Page 86 of Together Again

Isaac

All color drainedfrom Max’s face. I’d run from the center to the hospital, so I was struggling to get my breath back.

“Jennifer’s mom… she called… Lucy didn’t stay with them last night—”

“What? Shit, fuck, fuck.” His eyes were pleading for a solution, and I didn’t have one, but I knew I had to keep my head cool for Max.

I’d made a career out of keeping kids off the streets, so there was no way I’d let one back out there on my watch, especially after everything we’d talked about last night.

“Let’s make a plan, okay?”

“Yes, a plan, okay.” He was looking through me. I was losing him. Fuck.

“Max, can your friends here call all the Manhattan hospitals in case she turns up at any?”

He opened and closed his hands like he didn’t know what else to do with them.

“She’s probably okay, Max. It’s just a precaution. Diogo and Fernando are here to help us search.”

“Do you have a photo of her?” Fernando asked.

“Oh, yes, of course.” I’d totally forgotten they’d never met her. I pulled out my phone and sent Diogo and Fernando a photo I had taken of her only a few days ago. We’d been cooking dinner together, and she’d started singing a song in Spanish, so we’d taken a selfie using the wooden spoons as pretend microphones. She looked at ease and carefree in that photo like the teenager she was.

“I’m going to change,” Max said and disappeared behind the double doors of the emergency rooms.

With Max gone, I made a plan with Diogo and Fernando of how we should split. We all had each other’s numbers, so we could ring if there was a lead.

We’d given Lucy money for the subway and some pocket money, but since she’d only been with us a week, she couldn’t have saved enough to take her anywhere far.

Lucy wasn’t like a typical messy teenager. Her upbringing at her dad’s house and her need to be invisible had made her into the perfect tidy teenager, and the benefit of that was that all her stuff was easily identifiable.

“Wait,” I said, holding a hand up. “She left all her stuff at the apartment.”

Max came back then, wearing his coat, ready to go.

“Max, she didn’t take anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was in her room checking for laundry this morning. The notebook she always carries with her was on the bedside table with her mom’s photograph on top of it.”

“The photo of her and her mom?”

“Yes. Max, maybe she didn’t run away.”

He relaxed a little.

“If she didn’t run, then where is she?”

We called Lucy’s phone again. It was switched off, so we left a message for her to call us back.

“Fernando, Diogo, can you start by searching the train and bus stations?”

“Of course. We’ll call you if we find her.”

When they left us, I took Max into my arms.

“It’s okay. We’ll find her, I promise.”