Independence Day (13 page)

The phone rang and made her drop the change.

Who the hell was calling after midnight? Gabriella lunged for the phone, catching it before the second ring. Just her luck if the parents woke up.

“Hello?” she whispered into the mouthpiece.

It was a freakin’ wrong number. Idiots. She was surrounded by idiots.

To ensure this particular idiot didn’t call back, wake her parents and ruin her lead time, she left the phone off the hook. Stuffing the bills from the Mason jar in her pocket—she couldn’t waste time picking up the change—she slipped outside, pausing only to put on her sneakers.

Pulling her bicycle from the side of the barn, she wheeled it out toward the road and freedom.

She had a plan. Although freight trains ran through the nearby towns of Kennebunk and Wells, they didn’t stop at either place. She needed a freight yard, and Portland had the closest. She could get to Portland on the turnpike, maybe by hitching. And the nearest turnpike entrance was a few miles up the road. An easy bike ride, although she knew enough not to ride her bike right through the toll gate. When she got close, she’d hide it in the bushes and sneak on the highway.

That was the plan. It had seemed so simple as she
went over it, lying on her bed. Now, however, it seemed a little daunting. For one thing, her bike didn’t have a light. The moonlight should have been some help, but it cast such long, sharp shadows that depth and distance were skewed, making the landscape really creepy. For another, it was hot and humid, and the effort of pedaling with a heavy pack on her back made sweat trickle into her eyes. She wished she’d thought to bring a ball cap.

At one point a carload of teenagers raced by, stereo bass thumping. Someone threw an empty beer bottle at her, unnerving her enough that she took shelter in some trees.

Was this really a good idea?

Gabriella thought about how her mother was beginning to act like she had a life separate from the rest of them and how her father was acting like a dictator and how Isabel was becoming some weird Step-ford kid and how Keri had betrayed her.

And how she didn’t seem to fit in anywhere.

Peering out from the shelter of the trees and not seeing traffic in either direction, she wheeled her bike back onto the lonely road.

U
NABLE TO SLEEP
, Isabel slipped out of bed and headed to the kitchen for some of her mom’s chamomile infusion.

She liked that Mom had asked her advice on different glazes earlier that evening, in her studio, after Dad had gone all macho and laid down the law with
that contract. She’d signed it so as not to make waves. Actually, he was right in that it wasn’t all that different than what he and Mom usually expected, but he didn’t have to spring it on them without a discussion. It made her feel as if he didn’t have much confidence in her. Of course, Gabriella—

Something wasn’t right.

She switched on the kitchen light to see the side door ajar, the phone off the hook and coins scattered all over the floor.

Oh, my God! It looked like the scene of a robbery.

She screamed.

And kept screaming until she felt her father and mother by her side.

“What the—” Dad began to check the rooms downstairs.

“Go see if Gabriella’s all right,” Mom urged.

She didn’t have to ask twice. Isabel raced upstairs. It was horrible, just horrible, to think your family wasn’t safe.

Gabriella’s door was ajar. “Gabby! Wake up!” When she flipped on the overhead light, she squinted, trying to focus on the rumpled indentation in the middle of her sister’s empty bed.

“Gabby?” Their shared bathroom was also empty.

She checked her parents’ room, their bathroom and even her own room before heading back downstairs with a sinking heart.

“Well?” Mom turned to her as Dad came in from outside.

“Gabriella’s bicycle’s gone,” he said.

“She’s not upstairs.” Tears stung Isabel’s eyes. “I think…she’s run away.” Why’d she been so angry with her earlier?

“Did you know about this?”

“No!” Isabel stepped back as if stung. “She doesn’t share stuff with me anymore.”

“I should’ve seen it coming.” Dad picked up the receiver that had been dangling off the hook and started to make a call.

“Wait, Dad! Hit star sixty-nine. Maybe you can find out who she was talking to.”

“Good idea.” It might have been, but he came up empty. “Unlisted number. Who the hell could she have been talking to?”

