Finally, Zoe went inside and called Jonah’s name like a question. She didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one. She peered up the steps to the bedrooms. Jonah had kicked a stack of laundry that their mother had folded before leaving for work. T-shirts, bras, and plaid little-boy boxers were strewn over the staircase. Zoe hung her head and climbed.
Rufus sat outside Jonah’s door, trying everything he could think of to get the kid to open it. When he saw Zoe, he stood, hugged her, and—without saying I told you so, god bless him—lumbered down the stairs.
Zoe sat, and scratched at the door playfully. Jonah didn’t answer. She could hear him jumping on the ladybug.
“I’m sorry, Jonah,” she said. “I’m a really bad example of a person right now. I know that.”
The bouncing stopped. The bed squeaked as Jonah hopped off it. Zoe heard him come to the door. Rather than open it, he sat on the other side and said nothing. It was a gesture, at least.
“I shouldn’t have tried to trick you,” she told him.
She spoke gently. She could hear him breathing.
“And I should never have said your question wasn’t important,” she added. “And I should never, ever have bought such an ugly car.”
Silence.
There was a gap between the bottom of the door and the carpet. She slipped her fingers through it and wiggled them. A gesture of her own. She was about to pull her fingers back when she felt Jonah’s hand grasp hers.
Zoe didn’t want to scare him off, so she kept quiet. Soon Jonah let go of her fingers, stood, and retreated farther into his room. A minute later, he slid a piece of paper, which he’d folded a ridiculous number of times, under the door.
“You’re an excellent folder,” said Zoe. “Everyone says so.”
She opened the paper and smoothed it against the carpet. Even before she read the message, she smiled fondly at Jonah’s handwriting, which was … eccentric. His lowercase y’s, for instance, were always uppercase—they stood up proudly wherever they happened to fall in the sentence, like gold medalists raising their fists. Zoe never teased Jonah about it. She knew that his ADHD made it hard for him to write—the pen couldn’t keep up with his brain, for one thing—and that he was ashamed that his classmates had pulled so far ahead of him.
She read his message:
WhY didn’t DaddY Man take You with him to that cave? He alwaYs took You.
Zoe didn’t know what to say.
She bought herself some time by telling him, “I don’t have anything to write with, bug.”
Jonah padded off and then back again. He rolled something under the door—a sleek black pen attached to a beaded silver chain. He must have yanked it off the desk at the bank. Zoe would let her mom have that conversation.
She pressed the paper against the door.
I don’t KNOW why he didn’t take me. I have wondered about that MANY times—even more times than I’ve wondered why I bought SUCH AN UGLY CAR. Maybe Dad was sad? Or maybe he thought I couldn’t handle the cave?
They continued passing the paper under the door. Jonah stopped folding it, which seemed like a sign that he was opening up to her.
WhY was DaddY Man sad?
Money stuff maybe. NOT because of you or me or Mom. He LOVED us. LOVED LOVED.
There was no answer. Zoe couldn’t tell if the conversation was over. There was a jittery, unresolved feeling, like a field of static, in her chest.
The paper finally came back. Jonah had folded it a zillion times again. The sight of it made Zoe’s heart fold in on itself, too.
WhY did we leave him DOWN THERE? I hate it & worrY he is cold.
Zoe turned the paper over. The other side was blank, though creased a dozen times and starting to tear. She wrote another message. It was a promise to Jonah and a promise to herself. She didn’t pause to think about it. It just spilled out of her.
Bug, she wrote,
I will MAKE the police go find Dad’s body—or I will go in that cave and find it myself. I swear to god. I always wanted to prove I could. And if I can’t get Dad out of there myself, I will at least make sure he isn’t cold. I WILL BRING HIM A BLANKET.
She’d written the message in huge letters and even signed it, dated it, and drawn a small picture of herself as a superhero wearing a cape and flexing her biceps.
Jonah opened his door, looking happy and shy. Behind him, Zoe could see that he’d jumped so hard on the ladybug that the bed had drifted away from the wall.
Downstairs, Zoe asked Rufus if he could babysit a couple more hours—she was so ashamed of how she’d behaved that she could barely make eye contact—and then went outside, where Val was doing a handstand in the snow. (Val did not believe in being bored for even one second.)
After Val had tumbled back onto her feet and wiped her hands on her jeans, Zoe handed her the paper that she and Jonah had scribbled on. Val pored over it, turning it this way and that as necessary.
“Jonah is so awesome,” said Val. “I mean it. I just want to squeeze him till he pops.”
Zoe nodded, and walked past her to the car.
“I’m going to the police station,” she said. “I’m going to tell them they have to get my dad’s body. You wanna come?”
“Is there gonna be a big confrontation?” said Val.
“Probably,” said Zoe.
“Then I absolutely want to come,” said Val.
They didn’t talk in the car. They just took turns fiddling with the radio. Zoe was deep in a country music phase, and Val liked a station that played the same four pop hits over and over and over, like a psychology experiment. The landscape that had seemed so bright and hopeful on the drive home from school now drifted by the windows looking hopeless and dead.