“Then why are you shaving like it’s an ordinary day?”
He rinsed the razor. “Because falling apart won’t bring him home.”
“No,” I said. “But acting like he forgot to take out the trash won’t either.”
I found him shaving.
He looked at me through the mirror. “You need to be careful.”
“People are watching us, Laura. You don’t want them thinking you’re unstable.”
Daniel loved words like that: unstable, emotional, overreacting. Words that made him sound reasonable and me sound messy.
“My son is missing,” I said. “If that makes me unstable, fine.”
That afternoon, a neighbor brought chicken soup. I couldn’t swallow a spoonful. Daniel ate two bowls and thanked her like we were recovering from the flu.
“You need to be careful.”
I watched him from across the table.
I was drowning. He was managing.
On the seventh night, my phone rang at 9:42 p.m.
I grabbed the phone so fast it slipped from my hand and hit the floor.
Daniel looked up from his laptop. “Who is it?”
I saw the name on the screen, and my stomach folded.
“Mrs. Delmore,” I said. “Noah’s English teacher.”
I was drowning.
Daniel stood. “Why is she calling? And this late? Don’t these people have any respect?”
I answered before he could come closer.
“Laura?” Mrs. Delmore’s voice shook. “I’m sorry. I know it’s late.”
“Is it Noah?” I whispered. “Did someone find him?”
“No. Not exactly. I don’t know how to explain this. My class turned in a writing assignment a few days ago. I was grading tonight, and I found Noah’s paper in the stack. I’m still at school.”
“That’s impossible. He hasn’t been in school.”
“I know, Laura. I know.”
Daniel reached for my phone. “Put her on speaker.”
“Did someone find him?”
His face tightened. “Laura.”
“What was the title?” I asked Mrs. Delmore.
Her voice dropped. “‘Mom, I Want You to Know the Whole Truth.'”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said.
Daniel followed me to the door. “Where are you going?”
“School.”
“You told me not to fall apart,” I said, grabbing my keys. “So, I’m moving. Let me do this, Daniel.”
“‘Mom, I Want You to Know the Whole Truth.'”
Mrs. Delmore met me in her classroom wearing a cardigan over pajamas. The room smelled like dry-erase markers and old coffee.
The paper sat on her desk, folded twice.
“I checked the attendance,” she said. “Noah wasn’t here that day. I don’t know how this got into the stack.”
I stared at his handwriting. “What if it’s goodbye?”
Mrs. Delmore pulled out the chair beside me. “Then we read it together. Laura, I’ve taught teenagers for twenty-three years. Noah didn’t write like a boy saying goodbye. He wrote like a boy trying to save his mother.”
I sat down.
“Noah wasn’t here that day.”
At the top of the page, Noah had written:
“Mom, I Want You to Know the Whole Truth.”
The first line stole the air from my chest.
“Mom, if Mrs. Delmore gave you this, please don’t tell Dad until you’ve finished reading.”
“Keep going,” Mrs. Delmore whispered.
I read.
“Please don’t tell Dad until you’ve finished reading.”
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I left because Dad said the truth would destroy you.
You always said I could tell you anything, even the ugly stuff. I’m sorry I believed Dad when he said this was too much.
