Chapters (51)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Prologue
- — Part 1 —
- If You Answer the Door for Strangers…
- Greene Street Before It Was Greene Street
- Don’t Ask a Question You Don’t Want the Answer To
- Think What You Want
- Twenty-Four Hours Earlier
- Follow the Money
- Help Is on the Way
- These Are Not Your Friends
- Don’t Hold This Against Me
- Six Weeks Ago
- Bailey’s No Good Very Bad Day
- What Don’t You Want to Remember?
- — Part 2 —
- Keep Austin Weird
- Who Needs a Tour Guide?
- Three Months Ago
- Little White Churches
- Not Everyone Is a Good Helper
- Eight Months Ago
- Sorry, We’re Open
- Two Can Play at That Game
- One Year Ago
- Delete All History
- It’s Science, Isn’t It?
- Some Students Are Better Than Others
- Fourteen Months Ago
- If You Marry the Prom King…
- The Never Dry
- Careful What You Wish For
- Eighteen Months Ago
- The Good Lawyer
- — Part 3 —
- When We Were Young
- Everyone Should Take Inventory
- The Never Dry, Part Two
- On the Lake
- Two Years Ago
- You Have to Do Some Things on Your Own
- The Devil Is in the Details
- Finding My Way Back to Her
- Two Years and Four Months Ago
- Sometimes You Can Go Home Again
- Five Years Later. Or Eight. Or Ten.
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Laura Dave
I reach out my hand to stop her. There is no point in checking 2009. Owen and Bailey moved to Sausalito in 2009. I have the records of that, and in 2007, Bailey would have been too young to remember much of anything. She has no memories of Seattle during that time, let alone a sole weekend trip to Austin. If we are being honest with ourselves, even 2008 is a stretch. But if her mother was at the wedding—and Bailey thinks she may have been—then 2008 is the only time it could have been.
“Look, it had to be 2008,” she says.
Bailey’s voice starts to shake as she looks at the empty screen.
“I was here. And that’s the only time it could have been. We’ve gone over this. It was that fall. It would have had to have been then if my mother was with us.”
“Maybe it was 2007?” Elenor says.
“I would’ve been too young to remember any of it then.”
“Then it wasn’t here,” Elenor says.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Bailey says. “I mean, I recognize the apse. I remember it.”
I move toward Bailey, but she moves away. She isn’t interested in being appeased. She is interested in getting to the bottom of this.
“Elenor,” I say. “Are there other churches in walking distance of campus that look like yours? Something we may have missed that may have reminded Bailey of your church?”
Elenor shakes her head. “No, not with a cathedral that is reminiscent of ours,” she says.
“Maybe a church that has since closed down?”
“I don’t think so. But why don’t you leave your phone number? I can ask the pastor, some of our parishioners. And I will call if I remember anything. You have my word on that.”
“What are you possibly going to remember?” Bailey says. “Why don’t you just say you can’t help us?”
“Bailey, stop…” I say.
“Stop? You’re the one who said if I remember something we need to track it down, and now you’re telling me to stop?” she says. “Whatever, I’m so freaking done with this.”
She stands up quickly, storming out of Elenor’s office.
Elenor and I watch her go silently. She gives me a kind look once Bailey has gone.
“It’s fine,” she says. “I know it’s not me that she’s angry with.”
“Actually it may be,” I say. “But it’s misplaced. She needs to be mad at her father, and he’s not here to hear it. So she’s turning it on everyone else.”
“Understood,” Elenor says.
“Thank you for your time,” I say. “If you do think of anything, even if it feels unimportant, please call.”
I write down my cell number.
“Of course.”
She nods, putting the number in her pocket as I start walking to the door.
“Who does this to his family?” she asks.