It was in that same van that Annie had come to her new home after her birth parents got divorced and her birth father went to jail for something like cheating the government. It had all happened so fast that Annie’s mother said that Annie’s birth parents were lucky they had an “adoption connection” with Cornerstone. Mom and Dad were able to come and bring her home from some school event or game, just at the moment police arrested her birth father. Annie was spared the pain of seeing him taken away. For the first year, Annie’s new mother home-schooled her and taught her almost entirely from the Bible. After that, she went to Christ the King school, down the road in Eagle.
Her sister Mary had come home in the van, too, and later Ross.
Annie felt sorry for Rossie and sometimes went into the room where he slept all by himself in the crib (at least she had Mary!) and patted his sweaty little head. Once, Ross said, “Dada” in his sleep, and for some reason, Annie began to cry. She wondered why they didn’t take babies for adoption when they were little and didn’t have to suffer so much? Her parents said that older kids were harder to “place” and it was more Christian to do it the way they did, but Ross didn’t seem to be getting much happiness out of his “forever home.”
But tonight, Annie wasn’t going to worry about Ross. Just today, she’d given him six colors of Play-Doh she’d saved up to buy with allowances from the past three weeks. When she left, he was happy, making snakes and pretend pizza.
While her friends ganged up on the concession stand, Annie wandered around. She didn’t get to see the inside of theaters too much, so she was enchanted by everything from the flat water bubblers that never stopped gushing to the life-size cardboard figures of movie stars.
There was a poster for that film, No Time to Wave Goodbye, the one her parents talked about one night when she couldn’t sleep and was eavesdropping. It was easy to listen to them. They always talked at the kitchen table, right under the heat vent in her and Mary’s room.
“Of course, I feel that,” Annie heard her mother say. “But think of how far removed this is from this child’s life as it is now. You remember, the paint and the bikini she was wearing …”
In the poster were a man and a woman holding a picture of a little girl doing a movement—it was called a scorpion, Annie suddenly realized—on a balance beam. The little girl had blond pigtails and wore a silver-and-red skirt with a black-and-silver turtleneck top. The man was also holding a teddy bear dressed in the same colors. You almost couldn’t see the little girl’s face. Annie moved closer. The face was still blurry. Annie moved down to the next poster for the same film; it was showing on two of the screens. This was a different picture—three kids on a beach, walking away on a cloudy day. A banner slapped across it said “Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Film.”
When would her friends be finished getting their candy?
Annie didn’t have money for extras, especially after Rossie’s Play-Doh, but she knew everyone would share their Sno-Caps and Dots with her.
She didn’t really feel like eating candy anyhow. Wandering back to the first poster, Annie stared hard at the face of the woman sitting on the couch and again at the little girl on the balance beam. Then she ran for the bathroom, where she threw up all her meatloaf and peas. Annie hadn’t thrown up since she was ten and had the flu. She searched her red sweater for any telltale signs and had to rinse her mouth and rub soap on her teeth before she ran back out to join her friends.
“What happened to you?” Gina asked.
“It’s so hot in here!” Annie lied. “I had to go splash my face. Aren’t you just dying?” Gina thrust a gigantor mug of Coke at her and Annie took a swig. It made her stomach feel better.
But not really.
She had been so excited to go out with her friends. But she was glad her mother said no when she asked to stay over at Lucy’s, relieved when she could wave and jump up the six steps into her house, two at a time.
Late that night, Annie made her way down to the office den where the computer was set up so that she and Mary could use it for homework—and homework only, with one or both parents watching the screen. Still, it wasn’t hard to sneak down: Annie knew every board in the stairs and could make a complicated slalom to avoid a single creak.
She closed the door softly behind her before she turned on the computer and winced when it made its “ta-dah!” sound.
Quickly, she Googled No Time to Wave Goodbye. There were absolutely tons of stories, lots of them about winning the Oscar.
