out of my disheveled hair, barely noticing the cut on my cheek, right below my eye, oozing blood. My school tights ripped, my knee scraped.
“It . . . must have happened in the fall,” I said, the sluggish words tumbling out like ice cubes in a freezer door. I looked up, imagining the window right above me. “I jumped. I had to . . .”
“What fall? What happened?”
So exhausted, maybe from running in circles for months, I sighed, reaching the end of a rough rope.
“Ma, when’s the last time you saw Monday?”
Her neck snapped back as if I slapped her.
“Wh-what are you talking about? That weekend before you went to Grandmamma’s! When y’all had your sleepover.”
“You saw her after I left.”
Ma stiffened, then blew out air as she shook her head.
“Girl, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie!” I shouted, stomping my foot. Her eyes went wide. I even shocked myself.
“Ma, Monday’s not with her daddy. She’s not with her aunt. She didn’t move. She’s not in school. No one has seen her in months. . . . And she never had the flu.”
Ma blinked a few times.
I cocked my head to the side. “And something tells me you knew about her not having the flu. Didn’t you?”
She swallowed and pressed a palm to her forehead, closing her eyes.
“That was . . . right after I lost the baby,” she sighed. “The last one.”
I remembered the way Ma curled up on the sofa, fixed to it like cement. The end of the world could have been near, and she wouldn’t have moved. I remembered never leaving her side. Is that when I missed seeing what was happening right in front of me?
I breathed in deep, keeping my voice level. “I think something bad happened to Monday. Something really bad.”
She wiped her hands on a dish towel and plopped down on the sofa, staring at the floor.
“You believe me, right?”
She looked up, her eyes glassy.
“Yes. Yes, I do. But . . . let’s wait until your father comes home. We can decide what to do when he gets here.”
After Ma helped clean me up, with my knee a thick plum, I sat in my room with two bags of frozen peas wrapped around to ice it down, wondering how I was going to dance on a busted knee.
I drummed my fingers against Monday’s journal, tracing the swirls with my pinkie. Like a ticking bomb in my hands—it felt as if the world would explode the moment I opened it, unearthing the evidence of a life she wanted me to know nothing about, unlocking her past.
Shit, the key!
The metal jiggled as I picked and poked, trying to pry the latch free. I could ask Daddy to saw it open. He’d ask too many questions, maybe even take it back!
“Ah,” I yelped, breaking a nail before noticing the familiar wide design of keyhole. My head popped up, eyeing the heart-shaped key hanging on a purple shoelace off my vanity. If our books were the same, were our locks the same?
Did she know one day I would have to use mine on hers?
With one click, I flipped to the first page, to her name written in purple ink under This Book Belongs to. My thumb rubbed against the indents in the M and the funny loop she made with the Y. Seemed like forever since I’d seen her handwriting. The pages of the thick, well-used journal were crinkled almost to the very end. We talked about everything. What did she bottle up that would force her to write an entire novel by hand?
I had so many questions, the hardest one being where to begin. But just like a book, felt only right to start from the beginning. Slowly, I turned to the next page.
UGHHHHHH! Claudia can’t read or spell for nothing! I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep covering for her. I don’t want her to go to the stupid kids’ class, but maybe she’d be better in there.
I closed the book and chucked it under my bed.
The After
School, dance, homework, chores, church. Repeat.
Between school, church, dance, tutoring, high school applications, Ma’s extra catering orders, and Daddy’s band gigs, the weeks slipped through my fingers before I could catch them, inspect them. What’s wrong with this picture? What’s missing? But then a song would come on the radio or I would spy a splash of pink, and I would remember my missing limb.
I settled on that fact that my life had boiled down to a few steps and not much more. Daddy was right. Monday was plain sick and tired of me. I thought she was my friend; I thought she cared about me. But I was wrong. Another part of growing up, putting stupid fantasies out of your head. Besides, have April tell it, she thought I was too stuck up anyways. So, I gave up on Monday, the same way she’d given up on me, making my life a sad schedule of events.
School, dance, homework, chores, church. Repeat.
“You’ve been quiet,” Michael whispered from across the table at the library, his math textbook laid out in front of him.
“Was I ever noisy?” I snapped as I carefully wrote out my essay. Again. Applications were due at the end of the week and Ms. Manis had added more rehearsals to prep for the recital. No time to waste.
“Damn! You ain’t got to bite my head off.”
That one line from Monday’s journal ate at my insides, poisoning my mood daily. I wanted to pretend I never read it. That I never stepped foot in her house and pulled back the curtain on all the lies she’d spewed over the years. I wanted to forget. But the buzzing made it impossible. Whenever I was alone with nothing to distract me, the buzzing would bring me back to Ed Borough, her house, her room . . . reminding me.
“My bad,” I mumbled and dug into my bag, in search of a new pen. Monday’s Flowers in the Attic slid out and slapped the table.
“Ew. What you doing with this book?”
