“I don’t believe you.”
“You have to trust me. It’s going to be okay. It might not seem like it, but it is. It’s a lot, I know. You’ve made new friends and your family is going to be new, but it’s all good new. I’ll do anything I can to help make it easier. Anything. I promise.”
“You’re just going to leave. That’s what you do. I hear what the grown-ups say.”
The timer on my phone went off. The mandel bread was done with its first bake.
“Go,” Shay said. “Take the stupid cookies out of the oven. They don’t make you like a mother, you know. No matter what you think.”
Shay inhaled deeply, her shoulders and chest rising.
I reached over and Shay lurched back. My body quivered with the recollection of the first time she reached for me from Celia’s arms. Maybe at this moment she needed a little space. I knew I did.
“I’ll be right back. Maybe we can look at the calendar and decide a good time for me to come back to visit.”
“Whatever.”
*
I needed to help Shay find a place of peace even if it was just for the weekend. Then I’d be gone. Like Miles had said, I wasn’t her parent.
Downstairs, I laid the cookie sheet on the counter, sliced the small loaves, and arranged the cookies on the sheet to bake again. I filled a kettle with water. I’d take up two mugs of tea. I wouldn’t attempt anything maternal. Was tea too maternal?
I decided it was not, and carried two mugs up the steps. Shay’s door was closed, my invitation to take a breath and then purposefully intrude, but my hands were full.
“Shay? I’m out here with tea. Open the door. Please.”
Silence from the other side of the door. I rolled my eyes. Good thing the door was closed, because I was sure that was the incorrect response. “Shay, please, honey. Open the door. We can talk about this. We can talk about anything.”
Still no answer, no noise, no movement noises. I set the cups on the floor and turned the doorknob, expecting it to be locked, but it wasn’t. I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
“Shay?” She wasn’t on the bed. She wasn’t next to the bed or under the desk. I checked the closet but it was empty. The bathroom was empty. The guest room and Miles’s bedroom were empty. I opened the door to the attic and pulled on the light. I ran up the wooden steps. Nothing.
Back in the hall, I set my hands on my hips. “Shayna Rose! This isn’t funny.” I sounded like a mother but I didn’t care. Fear propelled me down the stairs. I jumped the bottom three. I opened the front door. “Shay!” I left the door open and ran back through the house to the kitchen and slid open the back door. I stepped out onto the deck and looked at the vacant swing set and scanned the bushes. “Shayna!” The sun hadn’t set so I ran around the house, looking into the car even though I’d locked the doors. I looked in the garage. Back in the house, Shay wasn’t under the tables, in the closets, in my car. Jeez. I opened the dryer, the fridge, the freezer in the basement.
I texted her.
Me: Where are you?
No answer.
Shayna was gone.
My head pounded and my pulse raced. Hereditary catastrophizing kicked in even though not more than three minutes had passed. How far could she have gone? Where could she have gone? She had no friends to run away to or with. What else hadn’t Miles told me about her? What didn’t I know? Had she done this before? Would she hurt herself? Was she coming back?
Shay could not end up on a milk carton.
I dialed Miles’s cell phone. It didn’t matter what he thought of me or if Shay was somewhere in the house I hadn’t thought to look. All I cared about was finding her.
Miles picked up on the first ring. The background noise was raucous.
“What’s wrong?” A confidence-building greeting that was right on point.
“I can’t find Shay.”
“What do you mean you can’t find Shay? I thought this was girls’ night in. Where are you?”
“I’m at the house, but Shay’s gone. I checked everywhere. We had an argument, more of a misunderstanding—or so I thought—and she was really upset. I didn’t realize how much.”
“I’ll go get her.”
“You know where she is?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“You have no reason to trust me at this point, but please tell me.”
“I think you’ve done enough, Teddi.”
“Please, Miles. I upset her but it’s not about me. Shay needs me to be the one who finds her. Please, Miles. I need to fix this. Please let me help Cee’s daughter.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Teddi.”
“It’s the first good idea I’ve had in six years, Miles. Please.”
Miles didn’t answer me.
And then, I knew.
*
I drove to the West End Cemetery, pulled into the parking lot, stepped out of the car, and looked off into the distance, with its muddy, creeping darkness, its deafening silence.
Be brave.
I heard the words clearly inside my head, but this time it wasn’t Celia’s voice I heard. Or even Shay’s.
It was my own.
I ran onto the path that led up and down every aisle of graves. I jogged up and down each path, looking straight ahead, seeing the monuments only in my peripheral vision. The marble blurs were streaked with sadness I ignored. The streetlamps had just turned on, and shined enough light for me to see where I was going. My chest burned by the time I saw her, standing, with her hands inside the apron she hadn’t taken off. I looked down. Neither had I.
I kept quiet, conscious that any word I spoke carried the weight of a thousand stones.
“Can I come closer?”
Shay shrugged. My yellow light to proceed with caution. I stood about two feet behind her. I also faced Celia’s headstone.
CELIA STILLMAN COOPER
DAUGHTER, SISTER, WIFE, MOTHER, TEACHER, FRIEND
ARTIST
Now there was no pretending it didn’t exist. No hoping or praying or wishing it away.
Celia’s headstone was the biggest one on the row. That would have been Miles’s doing. Gray granite with a deeply etched Star of David and the customary Hebrew acronym for “May her soul be bound up in the bond of life.”
Celia’s certainly was.
“I’ve never been here before,” I said.
I just stood, feet firmly planted in the last place I’d expected to be tonight. Shay said nothing. I was going to wait her out. She was going to understand that I wasn’t leaving.
Shay looked up and muttered a few words I couldn’t hear. They weren’t meant for me, but for the universe. She released them into the sky and onto the wings of birds and butterflies so they could carry her thoughts away. Then they would hurt less.
“I don’t remember her.” This time, Shay said it louder. “I can’t hear her voice in my head. We have videos, but that’s what I remember, not the real person. I don’t know what she smelled like. Nothing reminds me of her.”
I squeaked to hold in my cries. I was the lucky one. I was the selfish one.