One was a story about what happened to one of the guys who made the movie. His brother’s little baby girl was kidnapped and by one of the people who was actually in the film! The guy was scary, scary nuts! They found the body of his own daughter buried up by the place he hid out with the baby. The baby was fine, but the medical examiner couldn’t tell how the girl died because her body was so decomposed. And anyhow, it didn’t matter because the kidnapper shot himself to death just when they came to rescue the baby. There was the father of the baby and the Oscar-winning guy, Vincent Cappadora, standing next to this little lady with big sunglasses pushed up on her head. Next to her was a huge, really pretty Saint Bernard dog. The small woman and the big dog helped find the baby.
Annie wanted a dog.
It began, “Familiar terrain is often the easiest to walk, but the Cappadora brothers had to fight their way uphill after Vincent Cappadora’s Oscar-winning documentary provoked …”
Among the other pictures was one of that heavyset man and the little blond woman but a different photo of the little girl. This time, Annie could see her whole face. She was holding a trophy almost as big as she was and peeking around it with this big grin like someone would peek around a tree trunk.
Her name was Alana Cafferty.
Annie Hixon repeated the name. Alana Cafferty. Aly. Aly.
Aly, hurry up! Aly, sleeping beauty, it’s French toast!
Annie heard a sound, spun around in her chair and reached back, ready to turn the computer off. But it was only the wind, slapping the branches of the big maple against the roof. Her father was going to trim those branches, he told Annie that night of the big storm, when both he and her mother were so tired after they got back from driving home with Ross, who had thrown up all over the inside of the van.
Annie put one finger on the little girl’s face on the screen.
What was the name of that thing people used to find the names of people?
ZuYuSearch. Gina said she used it all the time to try to call movie stars.
Annie scrolled up. She typed in “Vincent Cappadora.”
She imagined he lived in Hollywood. But the search found no Vincent Cappadora in Hollywood, not even in Los Angeles. Annie turned back to the story. Mr. Cappadora came from Chicago. Maybe, if he was rich, he had an apartment there, like Oprah. She typed in Chicago, Illinois. Cappadora. There were ten of them, but most of them had unlisted numbers. Angelo. Benjamin.
Patrick.
Patrick and Beth had a phone number.
Feeling like someone was going to come up behind her and stab her, Annie wrote the number down: 847-854-2386. She turned off the computer and tore off two sheets of the yellow pad of paper, in case the pen marks came through. She got up to go back to bed, folding the paper six ways and wrapping it up tightly into a star shape.
Then she sat back down, in her father’s huge desk chair, and unfolded it. She turned her father’s desk lamp on, just for a moment, and committed the number to memory. Annie was good at that.
Picking up the telephone, she dialed: 847-854-2386.
A recording picked up. “You must first dial a one or a zero before completing this number.”
Annie tried again. The phone rang three times. No one answered.
She had to pee now and felt that same grinding in her stomach as at the theater, except now her stomach was empty.
Aly, Adam, come in here. Time to read! What was this voice? Her mother would say it was the devil or something
. If she dialed one more time and no one picked up, it would mean God didn’t want her to sneak behind her parents’ back.
She pushed the buttons again and right away, a woman picked up. “Hello?” she said. “Hello?” Annie couldn’t speak. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Who is this?”
“Yes,” Annie finally said. “I’m here.”
“Can I help you?” the woman repeated, sounding a little annoyed.
“Is Vincent home?”
“Vincent lives in California. I’m his mother. I’m Beth. Who’s this?” she asked, not sounding so upset now. Annie started to cry, so hard she didn’t know if she could talk anymore, or if anyone upstairs could hear her.
“Do you know some people name Cafferty?”
“Can you tell me who you are?”
“Please. I have to ask you. Do you know the Cafferty family?”
The woman asked slowly, “Why?”
“Please,” Annie said. “Are they dead? Is the father in prison?”
“No. I know Eileen and Al Cafferty. They’re just fine. They live in Lake Madrigal, Wisconsin. Where do you live?”