Flustered, I pushed it off to the side. “That was Monday’s. I keep forgetting to give it back to Ms. Paul.”
“Whoa, really?” Michael grabbed the book, flipping it around as if he’d never seen one before. “Why was she reading something like this?”
“I don’t know, but she’s read it before. I recognize the cover.”
“She’s read it twice?” he asked. “Why?”
“Who cares? And what you know about it anyways? It’s old as hell.”
“They made a movie about it on Lifetime.” He grinned. “I watched it with my grandma once. The story is wild, though! It’s about these kids, two teens and little twins, who are locked in the attic at their grandma’s house for, like, years ’cause their moms didn’t want their grandpa knowing she had them. But their grandma goes all crazy on them, torturing, beating, and starving them. They so cooped up, the older brother and sister start having sex. And then the mom was trying to poison the kids to get rid of them so she could marry someone else for money. Wild stuff!”
I set down my pen to slip the book out of his hands.
“You’re right, that does sound crazy,” I mumbled. “I mean, why would Monday want to read a book like this? A brother and sister having sex? That’s nasty. What would people think if they saw her reading—”
The thought chased all the air out of my lungs. I jumped up, my chair falling behind me.
Michael’s head cocked back. “Claudia? What’s up?”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t
spit the words out fast enough; they were all jumbled and flipped in the wrong direction. Instead, I ran to the front of the library, relieved to see Ms. Paul.
“Ms. Paul!” I yelped, slamming into her desk.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said, her voice a soothing hush as she scanned a pile of returned books.
“Ms. Paul, I brought back Monday’s book,” I said, sliding it across the desk, my heart pounding.
Ms. Paul’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh my . . . well . . . thank you, Claudia.”
“No problem!”
She stared at the book as if I had placed a dead rat at her feet, unsure of what to do with it.
“So, um, Ms. Paul, I got a question for you,” I started. “Is there a way . . . to see all the books a person ever borrowed from the library?”
Ms. Paul swallowed and scanned the book with a nervous smile. “No, sweetie. That’s just an urban legend.”
“Oh. Okay,” I muttered.
“That’s funny, Monday once asked me the very same thing.” She sighed, placing the book in the bin. “Only place you can keep a record is when you take books out online or if you lost any.”
I took a deep calming breath. “Anyway I can see . . . if I can see if Monday took any books out . . . online?”
“What . . . for?”
I gave her a shy smile with a shrug. “I just . . . want to read the same books she has. She read so much during the summer when I wasn’t around. I want to catch up! You know, we always got to do the same things.”
She lets out an uneasy laugh. “Uh . . . well, that’s private information, Claudia.”
“Please, Ms. Paul,” Michael said behind me. “She just wants to take a quick look. I think it would really help, since she’s been missing her. We won’t tell anybody.”
Ms. Paul pursed her lips. She clicked her keyboard with a huff.
“I’m sorry. It’s against policy.” She stood up, patting her hair down. “Now, I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Michael, I think there’s something wrong with my computer. Do you mind taking a look? I’ll be back in five minutes.”
With a curt nod, she headed for the staff lounge.
I spun around to Michael, my mouth hanging open.
He smirked. “Dang, I thought stuff like that only happened in the movies!”
“Hurry up!” I laughed.
Michael hopped behind the desk, sitting in Ms. Paul’s chair, and I peered over his shoulder at the screen.
“Damn, she took out that Flowers book five times,” he mumbled, scrolling down a long list of books. Books I’ve never read. Books I knew nothing about. Books that would take me forever to read.
“Any of these books you recognize?”
“Some of them, yeah,” he said, concentrating as he scanned. “A lot of them are the same kinda books. Books that deal with like . . . child abuse stuff.”
My stomach looped and tied itself tight. I stared down at the list, using my index finger to read the titles slowly.
Flowers in the Attic, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Sharp Objects, Push . . .
“This gonna sound crazy,” he said slowly, seeming unsure. “But I think she was saying what was happening to her without actually saying it. Like she was trying to send a hint, leave clues.”
“Breadcrumbs!” I exclaimed, stabbing the screen. “These are breadcrumbs! She thinks the government is watching her through her books!”
Michael rubbed his chin. “No way. No fucking way,” he mumbled. “If these are breadcrumbs . . . then they would lead back to her.” Michael turned to me, in shock. “Claudia . . .”
The buzzing appeared out of nowhere, like the freezer had grown legs, walked out and sat right behind me.
“There’s no attic in Monday’s house,” I croaked out.
“Yes . . . but it doesn’t mean she wasn’t kept somewhere else. Claudia, don’t you remember . . . anything?”
Her sister Tuesday. She mentioned Monday was hiding in a closet. And there was a closet right by the bathroom! She had been there, all along.
I sprinted around the desk, grabbing my coat from the table and heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” Michael barked, grabbing me by the elbow.
“I have to go back!” I yelled, pulling away from him.