Both parents turned to Isabel as if she might know.

“Baylee Warner, Margot Hensley…? I don’t know. She was feeling pretty isolated from that whole crowd. Not Keri. Definitely not. That was over.”

“Write me a list. Anyone you can think of.” Her mother pulled her cell phone from her purse hanging on the kitchen doorknob. “I’ll call the parents.”

Part of Dad’s contract, Isabel thought, was to provide a list of friends, their parents and the contact info. They sure could use something like that now.

“My cell’s upstairs,” her father said. “I’ll call the police, then I’ll head out to see if I can find her. Isabel, use the kitchen phone to start calling the family. Someone has to know where she might’ve gone.”

Her fingers trembling, Isabel dialed her grandfather’s number. Uncle Jonas, who wasn’t married and
still lived at home, answered. “Yeah?” He sure sounded as if she woke him up.

“Uncle Jonas, this is Isabel. Gabriella’s run away. Is she with you and Gramps?”

“No, hon, she isn’t. But I’ll get dressed and start driving around. I’ll call your grandfather, too. He’s making the midnight run of lobsters to the Portland restaurant co-op. If your sister headed for the turnpike, he might run into her.”

She could hear him fumbling, as if getting dressed. “Now don’t you worry,” he said. “We’re going to find her.”

“Thanks.” She hung up. As she was looking up Uncle Sean’s number, she could hear her mom talking on her cell. She didn’t seem to be having much luck either.

Isabel called Uncle Sean, Aunt Mariah and Uncle Brad. None of them had seen Gabriella, but each of them promised to hit the road, searching. She couldn’t believe it. It was one-thirty in the morning, and she’d called up a family posse just like that. How could you not feel optimistic when the McCabes had your back?

Her mom didn’t look so optimistic. “No one’s seen or heard from her,” she said, her cell phone in her lap. She looked as if she were trying hard not to cry.

Isabel moved across the kitchen to put her arms around her mother’s shoulders. “It’s going to be okay,” she offered. “She can’t have gone far. She only has her bike.”

Her father came back into the kitchen. “I talked
to George Weiss. He says they can’t file an official missing persons report till twenty-four hours after she’s disappeared. But off the record, the officers will keep an eye out for her on their regular rounds. I’m going—”

The phone rang, making them all jump.

Dad got it first.

“Thank God!” He slumped against the counter. “It’s Pop,” he said, turning to Isabel and her mother. “He picked Gabby up just before the turnpike. She’s okay.”

“You’ll bring her back?” he said into the mouthpiece, then frowned at her grandfather’s answer. “No. Chessie and I will handle it. Pop—”

At that moment Martha Weiss came through the side door, carrying a pot of coffee. “George called,” she said, hugging Chessie. “I thought you could use the caffeine.”

Mom started to cry for real.

When Dad got off the phone, he didn’t look happy. “Pop’s making a run to Portland. He’s taking Gabriella with him.”

“Why?”

“He says he’s had some experience with kids and he’d like to take a crack at her.”

Isabel laughed out loud with relief.

Her father looked at her as if she’d lost it.

“Geez, Dad, I’d think you’d be doing cartwheels.” She gave him a big bear hug. “We’re not alone any more.”

G
ABRIELLA STARED
across the cab of the truck at her grandfather.

“I got a full tank of gas and the night ahead of me, missy. We’re gonna drive till I get the whole story.” He looked like he meant it.

She glanced through the rear window at her bike—symbol of her failed mission—wedged in the truck bed between crates of lobsters. It seemed you couldn’t get away with anything in a small town.

“Why’d you run away?”

“’Cause I can make it on my own,” she declared despite the fact that she hadn’t even made it to the turnpike entrance.

“You think so? How much money you got?”

“Eighteen bucks.”

He seemed to think that over. Seriously. In fact, Gabriella had never seen Gramps so serious. With the grandkids he was all fooling around and fun. Always.