“Up in the north woods. I live in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.”
The lady said, “No! Damn.”
“What’s wrong?” Annie asked and almost pressed the button.
“Nothing. The Caffertys were interviewed for my son Vincent’s movie. They lost their little girl. She was kidnapped. She was kidnapped six years ago, no … seven years ago, from a gymnastics meet.”
“I know,” Anne said. “I remember.”
“You remember,” said the lady. “Honey. Don’t be afraid.”
“I am afraid,” the child said, almost wistfully.
“Don’t be afraid,” Beth said. “Don’t hang up and don’t be afraid. I’m going to get my other phone out of my purse. Is that okay? Can you tell me your address?” Annie did. Beth went on. “Okay. Blue Lake Terrace. Hixon with an ‘x.’ Okay. Will you stay right there till I come back? Will you promise not to hang up?”
Annie Hixon’s hands started to shake. She cried harder and had to hold the receiver with both hands. But she said, “I promise.” She thought of Mary-Amelia and of Rossie, in his sleep, his hair all baby sweat, calling for his daddy. She sat up straighter. “I promise.”
And even when she saw the three cars cut their rotating red lights and slide silently up beside the window, Annie didn’t hang up.
Acknowledgments
So many experts and friends—and experts who became friends—contributed the facts that form the spine of No Time to Wave Goodbye. Wilderness guide Lorri Hanna Sabo does not do exactly what a character with a name much like hers does in the novel, but elements of the trek into the wilderness were taken from the journey she and I made into the Gila National Wilderness, which transformed both our lives. My family and I thank her. Author and Search and Rescue instructor Hannah Nyala West and I are old friends and, with her remarkable dogs, she has performed the equivalent of feats recounted in this story. I have no words big enough to thank Greg Davenport, renowned authority on wilderness survival and the medical implications of exposure; no one could have been so giving of his time and knowledge. SAR expert John A. Carlson also offered trenchant advice. Thank you to Annette Gomez of the Gila National Wilderness staff and Melody Skinner of the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department for helping me create the fictional Durand and the fictional sheriff of Cisco County in her mountain juris. Filmmakers Frank Sommers and Frank Caruso, my homies, told me all I needed to know about equipment, and the differences between video and film. Award-winning documentarian Wendy Cramer let me shadow her with a tape recorder. To my friend and slang collector, Carol Ann Riordan, my best loyalty always. Authors Holly Kennedy and John Fetto encouraged me at every step. Thomas Cook generously contributed an essential plot idea that lifted the narrative out of a doldrum. Researchers John Holcomb, Anna H. Reeves, and Maddie Goetter found facts that supported this narrative.
As there are times when the most difficult births reap splendid rewards, I must thank the skilled hands that coaxed this narrative past what seemed insurmountable obstacles. The consummate editor, Kate Medina of Random House, as well as editor Laura Ford, gave me insights, comfort, tough talk, and time. I can never thank them enough. My compliments to Kate Norris and Vincent La Scala for saving me in mid-fall with skillful edits. My beloved agent of nearly twenty-five years, Jane Gelfman, green-lighted a project few would have dared to hope could succeed. My co-worker and pal Pamela English worked with a madwoman during the day; my husband, Chris Brent, lived with her at night. My ever-tolerant children—Rob, Dan, Martin, Francie, Mia, Will, and Atticus—never forgot that the eccentric being in the upstairs room adored them. Most important, I thank you, reader. For fifteen years, at lectures and signings, you asked me what became of the lost boy, Vincent, until finally I knew.
This is a work of fiction, set in an imagined Chicago and an imagined California, where the real and the fictional slip over each other like plates of the earth. The choices I made were composed of the geography of fact and the geography of dreams. All the events are products of the author’s imagination, and any similarity to actual localities and events is both the result of coincidence and the sum of my own experiences. Errors are no one’s fault but my own. If you have reached this point, I hope they were few enough.