“Back? Naw, you can’t go over there! Let’s just call the police and tell them you’ve been holding on to this book—”
“Police ain’t gonna do nothing. And how am I going to explain the breadcrumbs she left without getting Ms. Paul in trouble?”
“You got to talk to your parents. . . .”
“I can’t! Ma and Daddy don’t want to hear nothing else about Monday!”
Michael rubbed his hands against the front of his jeans. “Well, maybe we should talk to Pastor Duncan. Tell him what you found.”
What’s Pastor gonna do? He doesn’t even know Monday. Other than April, I don’t know anyone else who had stepped foot in her house and would know where to look. But there had to be someone who’d be willing to take on Mrs. Charles. Someone big and strong who could . . .
“Her dad! I have to tell her dad!”
“Her dad? Claudia—”
“Police said the only other person that could put in a missing persons report is her dad. If he does that, then they can look for her! He works at someplace called the Maryland House. You know where that’s at?”
Michael crossed his arms nervously. “It’s up on 95, right past Baltimore. But Claudia . . .”
“I need to find him. Tell him about the breadcrumbs and stuff.”
“Naw. I—I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“He’s the only person that’s gonna take this seriously!”
Michael shook his head. “Man, I don’t know.”
He didn’t know, but I had already made up my mind.
“Listen, I’mma find my way to him, with or without you.”
He sighed, rubbing his head. “Yeah, I know. But I ain’t gonna let you just go alone. Hold up.”
He dug into his pocket for his phone and began texting furiously. About ten minutes later, he smiled.
“Bet. My cousin said he can drive us there on Thursday, after school. He’s visiting his girl in Delaware. But then we got to get back on our own.”
“How we gonna do that?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “We’ll just ask Mr. Charles to take us home.”
Heavy sheets of rain blanketed Michael’s cousin’s truck as we unloaded in front of the Maryland House—a busy pit stop surrounded by north- and southbound highways and thick woods. The temperature had fooled me into believing spring was creeping around the corner.
“Aight, y’all be safe,” his cousin said, before rolling up his window and taking off. For the hour-and-twenty-minute ride, he didn’t ask what we were up to and didn’t seem to care how we planned on making it back home.
“Okay. We here,” Michael said, holding the umbrella. “Now what?”
“Daddy said something about him working the pumps,” I said, pointing to the Exxon station at the far end of the lot.
“Let’s check it out.”
With the Easter holiday approaching that weekend, lines of cars crawled toward the gas pumps. We weaved through the cars, splashing through puddles, my sneakers already soaked from the short walk. We stopped to stand on the curb next to the attendant booth.
“Okay, which one is he?”
I blinked. “Ummm . . . I’m not sure.”
Michael frowned. “You mean you don’t remember what he looks like?”
Just as I started to defend myself, one of the attendants, an older white man with curly white-blond hair waved us on.
“Hey, kids,” he shouted over the loud rain. “Y’all can’t stand here.”
Quickly, I stepped up to use my best grown-up voice, taking a page out of Michael’s “How to Talk to Strangers” playbook.
“Good afternoon, sir. Is Tip here?”
He frowned. “Tip? Who’s Tip?”
/> Dang, did we come all this way for nothing?
“Think they talking about Tommy,” another man said, opening the gas valve on the car next to us. “That’s his nickname.”
The older man laughed. “Oh right, Tommy. Yeah, who wants to know?”
I licked my lips. “I’m his daughter Monday.”
He stopped laughing and stared, like he’d seen a ghost. “Oh, I’m . . . sorry. Um, he doesn’t get in until six.”
I checked my watch. It was only four. Behind me, Michael rubbed his hands together as if trying to start a fire and shrugged. “We’ll wait inside, then.”
“Y’all can cut through the store over there to get inside.”
“Thanks,” Michael said, a hand on my lower back as he pushed me toward the gas station mini-mart, attached to the main building. Reminded me of the first floor of Pentagon City Mall, frantic and busy; people zigzagged in front of us, rushing into bathrooms. Michael grabbed my arm, saving me from a speeding stroller, and pointed ahead at the Phillips Seafood counter.
“Let’s eat. I’m starving!”
We stood on a line as long as the ones at Six Flags in the massive food court for almost thirty minutes, ordering two crab cake sandwiches and fries with two medium cherry Cokes. Michael paid, refusing to take my money.
“So what you tell your mom you were doing so you can come?” Michael asked as he carried our tray, scanning the room for an empty seat.
“Told her I signed up for an extra rehearsal for my solo with Megan. That should give me a couple of hours.”
He chuckled. “Man, she’ll kill you AND me if she ever finds out the truth.”
Definitely crossing several dangerous lines: approaching an adult like I’m grown, involving myself in family business with folks that ain’t my real family, driving out of DC . . . with a boy! If Ma had a clue, she’d whup my ass! But finding Monday . . . outweighed all the risk. How could I ever even consider giving up on her? She’d never give up on me.
We sat at a booth in the back near the windows, watching the rain pour down.
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