In his room I start opening drawers. In his bathroom I open cabinets. He’s left some things behind, but I don’t know if this means he’s coming back or if these are just things he doesn’t want anymore.
In the hallway I pass his school pictures, his eyes following me as I run down the stairs so fast I nearly fall. My heart is beating so hard and loud that I can’t hear anything except the drumming of it, which fills my ears. In the living room I find Decca staring at the television, and I say, “Is your mom home?”
“Not yet.”
“Do you know if she got the messages from my mom?”
“She doesn’t check the phone much. Kate probably got them.”
“Is Kate here?”
“Not yet. Did you find Theo?”
“No. He’s not there.”
“He does that sometimes.”
“Goes away?”
“He’ll be back. He always comes back.” That’s just his thing. It’s what he does.
I want to say to her and Charlie and Brenda, to Kate, to his mom: Doesn’t anyone care why he comes and goes? Have you ever stopped to think that something might be wrong with this?
I go into the kitchen, where I check the fridge and center island in case he left a note, because these seem like note-leaving places, and then I open the door to the garage, which is empty. Little Bastard is gone too.
I find Decca again and tell her to let me know if she hears from her brother, and I give her my number. On the street outside I look up and down for his car, but it’s not there either.
I pull out my phone. The voicemail picks up again. “Finch, where are you?”
FINCH
Day 80
(a muthaf#@*ing world record)
In his poem “Epilogue,” Robert Lowell asked, “Yet why not say what happened?”
To answer your question, Mr. Lowell, I’m not sure. Maybe no one can say. All I know is what I wonder: Which of my feelings are real? Which of the mes is me? There is only one me I’ve ever really liked, and he was good and awake as long as he could be.
I couldn’t stop the cardinal’s death, and this made me feel responsible. In a way, I was—we were, my family and I—because it was our house that was built where his tree used to be, the one he was trying to get back to. But maybe no one could have stopped it.
“You have been in every way all that anyone could be.… If anybody could have saved me it would have been you.”
Before he died, Cesare Pavese, believer in the Great Manifesto, wrote, “We do not remember days, we remember moments.”
I remember running down a road on my way to a nursery of flowers.
I remember her smile and her laugh when I was my best self and she looked at me like I could do no wrong and was whole.
I remember how she looked at me the same way even when I wasn’t.
I remember her hand in mine and how that felt, as if something and someone belonged to me.
VIOLET
The rest of march
The first text comes in on Thursday. The thing is, they were all perfect days.
As soon as I read it, I call Finch, but he’s already turned the phone off and I go to voicemail. Instead of leaving a message, I text him back: We’re all so worried. I’m worried. My boyfriend is a missing person. Please call me.
Hours later, I hear from him again: Not missing at all. Found.
I write immediately: Where are you? This time he doesn’t answer.
My dad is barely speaking to me, but my mom talks with Mrs. Finch, who says Finch has been in touch to let her know he’s okay, not to worry, and he promises to check in every week, which implies that he’s going to be gone for a while. No need to call in psychiatrists (but thanks so much for the concern). No need to call the police. After all, he does this sometimes. It appears my boyfriend isn’t missing.
Except that he is.
“Did he say where he went?” As I ask it, I suddenly can see that my mom looks worried and tired, and I try to imagine what would be happening right now if it was me and not Finch who’d disappeared. My parents would have every cop within five states out looking.
“If he did, she didn’t tell me. I don’t know what else we can do. If the parents aren’t even worried … well. I guess we need to trust that Finch means what he says and that he’s all right.” But I can hear all the things she isn’t saying: If it were my child, I’d be out there myself, bringing him home.
At school, I’m the only one who seems to notice he’s gone. After all, he’s just another troublemaker who’s been expelled. Our teachers and classmates have already forgotten about him.
So everyone acts as if nothing has happened and everything’s fine. I go to class and play in an orchestra concert. I hold my first Germ meeting, and there are twenty-two of us, all girls, except for Briana Boudreau’s boyfriend, Adam, and Lizzy Meade’s brother, Max. I hear from two more colleges—Stanford, which is a no, and UCLA, which is a yes. I pick up the phone to tell Finch, but his voicemail is full. I don’t bother texting him. Whenever I write back, it takes him a long time to respond, and when he does, it’s never in answer to anything I’ve said.
I’m starting to get mad.
Two days later, Finch writes: I am on the highest branch.
The next morning: We are written in paint.
Later that night: I believe in signs.
The next afternoon: The glow of Ultraviolet.
The day after that: A lake. A prayer. It’s so lovely to be lovely in Private.
And then everything goes quiet.
VIOLET
April
April 5 is Easter Sunday. My parents and I drive to the A Street Bridge and climb down to the dried-up riverbed that runs below to lay some flowers on the spot where Eleanor was killed. Embedded in the ground is a license plate, one that suddenly looks familiar, and circling this is a small garden where someone has planted flowers. Finch.
I go cold all over, not just from the damp air. It’s been one year, and even though my parents don’t say much as we’re standing there, we’ve survived.
On the way home, I wonder when Finch was there—when he first found the license plate, when he came back. I wait for my parents to ask about the garden or talk about Eleanor, to call her by name today of all days. When they don’t, I say, “It was my idea to see Boy Parade during spring break. Eleanor wasn’t crazy about them, but she said, ‘If you want to see Boy Parade, then let’s really see them. Let’s follow them all over the Midwest.’ She was good at that, taking things one step further and making them bigger and more exciting than they would have been.” Like someone else I know.