Just then two bikers exited the bar. Zadie and Finn halted their conversation and moved aside to let them pass. Finn held her breath, hoping that the one whose bike she’d sat on didn’t notice the smudges she’d left on the handlebars.

Once the bikers had peeled out onto the highway, Finn continued, “I’ll be more careful, okay? I promise.”

“No more running away?”

Finn almost corrected her but decided against it. She hadn’t been aware that she’d left the bar. But if she admitted to Zadie how little control she’d had in that moment, her sister would probably try to pull the plug on the whole operation. “No more running away.” It was a promise Finn knew in her heart she was likely to break.

FOURTEEN ONE MONTH

(UNTIL NORA WILDER’S DISAPPEARANCE)

“If anyone tries to hassle you, you just tell them you’re with Nora Wilder. And if they still hassle you”—Nora snapped her right knee toward her chest like a drum major—“kick ’em in the balls.”

“Mom, I’ll be fine,” Zadie insisted, although her gaze drifted nervously across the room of strange men with their full beards and half-full pint glasses. This was the first time Zadie had been to see her mom perform at Hound Dog’s open mic night. Finn was at a sleepover, and rather than make Zadie sit at home alone, Nora had offered to take her along. She was friends with the doorman, so he had let Zadie through on Nora’s word that she was twenty-one, even though that particular milestone was still three years away—three years that felt like a hundred in the dim bar that smelled like cigarettes and simmered with intoxicated laughter.

“I know you’ll be fine,” Nora said. “You always are.” There was a tinge of melancholy in her voice.

Zadie flashed the stamp on the back of her hand. “If I’m supposed to be twenty-one, does that mean I get to drink?”

“Nice try,” Nora said, playfully pinching her daughter’s nose between her thumb and forefinger. She flagged down the bartender and pointed to Zadie. “She’ll have a Coke.” The bartender nodded and Nora placed two dollar bills on the counter.

“I’m on next,” she said, waving toward the stage, where a wiry young man with an incongruous mustache was playing guitar. “Stay here. I’ll come find you after.”

“Good luck,” Zadie said.

Nora winked at her daughter and disappeared into the crowd.

A few minutes later, the emcee took the stage. “Most of you know our next act. She’s the down-home rocker who lives up to her last name.” Several whistles pierced Zadie’s ears. She knew her mom was popular, but at Hound Dog’s she was practically a celebrity. “Performing ‘Edge of Seventeen,’ please, give a big round of applause for Nora Wilder!”