“Didn’t she leave a message or something?”

My father shook his head.

“Did you check with the answering service?”

“Jackie—”

“Well then, how do you know she’s not dead?”

“She wrote me a letter,” my father said.

“What did it say?” I demanded. “I want to read it.”

“No, Jackie.”

“Did she write one to me?”

Anna and my father exchanged worried looks. My father regarded me sorrowfully and shook his head.

We sat in silence. I could hear myself breathing. My heart beat fast and hard at the spot where I touched my chest during the morning pledge of allegiance. What would my friends say? A couple kids had parents who were divorced, but that was different. Their parents had left each other. My mother had left me. I suddenly felt nauseous. A sunburned feeling poured down my face and shoulders. I stood up from the couch then became dizzy, sat down, and started to cry. Anna pulled me to her. My father moved over a crack in the modular to sit closer.

How could she be gone? Her scent was still in the room; menthol cigarettes, Dentyne gum. I couldn’t remember when I had last seen her. That morning? Or the night before? What had she been wearing? What had we said to one another?

Until then, I hadn’t given my mother’s presence or absences much thought. She was like those neighbor characters on TV who made appearances but didn’t alter the lives of the main people. On the occasions that we spent time together, I was mostly irritated or plotting my escape. It had never occurred to me that she might feel the same way about me. This was terrible. A real “shit storm” as my father would say. What if I never saw her again? What if I never had the chance to tell her what an awful mother she was and that I would never forgive her? I wished she had died so I wouldn’t have to think about her anymore, then I hated myself for wishing such a terrible thing.

A few nights earlier, she had come to my room dressed in a tight pink pantsuit with the top buttons open and her boobs pushed up. Those undone buttons embarrassed me. I pretended to be asleep when she whispered “G’night” and she “wuvved” me, her whiskey breath steaming my ear.

Did she take all her belongings? Like the glittery earrings that fell almost to her shoulders, or her silk scarves? Or the rows of high heels I secretly dressed up in? Had she left anything for me?