Page 80 of The Five Year Lie

Nobody asks me why my friend had two names. They are all unfailingly polite to the anxious woman with the strange request.

But nobody has ever heard of him.

My next move is to try to find a death certificate for Jay Marker in North Carolina. But you need to know which county they died in. And the precise spelling of their first name.

Frustrated, I nudge my phone off the bed, hug my pillow tightly, and sleep again.

That afternoon, Buzz has a friend over. But I’ve forgotten all about it until I wake up at two o’clock to the sound of two kids’ voices instead of one.

“Ariel?” my mother is calling. “We’re here!”

Hell.I stagger off the bed, still half-asleep. “Coming!” I croak. I swipe a brush through my hair and smooth out my wrinkled T-shirt.

But I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror as I pass down the hall, and there’s really no way to disguise the pillow crease down my face.

Still, I lift my chin and descend the stairs as if everything is fine. “Hi, guys!”

My mother gives me a head-to-toe inspection and then frowns. “Are you all right?”

“Sure, just a little tired. Took the morning off from work to catch up on some sleep.”

Her frown deepens. “They wanted chicken fingers for lunch,” she says in a way that conveys disapproval. I can’t tell if it’s the fried food or the fact that I look hungover.

“Thank you for that,” I say as graciously as I can.

“What are we going to do?” Buzz chirps. “Can we go to the museum?”

He means the Children’s Museum, which is always throbbing with people. The floor is sticky and the din is overbearing. Picture a rave, but with preschoolers drunk on juice and freedom instead of intoxicants.

But his eyes are full of hope, and we don’t host that many playdates. “Maybe,” I say quickly. “Let me just talk to Grandma...”

My mother is already holding out her car keys. “Go ahead. I was going to spend the afternoon in the garden. It’s time to transplant my tomato seedlings.”

Buzz and Kaden, his friend, let out whoops of joy.

So I guess I’d better find some juice boxes and hand sanitizer.

The afternoon is survived by not really having to interact with anybody. I trail Buzz and Kaden from the water play area to an arts and crafts station, and then I watch while they climb and slide through a vertical structure that reminds me of those tubular hamster homes advertised on the pet channel.

But Buzz is happy. He makes me a picture frame by gluing dried flowers onto a wooden rectangle. I offer to carry it while it dries, treating it like a delicate treasure.

“This one is for my mom,” Kaden says, handing me a similar frame. “And this one is for my daddy. I put rocks on his.”

Buzz leans over and studies Kaden’s work, and I wonder what he’s thinking. Everyone else seems to have a daddy. Except him.

It’s hard to miss something you never had, my mother says sometimes.

But she’s wrong. I wanted a dad even when I had one. And the older he gets, the more questions he’ll have.

I used to know exactly how I’d answer them.

Worn out from all the excitement, Buzz falls asleep early tonight. That leaves me sitting in front of the TV sipping wine and feeling wobbly and alone.

I hear a car pull into the driveway. My windows are open, so I also hear Ray tap on my mother’s kitchen door and then let himself in. One day soon I’m sure they’ll announce that he’s moving in. Her house is nicer than his, and closer to the office.

Plus, if she sold this house, we’d be uprooted. And I just can’t see my mother doing that to us.

Another sip of wine down the gullet. I flip bleakly through the Netflix offerings, looking for something to distract me from my troubles. But nothing appeals.