Wait a second. How can Paula and Craig be married if Paula and Dad never got a divorce? Or did they? Can you divorce someone who has disappeared? There’s really so much I don’t know about what happened. Or about Paula and what she did when she figured out I was gone.

I realize, I really do, that I should have more compassion for this woman who is my mother. I don’t know her. So maybe I should try to understand her. To find out about my life before. So far she’s stayed with safe subjects: pictures and stories about family members. Knowing the good is fine and all, but I also need to understand the bad. How things between my parents could go so wrong that they were living apart. That Dad was convinced she was going to take me away from him.

But would I believe her? Is she a trustworthy source?

Dad is in jail now. Whatever happened between them had to have been bad for him to risk everything to get me away.

“I don’t feel safe here,” I say, so quietly Marian doesn’t hear me.

Is that really true, though? There’s nothing Paula or Craig has done to make me think they’re going to do something bad to me. It’s more that I don’t feel like myself here. Then there’s Sarah. I’m tempted to lock the bedroom door because who knows what she might do to me in the middle of the night.

I kick the duvet off me and go over to the door and lock it, just in case.

“My parents keep saying your mom should be given a chance,” Marian says, her voice also low.

“I know. And I’m horrible for wanting to leave.”

“No, you’re not,” Marian assures me. “Yeah, it sucks for Paula, and my mom feels bad for her, but what about you?”

“Exactly. Am I being selfish for only thinking of me in all of this?”

“Ally.” Marian uses the voice she reserves for whenever she needs to be blunt with Rob because he’s being an idiot. So she uses it a lot. “This is your life. And none of this is your fault. You shouldn’t be punished because of it.”

“Thanks.”

“Besides, it’s only six months until you graduate. Then you can come up to school here. And we now have a sweet place to go to during winter break to de-ice ourselves. You can survive six months there, right?”

“I guess.” She’s right. That is a lot of ice cream rewards, but I can do it. I finish out my senior year here and then go to Wisconsin for school. I can get a summer job and stay with the Gleasons.

“But poor Neil. Forcing that dude to wait that long to be reunited with his one true love will be torture.”