MOTHERHOOD—THE SEQUEL
I guess I had so many children because I thought at least some of them would be “little” forever. I guess I thought “little” meant needing me.
But one by one, my children began to grow up. Their social circles widened beyond the boundaries of our house on the hill, and their interior and exterior lives encompassed ideas and places I never thought of or visited.
The poignancy of the experience was greatest with the first.
How I grieved when my three older sons—“gen one” of my nine children—began to achieve young manhood. Every inch they grew made me shrink a little inside. The older they got, the smaller the role I would play in their lives. I’d lost the sweet confidences, the heartfelt hugs, and even the unruly tears of the little boys I’d known my first go-round as a mom. I’d lost my position as a trophy and had become an artifact.
And I thought I had lost my sons.
How wrong I was.
Sure, I still miss those first little boys (although my youngest children today are little too, still: Atticus is just five, Arty is six and Will is seven years old). I miss them in a way I don’t think I’ll miss the younger ones as they grow, now that I have been through this. I could be wrong again.
I still miss fitting effortlessly into my size-six jeans too. I haven’t seen those jeans for a long time, but I remember how they felt and how different the feeling was from wearing an eight or a ten.
No matter what the future holds, the surprising and piercing pain I felt over my older sons growing up was awful, much larger than I thought it would be.
There was, however, a bigger surprise in store: how my sons’ feelings changed after the tumult of their teen years, especially in terms of the way they felt about me. I thought they were headed through a passageway into a field in which I’d barely be able to spot them in the distance. They were. What I didn’t realize was that the passageway had a loop. But more about that in a moment.
Like my character Beth Cappadora in No Time To Wave Goodbye, I thought motherhood was time-limited, a vocation that required gear: mittens with zippers, car seats, and bags of Cheerios. When I put away childish things, I felt, just as Beth did, that I’d outlived my usefulness to growing guys. I was just a sweet-and-sour relic of their past and, while I was anything but finished with them, they were more than finished with me.
But what I saw as an end was adolescence. It lasted through their first years in college; then their hearts came home to me. Conversations with Rob were mostly through emails—long and heartfelt ones. And his comments sometimes turned up on my web pages too. “Believe what she says,” he would write. “My m
other is always there.” Marty would call me daily, sometimes at two a.m. (He would wonder why I didn’t pick up my cell phone at that hour.) Often, it was no more than a sentence: “Help, I need a bike seat.” But sometimes, beginning with phrase, “To tell you the truth . . .” it turned out to be a huge confession about every insecurity from math to modern romance. With Dan, who goes to college at home, the conversations usually took place on long drives. It was Dan who trotted up the stairs (“for no reason”) a few times a week—just to say goodnight.
As they grew older, my children needed their mother differently but just as urgently as they did when they needed me to hold their spoons.
It’s against me that they praise the beliefs I tried to instill (the ones they now practice as genuinely as they had previously rejected them). It’s with me that they offer a more quaint and tender courtship than they give their girlfriends—only the flowers on the bedside table are now roses instead of the dandelion bouquets of their childhood.
I never imagined how bonded I would feel to my son Marty, twenty, when he sang onstage in front of 500 people—and I saw him search the crowd for my face. I never anticipated the thrill I would feel accompanying my chef-in-training Dan, twenty-three, to dinner and listening to him with quiet pride as he ordered for both of us. I never expected the wonder I would feel as my Rob, twenty-five, a fiercely indifferent high school student, worries every college grade to an A— then turns to me for approval.
Now I have hope for the future relationships I’ll have with daughters Francie, fourteen, Merit, twelve, and Mia, eleven (although girls are a great deal more complicated!).
And so the “sequel” to my biggest bestselling novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, is more than a tale of a family tested beyond the limits of endurance, twice. It’s a story that reflects so much of what I’ve learned in the fourteen intervening years since the first book was published. Love that changes isn’t love lost, just as mist and ice are still water, just in another equally lovely form.