“Where’d you get the money? Earn it on your own?”

“No,” she mumbled.

“Speak up.”

“I said no. I got it from Mom and Dad. And Isabel.”

“Ah.”

That one syllable made her feel far more guilty than all the recent lectures, being grounded and that stupid contract. When he didn’t say anything more, she made herself small on her side of the seat and stared out the windshield across the median at the headlights streaming by. Why couldn’t she have been picked up by a trucker?

They drove all the way to Portland without a word. With every passing mile, Gabriella felt smaller and smaller. When they stopped at a waterfront warehouse, Gramps got out of the truck to unload the lobster crates. Several men helped him, all of them, Gramps included, talking and joking even after the bed was empty. Her grandfather didn’t bother to introduce her.

When he got back behind the wheel, she was miserable.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“What?”

“Are you hungry? After my run I usually stop at this all-night diner up the way for breakfast.”

“I could eat.” In fact, she was starving.

A couple blocks from the warehouse, Gramps pulled the truck over again. The only light came from what looked like a hole in the wall in a long row of dark buildings. “Come on, sport.”

Gabriella hustled to keep up with him. A neon sign shaped like a cup of coffee flickered over the diner’s single front window, which was smeared with grease.
This wasn’t like the places where her parents took her to eat.

“Keep your hands in your pockets and your eyes to yourself,” Gramps said as he opened the door. “Lot of wharf rats and sailors like this joint.”

Oh, great. That was reassuring.

The room was long and skinny and none too bright, and the air conditioner over the door made a horrible racket. Gabriella was surprised to see all the stools at the counter and most of the booths along the wall occupied. Guys mostly. Dressed in work clothes or white uniforms.

“Penn!” the sole waitress said as her grandfather headed for the last booth in the farthest corner. “Coffee?”

“Ayuh. And a hot chocolate.” He slid into the booth with his back to the wall.

Jeeze, Gabriella thought as she sat across from him, It’s a hundred degrees outside and he orders coffee and hot chocolate.

But by the time the waitress came with their drinks, the air conditioner had her chilled to the bone.

“They make good waffles.” Gramps poured five packets of sugar into his coffee.

“And bacon?” Gabriella didn’t want to press her luck, but she was really hungry.

“Waffles and bacon. Make that two orders,” Gramps said to the waitress with a wink.

Gabriella sipped her hot chocolate and tried not to make eye contact. She was waiting for the lecture.

“You know,” he said at last, “you remind me of your dad.”

Startled, she looked up.

“And a little bit of me.”

Make that stunned. “How?”

“Well, for starters, I ran away when I was your age. And so did your dad. In fact, he was the only one of my five to ever try it.”

“Dad ran away?” Gabriella couldn’t picture it. Her dad wasn’t the running-away kind. He faced things head-on. Always. And expected Gabriella and Isabel to do the same. “Why?”

Gramps looked sad. “When he was your age, his mom—your grandmother—had been gone two years. Your dad took care of his brothers and sister while I worked.”

“He, like, babysat?”

“No.” Her grandfather took a long, slow sip of his coffee. “He fed them, bathed them. Jonas was only a toddler. He helped them with their homework. And he watched them like a hawk. Kept them safe. He was my right hand man, and he did a helluva job.”

Gabriella’s eyes went wide. Dad had never told her this. Yeah, she knew he was the oldest, but…she couldn’t imagine handling that much responsibility. Four kids to take care of every day. Once she and Isabel babysat overnight for Aunt Emily and Uncle Brad’s four kids, and they’d slept most of the next day.

“It was too much for a kid,” Gramps continued,
“though it couldn’t be helped. Not if we were going to stay together.”

“What do you mean?”

“Social services was always sniffing around.”

Gabriella couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d been to school with kids from foster homes. She couldn’t imagine her uncles and her aunt—her dad—having that hanging over their heads.

“Why’d he run away?”

