Five Days in Summer

tell them we’re dealing with a serial crime, but we won’t talk about the children. The children are the watermark. Only Mr. White will know.”

DAY FOUR

Chapter 21
    David could hear the TV upstairs; Sam must have been watching the Cartoon Network. It was quiet without Maxi. She was coming home today and David was glad; he didn’t like the hospital, didn’t want to have to go there again. It was creepy with all the sick and hurt people.
    He got out of bed and stood there in his pajamas a minute pretending his mother was home. She’d be in the kitchen, making pancakes and eggs, pouring them their juice. He knew that in the winter she snuck drops of echinacea into their juice because they wouldn’t take it straight. He knew that and pretended not to know, and drank the juice, and made her happy without her knowing. Or maybe she knew he knew about the drops. Maybe they were both pretending. Maybe she was pretending now and this was a big fake-out. Maybe she was upstairs making pancakes. Maybe it was Tuesday morning and not Thursday morning and she had come back late and it had all been a nightmare and was over now.
    It could be over now.
    He bypassed the bathroom and went upstairs to the kitchen.
    A bowl with soggy Gorilla Munch sat next to a puddleof milk on the counter. Sam’s breakfast. The cartoons were on too loud.
    Dad sat at the dining room table, which was a worse mess than ever. He had a pad of paper and a pencil, and he was dialing the phone.
    “Morning, David.” Dad hung up the phone. He looked pretty bad. David thought he might have stayed up all night; maybe when the last movie ended he watched the next one, and the next one after that. David didn’t know what his father did in the middle of the night but it probably wasn’t sleep anymore.
    “What time is it?” He didn’t know why he asked because he could see the kitchen clock. It was after nine. They never slept that late.
    “I called school already,” his father said, “so don’t worry about that. They said nothing much happens on the first day.”
    “Who did you talk to?”
    “Mrs. Someone.” His father tried to smile but it came out crooked, wrong.
    “Don’t know her.”
    David took down a bowl from the cupboard and poured himself some Gorilla Munch. His mom was big on the health food cereals and they were pretty good once you got used to them. He finished the box and threw it out. He wondered if Dad and Grandma would keep buying it or go back to the regular brands. He poured in some milk and got a spoon and sat at the counter with his back to his dad and wanted to listen, wanted to find out what was going on. But his dad had stopped dialing and now the only sounds were David’s own chewing and some tinny laughter from the TV. After a couple of minutes Dad spoke. “David.” That was all he said.
    David put down his spoon and twisted around.
    Dad flattened his hands on the table. “We’re goinghome today. You’ll stay with Grandma and I’ll come back here and wait for Mom.”
    “What about Maxi?”
    “We’ll get her from the hospital. Then we’ll go.”
    “I don’t want to go.”
    “You’re going. We’re all going.”
    “You told us yesterday they were going to find Mom. We should wait for her. We shouldn’t leave.”
    “We’re going. Finish your breakfast and get dressed, honey.” Dad stood up. He was wearing the same wrinkled shorts as yesterday and the worn-out black T-shirt with the big red foot stepping far out in front of a little man and the bubble words KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ underneath. David always felt embarrassed when Dad wore that old shirt, but they said it was the first present Mom ever gave him when they were dating because Dad liked the Grateful Dead. Mom even played some of their songs on her cello just to make Dad happy. David always left the room when she did that. Old people were boring but right now he wouldn’t say anything to his dad about the sorry old shirt and he wished he could hear Mom’s cello playing anything, anything at all.
    “No.”
    “David, I need your cooperation. We have to go to the hospital and get Maxi.”
    “I don’t want to go there.”
    “We have to. It’ll just take a few minutes.”
    “Please, Dad. I’ll stay here with Grandma.”
    His father looked at him for a minute; he was thinking something over. “You’re coming with me.”
    Sam came into the kitchen. “What?”
    “I’m staying here,” David said.
    “Sam,” Dad said, “get dressed. You and