“Where are you?” I wrapped and unwrapped the phone cord around my finger. I was angry, but I could never admit that to her. She knew I was the weakest child; that’s why she had asked to speak to me. I always gave in so easily.

“I’m in the city.”

I remained silent. Why didn’t she call, or come back, if she was only in the city, an hour away? How could she leave us here, with him, alone?

“What do you say? Will you girls come stay with me?”

“Sure,” I replied. “I have to go, we’re eating dinner.”

I placed the receiver back on the hook, returned to the table to retrieve my plate, and walked to the garbage can. I turned to look at my father as I pressed my foot onto the mechanism that opened the top, maintaining eye contact as I scraped the remainder of my peas into the trash.

“What are you doing?” my father demanded.

“I hate green peas,” I announced. “And I won’t be eating them anymore.”

Chapter 29

Jack couldn’t keep track of his cellphone if his life depended on it. I would find it in the oddest places: jammed between two books on the bookshelf, or under our mattress, or in the toilet tank. I once found it in the freezer, in a baggie filled with half-frozen chicken breasts.

I cultivated the habit of buying him burner phones, which I kept in a drawer in our dresser. Whenever I wasn’t able to find the one he had been using, I’d hand him a new one, knowing it was only a matter of time before we did it all again.

Jack was like a child. I had to stay one step ahead of him at all times. I grew to know the spots he frequented: the dive bars, the decks, the gardens and cemeteries. I knew all of his friends and had saved all of their numbers. I stayed on top of where he went and how he had gotten there. I drove him around, or walked with him, carefully counting the hours we were apart, knowing when I needed to check in on him.

One night, he had been gone for too long. It was just after two in the morning, and I hadn’t heard from him since ten the night before. I called, letting it ring until I heard his voice, asking me to leave him a message and he’d get back to me as soon as he could. I hung up and dialled again with no reply.

I climbed into the car and began my routine. First, I went to the bar on the corner, asking the boys when they had last seen him.

“Oh, he left a few hours ago,” the group assured me. “Figured he’d be home by now.”

I thanked them and, downing a glass of bourbon the bartender had placed in front of me, headed out. The barkeep never asked me to pay, and I was uncertain whether it was a gift or if he added it to Jack’s tab. I wondered how big that tab was right now.