Gramps shook his head. “I think he just needed some peace and quiet. He was only fourteen after all. About to start high school, like you. After forty-eight hours he came back home on his own. Picked up where he left off, only he was a little distant after that. I still don’t know where he went.”

“What did you do to him?” She sure was worried about what Dad would do to her after tonight.

“Nothing. He’d gone through enough. Losing his mother. Taking on the family.”

Gabriella felt her throat grow tight. Even with all the weird things Mom had done lately, well, she didn’t want to think about not having a mother.

“But I never told him…” Her grandfather screwed up his face as if he were in pain.

“What, Gramps? What didn’t you tell him?”

He took a deep breath, then reached across the table to lay his big, rough hand over hers. His smile seemed forced. “You know, the best thing that ever happened to your dad was meeting your mom. Boy,
could she make him laugh. And then you girls… Well, you made his life complete.”

She looked at her grandfather and wondered what he hadn’t told her dad.

Their waffles and bacon arrived, and the two of them ate in silence. When they were finished, she asked, “Do parents ever wish they didn’t have kids? I mean, you said we made Dad’s life complete, but I don’t think he’s too happy with us right now.”

“I’d be a liar if I said he didn’t want a bit of space now and again, but give you up? Never. It’d break his and your mom’s hearts if anything ever happened to you. They’d never stop blaming themselves.”

She trailed her fork in the leftover syrup on her plate. “You said I was like you and Dad. Did you just mean the running away part?”

“No.” He looked her right in the eye. “I meant the chip on the shoulder part.”

“I don’t—”

“Yeah, you do. A real big heavy one. A chip’s not all bad,” her grandfather continued. “At first. It keeps you alert. No one can take advantage of you. But if you don’t learn to deal with it, it grows and grows. And trying to keep it up there, you end up keeping everybody around you at a distance. And that’s not healthy.”

“It’s Isabel that keeps everybody at a distance. Not me.”

“No, you’ve got it wrong. Isabel might stick to herself with her poems, but she’s got a big, soft heart.
She wants to take care of people, and she knows she needs to be taken care of, too.”

“And people with chips on their shoulders?”

“We think we can take on the world all by ourselves. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. We can’t. And the sooner we let others help us, the sooner we let them know we appreciate their help, the better off we’ll feel. The lighter the chip will be. Pretty soon it’s all gone. And we’re a lot nicer people to be around.”

The waitress came with the check.

“She’s paying,” Gramps said, pointing to Gabriella.

It took most of her eighteen dollars to cover the bill plus the tip.

A
LTHOUGH
C
HESSIE AND
Nick stayed in bed until the alarm went off, neither slept. Nick held her because she’d asked him to, but he was stiff and cold beside her. She doubted he took any comfort from her.

He shut the alarm off, then sat on the edge of the bed. “Why wouldn’t he bring her home?”

“You said he wanted a shot at talking to her.”

“Because he thought I hadn’t handled her very well up until now.”

“Did he say that?”

“He didn’t have to.”

“Why would you think your father doesn’t approve of the way you’re raising your daughters?”

“Because he didn’t approve of the way I took care of my brothers and my sister.”

Chessie was stunned by the vehemence in his tone. “Nick, your father has never said one word against the way you handled your siblings.”

“You’ve got it. He never said a word to me about it. Period.”

“And all these years you’ve interpreted that silence as condemnation?”

“How else should I interpret it?”

“That Penn was never one to express his feelings. He’s not an effusive man, but he’s not uncaring.” She stroked Nick’s bare back and felt him tense. “That your brothers and your sister have grown to be good people is testament to the care you gave them. Penn is proud of them. And you.”

“If you say so.” He headed for the bathroom.

It came to her in a flash. Jumping out of bed, she followed him. “This whole distance from your family is because you think you failed them in some way.”

He didn’t answer.

“And this control you exercise over your own family— Gabby, Izzy, me—it’s because you’re afraid of feeling that way with us.”

