CHAPTER
1
Sometimes people disappear. One minute they’re there, then poof, like a magic trick, they’re gone.
On that first Saturday after we moved to Fortin, Vermont, when I watched my mom get handcuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser, that’s what I thought about. People disappearing.
I’d just handed Mom the tape to seal the drafty windows of our latest “forever home” when Bob Van Doodle barked. We peered outside as the cruiser fishtailed up our unplowed driveway. Mom dropped the tape.
“He must be here about my complaint,” she said. “He must have questions. Or paperwork. Remember how Dad hated paperwork?” She pressed her necklace’s moon charm against her lips.
The officer raised his hand to knock, but Mom had already opened the door. A blast of frosted air propelled him inside. The door shut. The window rattled. I hugged myself.
“Dahlia Hayes,” he said.
“Yes?” Mom said.
“Ma’am, you have the right to remain silent.” He handed her a piece of paper.
She glanced at it. “But this isn’t right,” she said in a small voice I’d only heard once before. “I was the one who made the complaint. I’m the victim. I spoke with Detective Doyle. Did you talk to her?”
“You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you by the court.” He removed handcuffs from his belt. “I’m going to need you to come to the station for booking.” His hand rested on his holster. “Put your hands behind your back.”
“Booking? For what?” She crossed her arms. “You are not putting those on me.”
“Simple Assault. It’s all in the arrest warrant,” he said. “You’re facing up to a year in jail.” He jangled the handcuffs. “I prefer we not do this in front of the girl.”
Mom’s laugh was high-pitched and forced. “We’re not going to do anything in front of the girl. I’m not going with you.”
“Ma’am, if you make this difficult, I’ll add a charge of resisting arrest. Your choice.”
The officer turned toward me. I read the name tag on his uniform: OFFICER PRATTLE.
“How old are you?” he said.
I felt the lump in my throat grow, the way it always did when I had to talk to strangers. It felt like a peach pit, scratchy and tight and blocking my words from escape. I nodded my long black hair forward. My bangs were like my own personal invisibility cloak; I could disappear inside it whenever I wanted to.
“Ruby’s twelve,” Mom said. “And she’s staying right here.”
Officer Prattle took a deep breath. “Do you have something else to put on?” he asked her. She was wearing Dad’s old Tim McGraw T-shirt and the sweatpants she’d slept in last night.
“Ruby, hand me my coat.”
My body wouldn’t move.
“Ruby,” she whispered.
I grabbed her coat from the couch and held it out. She slipped her goose-bumped arms into its sleeves.
“You need to put your hands behind your back,” the officer said.
Mom made tight fists and, for a second, I worried she’d slug the guy. Instead, her hands fell to her sides. The handcuffs clicked. Bob barked.
“What’s your dog’s name?” the officer asked me.
“Bob Van Doodle,” Mom said. “My husband named him.”
“Is there a neighbor who can stay with your daughter, or is she coming with us to the police station?”
Mom shook her head violently, then turned toward me, her eyes wide and unfocused. “The phone’s in my bathrobe, Ruby,” she said. “Call Cecy.”
* * *
When they were gone, I lifted Mom’s bathrobe from the chair where she’d tossed it earlier. I buried my face in it, breathing her mango-scented shampoo. I swallowed hard. Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry. Bob retrieved the tape with his teeth and dropped it at my feet. Mom’s words from just before the officer showed up echoed in my brain.
This is it, Ruby, she had said. Our true forever home. I can feel it in my bones. She had given me a tight smile. We hit a few bumps when we first moved to Myrtle Beach, and Avalon, and, well, Orlando, too, but everything worked out in the end.
Only it hadn’t.
Call Cecy.
Cecy had lived in Fortin her whole life. Although she was Mom’s older cousin, she acted more like her mother. No matter where we had moved over the last two years, Cecy visited. I’m your only living relative, Dahlia. I need to make sure you and Ruby are safe, she’d say. Then she’d look at me with a face like she’d just drunk sour milk. Your mother would have you living in a barn, Ruby, if it wasn’t for me.
Later when I’d complain about Cecy, Mom would laugh. That’s Cecy for you, she’d say.
When things fell apart in Orlando, Cecy put her foot down. It’s time to come home to Fortin, Dahlia, she had said. Even though Mom hadn’t lived in Vermont since she was six, we packed our bags that night.
Now, as I shivered against the chill of our newest “forever home,” I couldn’t help but think that maybe we had finally landed in that barn Cecy was always talking about.
Bob whined and scratched at the door.
I dug Mom’s TracFone out of her robe’s pocket.
Cecy answered on the first ring. “I found more warm clothes at Family Thrift,” she said.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, willing my throat to open.
“Dahlia?” Cecy said.
“It’s me.”
“Ruby? You sound like you just woke up. Tell your mom I’ll drop off the clothes later or I can meet her at Frank’s—”
“Cecy, the police were—Mom got arrested.”
Silence.
“Mom said to call you.”
“You’ve been in Fortin for less than a week. How—” Cecy swore under her breath. “And it’s New Year’s Day for Pete’s sake. They have nothing better to do?”
I could almost see her sour-milk face.
“I’ll go to the police station,” she said. “I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
As I lowered the phone, I heard Cecy’s voice screech, “Rubyyyyy!”
I put the phone to my ear.
“Stay in the house. I’ll call you.”
“But Bob. He’ll need to—”
“Well, if you have to go out, keep him on a leash and don’t go in the woods.”
After I hung up, I hugged myself against the stillness of the house. Garbage bags, stuffed with whatever we could fit from our last forever home, leaned against the wobbly kitchen table and spilled off the lumpy couch. Cecy had stacked old newspapers, kindling, and logs next to a woodstove, but Mom couldn’t figure out how to work it. Now it glared at me like a caged animal, its four iron legs ready to pounce.
Bob leaped up, placing his front paws on the table. He snagged his leash and dragged it clanging across the uneven floorboards toward the front door and scratched again. But I didn’t want to go outside. I wanted to hide under the comforter on my air mattress.
Don’t let me down, Ruby. I’m trusting you to take good care of Bob.
Bob whined.
Copyright © 2019 by Jeanne M. Zulick
