Olivia returns to the kitchen intent on pouring a whiskey before rejoining Ethan when she notices Josh’s backpack leaning against the table leg. For the first time since his arrival, the pack is out of his sight.
With a glance over her shoulder, she drops the pack on the chair and rifles through the compartments. She finds gum wrappers and broken pencils in the front pocket, a Hellblazer graphic novel in the middle pocket. She flips through the book, wondering if it’s appropriate for his age. She returns the book and pulls out this month’s issue of Thrasher Magazine. Pictures have been cut out, leaving windowless frames in the pages. They trigger a memory.
Lucas gifted her a subscription to Apollo for her thirteenth birthday with the money he saved from mowing lawns. Olivia renewed the art magazine every year. She treasured the issues and kept them stacked in her bedroom. Once, during her senior year, she came home from school to find her collection missing.
Afraid her parents tossed the issues, she sought them out in the living room where they spent the evening after dinner. “Who took my magazines?”
Charlotte, legs curled on the couch, looked up from the book open on her lap. “I haven’t seen them.” She licked her finger, turned a page. “Maybe it’s for the best. They made your room look messy.”
“Did not. Dad, what about you? Have you seen them?”
Dwight peered over the front page of the Wall Street Journal. “Have you checked with Lucas or Lily?”
“Lucas knows how much they mean to me. He wouldn’t have touched them.”
“Must be Lily. You know how she is,” he murmured.
Charlotte glared at Dwight like she was trying to will him from the house.
Olivia tossed her hair and left the room, leaving her parents to bicker. When she was young, it used to bother her how Dwight treated Lily like she was a lesser member of the family. But lately Olivia had seen his point. Ever since Olivia beat up Lucas at the lake, Lily had been nothing but a nuisance to her.
Olivia pounded on Lily’s door.
“It’s unlocked,” Lily said.
She pushed open the door and stopped short. Lily sat in the middle of her bed with dozens of Apollo issues and a pile of cutout pages. Large shears snipped a photo in the most recent issue. Olivia knew the issue because she’d been saving the magazine to read Bae Lee’s interview. She was Olivia’s favorite contemporary ceramics artist. Her work was a smart juxtaposition of classic and modern craftsmanship, and Lily was cutting out Bae’s face. Shredded paper and torn issues littered the floor like a street after a parade.
“My magazines! What have you done?”
Lily flinched. “Daddy said you didn’t want them anymore.”
“Liar. I just saw Dad. He would have told me that. You should have asked me.”
“My project is due tomorrow. You weren’t home.”
“Doesn’t mean you can go into my room and take them.” She scooped up the nearest issues, salvaging what she could.
Lily grabbed for them. “Hey, I need those.”
Olivia moved out of reach. “They’re mine.” She flipped through a magazine. Pages were missing, others had windows to the page behind. Her body tightened with rage. “You ruin everything.”
“I do not.”
“My prom dress?”
“That wasn’t me!”
“Liar.” Their dad had seen her dancing in the backyard while wearing the dress.
Olivia gathered up the issues Lily hadn’t touched and stopped in the doorway. “Stay out of my room. Better yet, stay out of my life.” She slammed the door.
The glass slider closes. “Hey.”
Olivia yelps. Josh’s spiral-bound notebook flies from her hands, the memory of Lily leaving her shaken. She presses a palm against her sternum and catches her breath. “You scared me, Ethan.”
“Sorry. Came to check on you. Thought you’d forgotten me.”
She momentarily had.
He picks a dingy white envelope off the floor. “You dropped this.”
“What is it?” She takes the envelope and reads the handwriting on the front. Her heart seizes. “It’s from Lily.” But it’s addressed to Olivia. The envelope must have fallen from Josh’s notebook. It’s old, crinkled and worn; the ink faded. Whatever Lily sealed inside, she did so some time ago. Why didn’t she send it? Why does Josh have it? Did Lily give it to him to give to her? If so, why hadn’t he passed it along?
“Are you going to open it?”
“Absolutely,” she says, impatient for answers about Lily and why Josh is here. She grabs the letter opener and slides the blade under the sealed flap.
Inside are two documents, a power of attorney and Josh’s birth certificate. Her gaze dives to the father’s name field. It’s blank. She shows Ethan.
“Maybe she doesn’t know who it is.”
“Did you see her with anyone? Did she ever mention a name to you?”
He shakes his head. “There’s another possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“She doesn’t want anyone to know who he is.”
He’s right. If Lily were protective enough of Josh to run away before he was born, she would be protective of the father. “Why so secretive? What was she afraid of?”
“I wish I knew.”
Olivia skims the birth certificate. “Well, I know now why Josh is a Padres fan. He was born in San Diego.” She flips to the power of attorney and a heavy feeling that can only be described as responsibility settles in her belly. “She appointed me as Josh’s guardian in the event of her death.” The first thought that crosses her mind is that Lily is, in fact, deceased. Then she reads the next line. Lily granted Olivia short-term guardianship in the event she goes missing. “Who puts that in a POA?”
“I haven’t seen that before.”
Olivia ponders the possibilities and each one is no less concerning than the last. Did Lily have a stalker? Is that why she’s missing now, or did she run away at sixteen for reasons other than wanting to keep Josh? The document is old, notarized only a few months after Josh’s date of birth. Her gaze snags on the attorney’s phone number in the letterhead. Finally, someone she can call.
She refolds the documents and slides the envelope in her back pocket. Ethan opens the sketchbook Josh left on the table and Olivia is anxious for him to leave so that she can follow up with the law firm.
Ethan flips to the next page, the beach scene Josh sketched that morning. He put a lot of work into the drawing, the detail on par with the townhouse he drew yesterday. Since then, he’s added a shadowy figure by the right margin. “Who’s that?” she murmurs, peering closer. She thinks about Lily’s “if I go missing” clause.
Olivia stills, moistening her lips. “I went to the police this morning to file a missing persons report. The officer told me Lily will probably show up in a few days.”
“I bet they say that about everyone who goes missing.”
“She said most missing adults do eventually show up,” she conveys, fixated on the shadowy figure in Josh’s drawing. She can’t take her eyes off it. “I don’t think Lily is going to. She would have been here by now.”
She packs up Josh’s backpack with shaky hands. It takes her three attempts to zip closed the largest pocket. “Is there anything else you can think of that might help?”