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involvement, probably because she knew me—and my family situation—better than anyone and usually got right to the meat of things. I shook my head and went back to my salad. “Not yet,” I said.
    She stirred her iced tea with her straw, big green eyes still locked on me. “But they could probably track her using her cell phone signal or something.”
    I sat back in my chair, enjoying the feel of the early-afternoon sun on my arms. At least twice a month, in the rare event that we found ourselves free at the same time, my best friend and I met up for lunch at this cute little café near my work. After filling her in on this latest drama, there was no question that we’d meet today. I’d always been able to count on Taylor to help absorb any blows my piece-of-work mother threw at me.
    “She didn’t take her cell phone,” I said, spearing a black olive. I’d discovered this on Friday night, when I called her number and immediately heard ringing coming from upstairs. She’d left it on her dresser, stripped of any clues that might tell me where she was.
    “Weird,” Taylor said. She pushed away the remains of her turkey sandwich and turned toward the window beside us, which faced the street. She watched the passing cars and pedestrians, biting her bottom lip like she did when she was thinking about something unsettling. We’d known each other since we were thirteen, weathered puberty and several other crises (mostly mine) together, and I knew all her little quirks and what each of them meant. Lip-biting meant thinking. Nail-biting meant she was anxious. Eye contact avoidance meant she thought I was wrong.
    “If she’s not back in a couple of days, I’ll call the police,” I assured her, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. It was Monday and she was still gone, which told me she hadn’t left on some weekend excursion. And the fact that she’d left her cell phone—and no note—meant she didn’t want to be tracked down. Even if the police found her…then what? What would they do? Force her to come back and act like a mom? Arrest her? Wasn’t child abandonment a crime? I’d have to Google it when I got home later.
    “You can’t do this alone, Rob.” Taylor leaned toward me, the ends of her wavy brown hair brushing against the round table top. “It’s too stressful. Maybe it would be better if Alan’s parents—”
    “No,” I said, my voice cutting through the café soundtrack of clinking dishes and the moist hiss of cappuccino machines. “I can handle it.”
    She raised her eyebrows, unsure, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. That the pressure of being the sole caregiver to two rambunctious kids might send me into some sort of breakdown. That the stable life I’d worked so hard to maintain might come crashing down around me from the strain. A month or so before the twins were born, I’d sworn to her—and to myself—that I’d get myself together. And I had. I stopped partying every weekend. I quit smoking. I got good grades and made different friends and dated nice guys instead of douchebags who treated me like shit. I wanted to be a good role model for my brother and sister. Someone they could feel proud of. And, for the most part, that was what I’d been, aside from a tiny relapse one night in the fall of freshman year, when I succumbed to peer pressure, drank my face off, and woke up hungover and half-naked in a strange bed with a guy next to me that I didn’t even remember meeting. Not one of my finer moments.
    “So Alan’s selling the house?” Taylor asked, changing the subject.
    I nodded, mouth full of lettuce. I tried not to think too much about the house, and what would happen when it sold. For now, I just wanted to concentrate on keeping the kids alive until bedtime.
    “Have you given any thought to where you’ll go?”
    I swallowed. “If Mom comes back, I guess I’ll stay with her and the twins. If she doesn’t, I have no idea.”
    “I’d ask if you wanted to