Chapter One
The phone wakes me as if it were sounding an alarm inside my chest. What now, it rings, what now what now what now.
I know it’s Rudy. The phone is set to ring for only two people—Harmon and Rudy (At least I made the short list, Harmon once joked)—and Harmon is next to me in bed. Besides, what has Harmon ever brought me but comfort and safety? But Rudy . . .
The phone has stopped ringing by the time I grab it but there is a text on the screen.
Mom?
I’m here, I text back. My thumb hovers over the keypad. If he were here maybe I could slip in baby, like I used to call him when he woke up from nightmares, but you can’t text that to your seventeen-year-old son. What’s up? I thumb instead. Casual. As if it isn’t—I check the numbers on top of the screen—2:50 in the freaking morning.
I watch the three gray dots in the text bubble on the left side of the screen darken and fade in a sequence meant to represent a pregnant pause. The digital equivalent of a hm. What tech genius thought that up? my Luddite husband would demand.
I get up, shielding the screen against my chest so the light won’t wake Harmon, and go into the bathroom. When I look at the screen the text bubble has vanished.
Damn.
I try calling but am sent immediately to voicemail. I type a question mark, and then stare at its baldness. Will he read it as nagging? If I can hear his eight-year-old voice in a single typed word, he can no doubt see my raised eyebrows and impatient frown in one punctuation mark.
I add a puzzled emoji face and then a chicken and a helicopter. Mother hen. Helicopter parent. If I make fun of my own fears maybe he won’t get mad. And maybe they won’t come true. I am propitiating the jealous gods, spitting over my shoulder, knocking on wood.
I wait, sitting on the toilet seat. Where is he? What’s happened? A car accident? A drug overdose? A breakup with his girlfriend? I should be more worried about the first two possibilities but it’s the thought that Lila has broken up with him that squeezes my heart. She’s been such a good influence this year. Lila Zeller, a sweet vegan, straight-A student from Long Island, who likes to read and cook and hang out on our front porch. Who makes eye contact with Harmon and me, unlike the Goth horrors Rudy dated in tenth and eleventh grades. Under Lila’s influence Rudy has done better in school, quit smoking, joined the track team, taken a lead part in the senior play, got it together to apply to college, and even stopped having the nightmares. Aside from stocking the fridge with almond milk and tofu, I’ve tried not to let on how much I like her lest Rudy decide she’s one of my enthusiasms and give her up the way he gave up violin, soccer, judo, and books.
It’s too much pressure, he once told me, when I see how much you care.
Maybe I’ve played it too cool. Lila hasn’t been around much in the last few weeks. I’d chalked it up to finals week and play rehearsals. Lila is directing The Crucible and Rudy is playing John Proctor. Tonight was the premier but I didn’t go because Rudy said he’d be too nervous if I were in the audience. I am “allowed” to go to tomorrow’s performance. Jean Shire, Haywood’s headmistress and a good friend, texted earlier to tell me that the play had gone well and that Rudy had been outstanding. She sent me a picture of Rudy smiling jubilantly. What went wrong between then and—I check the time—3:01 A.M.?
Eleven minutes have gone by since he texted. Where is he? I picture him lying in a burned-out squat in Lisbon Falls or Lewiston, one of those inland towns that run like a dark afterthought to the coastal villages the tourists favor. When we landed here in this pretty harbor town with its sailboats and white clapboard houses I’d thought we’d come to a place where we’d always be safe. But Rudy has always had a nose for the darkness.
I do have a way of locating him, I realize. Because we’re on the same phone plan I can use the Find My Phone app to track him down. I try not to use it because I know Rudy would consider this surveillance, an invasion of his privacy. But this is an emergency.
I’m opening it up when the text alert pings.
Can you come get me?
Sure, I text back. I can imagine Harmon saying, At three in the morning, Tess? You don’t even know where he is. But what does that matter? If he texted me from California I’d get in the car and start driving.
Where are you? I text.
I wait as the three dots pulse at the rate of my heartbeat. The police station? The hospital? A ditch by the side of the road? Where has my wayward son found himself tonight?
SP, he types back.
The safe place.
It was a code we came up with when Rudy was four. If things are bad, go to the safe place and wait for me there; I’ll come get you. We haven’t used the code in years. Haven’t had to. What’s happened that Rudy has to use it now?
OMW, I type back, which the phone transforms into an overly cheery On my way!
WHEN I GET out of the bathroom I notice Harmon isn’t in bed. No doubt he’s gone to the guest room, where he often goes when I’m restless. Rudy isn’t the only one who has nightmares.
I’m glad now that I don’t have to answer any questions. Harmon will be sympathetic but I don’t think I can bear the look of disappointment on his face. The what’s-Rudy-gotten-himself-into-this-time look.
I dress quickly and warmly: jeans, turtleneck, sweater, wool socks. It’s been mild for the last few days but the Maine winter hasn’t let go of the nights yet, even in late May. Rudy won’t be dressed for it. Downstairs, I grab a folded sweatshirt from the top of the radiator in the mudroom. I left it there for Harmon so it would be warm for his morning run, but he and Rudy wear the same size and I’ve long since lost track of which XL purple and gold Haywood Academy sweatshirt belongs to whom. I’ll replace it when I get back before Harmon wakes up.
The clock above the stove tells me it’s 3:06. Almost twenty minutes have gone by since Rudy’s first text. Twenty minutes he’s spent sitting in the cold.
When I get outside I see that it’s not only cold, it’s foggy; a thick white blanket obliterates the village and bay. The coast road will be dangerous to drive. But except for a footpath that cuts across campus there’s no other way to get to where Rudy is. I feel better when I slide into the Subaru Forester’s heated seats, grateful for the warmth and the solid bulk of the car as I navigate down our steep driveway and out onto the coast road.
Although I can’t see more than ten feet ahead of me, the reflective markers on the median guide me to the flashing red light before the bridge that connects the village to the school grounds. As with much of coastal Maine the land here is broken up by waterways and pieced together by bridges and causeways like a tattered garment that’s been darned. Like me, I sometimes think, like the life I’ve pieced together for Rudy and me. No wonder Rudy doesn’t trust it; no wonder he’s prone to outbursts. When I get really mad, he told me once, everything goes black.
The thought of Rudy lost in that darkness had caught at my heart. We came up with a strategy. We agreed that whenever he felt angry he’d just walk away. Go someplace where he could be alone and cool down. That must be what happened tonight. He’d fought with Lila and then walked away to the safe place and waited for me. Because that’s what I’d always told him to do. I made a promise to Rudy once that I’d always come find him in the safe place. I’ve broken many promises over the years but never that one.