Don’t run from the pain. You have to feel it before it will get better.

But she did feel it. And it never did get better.

There were things she’d said that morning to her mother that she hadn’t told anyone. She couldn’t even think them. Things about Annie.

She’d wanted to see misery on her mother’s face instead of love. And she had succeeded. Now she had the image in her mind, placed there by Edith Moore—her mother standing in the rain, soaking wet. In the storm. A storm Nic had put her in with those horrible words.

And now, too, there was someone out there who knew where she’d gone. Someone who owned a truck. Someone who could help her get to her mother and tell her she didn’t hate her, and God, take back the other things she’d said that morning. she chased the voices away. The good advice. The well-meaning guidance she knew would be coming. She doesn’t want to be found. Take care of yourself, Nicole. But Nic knew things they didn’t, things she’d said to drive her mother away.

This was her fault and now she had to make it right. She had to find her mother.

Chapter Three

Day one

The girl wears a mask. She pulls it up after I enter the truck.

It’s some kind of medical mask which I can see now only in the reflection from the side mirror. The man wears a wool hat, pulled down low.

We drive through sheets of rain. A violent wind pushes against the truck.

“Thank you for stopping,” I say. “I ran out of gas.”

The girl turns around.

“That wasn’t very smart,” she says. Her voice is perky, like she’s just stating the obvious and not rendering a judgment. Still, it is odd for a child her age not to know that she’s done just that.

“You’re right,” I say.

The man smiles. “No harm done. The town’s not far.”

I notice his eyes dart up into the mirror so he can see me. He quickly looks away and glances at his daughter.

Daughter . . . I wonder now. I am making assumptions.

The girl keeps talking.

“I’m allergic to everything so I have to wear a mask when I’m outside the house. Does it make my voice sound funny?”

Her words pass through me. I look out the window wondering where we are, exactly how far from town. I can see nothing but the small pieces of road where the headlights strike the pavement. The sky is a canvas of black.

I smell gasoline and notice three plastic cans on the floor beside me. Otherwise, the truck is clean but old. The leather on the seats is cracked, worn all the way through in places.

“Hey!” the girl says, annoyed with me now. “Answer my question!”