“It’s not a fear thing.”

“Semantics.”

“Okay.” He inhaled sharply. “I always felt as if I was going to screw up back then. And the stakes were so high. We were always one step away from state care.”

“But you made it through. Your brothers and sister are okay. Let yourself breathe now.”

“Now I have my own family.”

“And you have me. You’re not alone.” She put her arms around him and drew him into a kiss.

Responding with a passion she hadn’t felt from him in a very long time, he groaned and pulled her closer yet. Kissed her with an insistence that made her think they might end up making hot, rough sex against the bathroom door.

But just as quickly as he’d drawn her to him, he stepped away. Although she could see longing in his eyes, his stance was wary, making Chessie wonder for the first time whether Nick had ever given himself totally to her. It was clear now that he’d set himself apart, emotionally, from the McCabe family to cope with the horrible possibility of losing them. Even today, when he was in a position to keep her and the girls safe, did he suffer from the double-edged specter of failure and loss? She’d always thought Nick-in-charge was simply who he was. Was it a front? If so, her Fourth of July rebellion would’ve looked like a direct assault.

“Nick—”

“I have to get going.” He stepped into the shower. “I have an eight o’clock interview with a possible Latin teacher. At this late date, if she’s breathing, she’s got the job.”

“You can’t stay until your dad brings Gabriella home?”

“You’ll be here.”

The phone rang. Isabel picked up an extension just
as Chessie answered. It was Penn. Gabriella was going to help him prep the pound for opening, and he’d bring her home in an hour or so.

Chessie and Isabel met up on the landing, Isabel in sweatpants and a long-sleeved sweatshirt despite the warm morning. “How’d you sleep?” Chessie asked.

“I didn’t.”

“Me neither. Let’s go make some coffee.”

As Isabel went in search of the newspaper, Chessie began to make coffee. When she opened the bag, the aroma of beans that usually gave her a lift made her downright queasy. Family turmoil and lack of sleep were beginning to affect her on an elemental level. This had to stop. She had to find her way back to her center, and her center was Nick.

There would be no working on that relationship this morning, however. Before Isabel could come back with the paper, Nick came downstairs ready for work. When he saw the coffee hadn’t been made, he said he’d pick up a breakfast sandwich combo at Branson’s, gave Chessie a quick kiss and headed out the door. It almost—almost—seemed as if he were avoiding the possibility of running into Penn and Gabriella.

“I can’t find the paper,” Isabel declared, coming in five minutes later. “Do you suppose anything will ever be right again?”

“Of course it will.” Chessie gave her daughter a quick hug before the teenager flopped into a chair. “But I think you’re mistaking right for perfect.”

Isabel shot her mother a quizzical look.

“You’re the poet. The wordsmith,” Chessie said, pulling up a chair. “What you put on the paper is never as perfect as that thought or image in your head, but sometimes it comes out right. Or right enough. Like life.”

“So Gabriella’s running away is all right?”

“Not right as in the best choice, but right as in fitting a fourteen-year-old’s developmental pattern. You’ve taken an introductory psych course. You know impulse control is both hardwired and learned. Well, Gabby’s hardwiring is under construction. Just like every other teenager. Hers more seriously than some, it seems.”

“And because of it, she gets off?”

“No. As a parent I need to understand, then help her learn to curb those impulses. To become an adult.”

Isabel gazed at her hands. “You’re an adult, but it didn’t look as if you were curbing your impulses on the Fourth of July.”

Ah, her daughter still hadn’t reconciled that episode.

“Do you think I’m selfish for trying to be my own woman?”

Isabel looked up. Almost looked Chessie in the eye. “Don’t you think you’re a little old to be finding yourself?”

“Honey, we’re always finding ourselves.” Chessie took Isabel’s hand. “Think like a poet, not like my daughter.”

Enlightenment suddenly flickered in the seventeen-year-old’s eyes before worry replaced it. “Does Dad understand all this?”