Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

I shook my head and took a page out of Will’s playbook, snagging a slice of pizza for myself.

“Um, how’s your sister?”

Will sighed heavily, clearly exhausted.

“No permanent damage from the dehydration or… anything else she got up to when she was away. She won’t say where she was or what she was doing.” He shrugged. “So, it could be worse.” But he didn’t look comforted. He attacked another piece of pizza. Out of habit, he folded it the way he did New York–style pizza, but that just made the fat slice’s cheese bunch up and sauce drip out the sides, splatting onto Will’s knee.

“Is something else going on? You seem super freaked. I mean, not that you shouldn’t be anyway, just, like, extra freaked.”

He scraped the sauce off his jeans and kept eating, mindlessly. When he swallowed the last mouthful of crust, he cleared his throat.

“Usually the kids are good about acting normal at school. But I guess, uh, Sarah’s teacher noticed that she was real jumpy and called the house to talk to Claire, but she wasn’t there so she called CPS.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah. And it’s not the first time, which means—well, I’m not sure what will happen, exactly. I’m not sure what… should happen.”

“Do you want… I mean, do you think it would be better if CPS took Nathan and Sarah away?”

“No. Well, some things might be better, but… you know this town. No way would they get to stay here; Holiday doesn’t have the resources or the population. And they’d end up getting split up if they got placed with anyone. It’s not ideal. But obviously neither is life with Claire.”

“What’s going to happen this time, do you think?”

He shook his head again. “I don’t know. Most likely? Probably nothing.”

“What? How can that be? They must take stuff like this seriously, right? I mean, no offense to your sister who seems super nice and all, but she went off and left her kids alone for days.”

“Well, I’m not sure. But…. Okay, people look at Claire and they see a beautiful, vibrant woman with cute kids. She’s charming and outgoing and everyone she meets likes her. I’ve seen her talk her way out of every mess she’s ever gotten herself into, so the good money’s on this time not being any different.”

I couldn’t believe that they’d really do nothing. Surely an official body like CPS wouldn’t care about something as superficial as Claire’s charm. As if he could sense my doubt, Will started listing examples.

“When she was twenty, Claire got caught breaking into the middle school and stealing a television set from the media room. The security guard never even called the police because she started talking to him and flirting with him. After an hour, he had her phone number and she walked out. The first time she got busted with drugs she talked her way into a fancy lawyer who took her case pro bono, and she just had to pay a fine. When Nathan was little she’d drive to Kalkaska and have him go into ice-cream places where he’d ask the people who worked there for an ice cream, Claire would look all sad and apologetic and tell him they couldn’t afford it, and the people would give Nathan an ice cream for free. And one for Claire.

“And both times someone from CPS looked into things they thought everything seemed fine. The kids obviously weren’t dirty or hungry. If they asked about her erratic behavior, Claire would talk sincerely about how hard it was sometimes as a young single mom to maintain a sense of freedom. When it was a female caseworker, she talked about how society tells mothers that they aren’t allowed to want things for themselves anymore. When it was a male caseworker she told stories about how aggressively going after her career goals was a good example to set for her kids. Would that shit play in New York? No way. But here? Mostly these are people who are just as desperate for excitement as everyone else. They see Claire, beautiful and having fun, and they see what they wish their lives were like.”

Will reached out and took my hand, sliding his fingers through mine without a thought.

“And it’s not just CPS,” he went on with a sigh. “It’s doctors and shrinks and… fuck. I know I probably sound paranoid as hell. But there are pictures that people have in their minds of what mental health issues look like. And Claire is not that picture. I know it’s not all about how she looks. It’s also about how she presents herself. How fucking sad this town is that they’d rather buy into the romance of Claire’s manic shit being her having adventures or living her dreams or whatever than see it for what it is. No one believes she has a problem.”