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Britta and Elise, but they were more like acquaintances than best friends, people with whom I shared English classes and study halls and the occasional cafeteria table. Finn was the only one I would have thought about calling but after seeing him and Nobody, I would rather take my chances, stripped naked, in the middle of the desert. No. I’d rather take my chances with a rattlesnake than Will Finnigan ever again.
    “Whitman family?” called out a voice from across the room. A woman with spiky short black hair wearing a pencil jean skirt and brown blazer stood in the opened doorway to an office with a white-and-black nameplate beside it. She smiled at us when we turned and then waved us over. “I can meet with you now.”

Chapter 8
    Twenty-Nine Days and Twelve Hours Before
    “P lease, call me Ann,” the lady with the spiky black hair told us in what felt like a “we’re all in this together, so let’s drop the formalities” virtual-group-hug kind of greeting. She had a friendly but no-nonsense air about her. Even though Jack and I never called adults by their first names, Ann didn’t look like an oldie —Jack’s terminology, not mine. Mid-twenties, maybe?
    After a few awkward moments of hand-shaking and greetings, we sat on three folding chairs in front of a gray metal desk littered with folders and framed photos. Mom sat between Jack and me. Our shoulders rubbed together and the stiffness in Mom’s back never left.
    I prayed Ann could give us some answers, some hope, but seriously, I didn’t know which questions we should be asking. Everything seemed so insurmountable. With every passing day, we’d lost pieces of our lives, chiseled and drilled away bit by painful bit. During the past week, it was as if the three of us had gotten sucked into a blender and we couldn’t reach the surface. Worse, we didn’t know how.
    Along with a college diploma from the University of Arizona, Ann’s office walls were covered with silver-framed photos of groups of happy people, some building houses with long pieces of yellow wood, everybody carrying a hammer or saw, wearing matching red baseball caps. Other photos had people seated at picnic tables at a park, like big extended families, while others showed people planting trees and flowers. Everyone had a purpose. Everyone was smiling, some were even laughing, and I had to wonder, what was so fun or funny? There was nothing funny about this mostly gray office and the warehouselike room outside. My hands reached for the armrests and gripped them.
    “I got a call this morning from Cheryl Sesnon from the Jubilee Women’s Center in Seattle?” Ann said it like a question. “I understand that the two of you attended college together?”
    Mom inched to the edge of her chair. “Yes, Cheryl and I were roommates.” She swallowed. “I didn’t know who else to call. I don’t...” Mom’s voice caught. “I don’t have anyone.... There’s nowhere else to go. I called her the day we found ourselves here. I hoped she could give me some direction on what to do. I figured that if anyone would know, Cheryl would.” Mom’s voice began to wobble. “This is our first time... I just don’t know what to do.”
    “Totally understandable.” Ann leaned forward and extended her hand, reaching for Mom’s. Watching Mom’s fingers tremble, I wanted to wrap Mom in my arms, not just hold her hand. “And it’s okay, Elaine.” She squeezed Mom’s hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
    Okay. Nothing felt okay. These were just more words. Could we depend on them? I turned to Mom. She looked as though she wanted to believe Ann but couldn’t quite go there yet. Her lower lip quivered and her eyes turned glassy. I swallowed back the growing peach pit in my throat, watching my beautiful mother suffering, struggling, begging for a solution with her eyes. She had been the strong one in our family for so long and now she looked as though she were drowning right before my eyes. I wished that I