Both Sydney and Eliot were asleep in their bedrooms. Great—but where was Vera?

I scanned her bedroom. Dark and empty.

Then the bathrooms. Dark and empty.

I checked the spare bedrooms we never used. Dark and empty.

I skipped the library because we seldom entered it, especially not at night.

Trotting downstairs, I found a freshly pajamaed Oliver lying on the sofa, socked feet propped on the coffee table, channel-hopping for something worth watching at this late hour. The rain was growing heavier, heaving sheets of water on the mansard roof.

“Have you seen Vera?” I asked.

“Isn’t she in her room?” He continued to stare at the television.

“No, Ollie. Syd and Eliot are sleeping, but I can’t find Vera.”

“Did you try calling or texting her?”

“Why would I need to call or text her when she’s supposed to be here watching her siblings?”

I was growing worried. Where the hell was my daughter? I called her cell phone, expecting to hear its familiar ring echo somewhere in the house. It chirped in my ear once, then slipped into voicemail.

“Her phone’s off,” I said. By now the worry escalated to panic, yet Oliver remained transfixed by an episode of Doctor Who. “Oliver, shut the TV off and help me find Vera!”

“You really need help with that? This house isn’t that big.”

Wrong. It was too big. Sometimes I wondered why we’d poured all our money into such a monstrosity. The upkeep was impossible.

I tripped up the stairs to her bedroom and turned on the light. Her space was a crumpled mess of bedding and clothes, schoolbooks and art supplies tossed everywhere. Nothing unusual for my teen daughter. What was unusual was her purse on her desk. She never left the house without it. I pulled the mouth of the leather bag open, rummaged through the contents. Lip gloss. Hair brush. Wallet. But no cell phone. At least she had her phone with her, though it was useless off.

Something hard sat on the bottom of her purse. A book. I pulled it out and recognized the beautiful personalized journal I ordered for her birthday last year. I fingered the filled pages. Held the leather binding to my chest. A memory gave me pause. Of the day my own mother read my own journal. The betrayal I felt then resonated with me now. There’s an unspoken pact between a mother and daughter that you never—never—read your child’s journal. And yet here I was, flipping through the pages, searching for anything in my daughter’s secret words that would help me figure out where she had gone.