Lori was at the door of room 1709 before she remembered: She didn’t have a key.
Chuck had never known.
Mom—his mother—was incredible. For the first seven years of his life, she’d been just Mom, making meat loaf, checking his homework, reminding him to wear his jacket when it rained. And then, after that, after the accident, when they moved in with Gram and Pop, she was still just Mom when she was around. She just wasn’t around as much.
He’d known she gave speeches. He’d known she gave a lot of them. But he hadn’t known she was like an actress up there, getting people to laugh just by screwing up her nose and making a face. He hadn’t known she could make a whole room quiet just by standing still and waiting. And he hadn’t known she was so smart. She was talking about time and money and banks like—well, like she didn’t even come from Pickford County.
Chuck was so proud.
He sat tall in his squishy banquet chair. He forgot that the banquet meal had been so small and that he was still hungry. He forgot that neither Lori nor anyone else at their table had spoken to him for the entire meal. He was in awe.
“I have five kids,” Mom said, and Chuck felt a little jolt of surprise. It was almost like he’d forgotten she was Mom. But of course she was talking about him and Lori and Joey and Mike and Emma. It was almost like they were famous, too.
Mom told a funny story about Lori when she was two, how she always took her clothes off as soon as Mom got her dressed for church on Sunday mornings. The entire banquet hall was laughing—as Pop would put it, fit to split their pants.
“You had to admire her persistence,” Mom said with a shrug and a smile, like she’d been proud of Lori even though she’d been exasperated.
Chuck turned around to whisper to Lori, She’s talking about you! But Lori wasn’t there. Chuck puzzled on that for a minute. Would she really have gotten up to go to the bathroom in the middle of Mom’s speech? You never could tell with Lori. Too bad—she missed hearing Mom talk about her. But having Lori away probably saved Chuck from another nasty look. If Chuck had whispered, She’s talking about you! Lori would have only frowned and rolled her eyes, saying without words, No, duh! Don’t you think I recognize my own name? I’m not that stupid. Not like you.
It was just that Chuck wanted to share this moment with Lori. He wanted her to agree with him: You’re right. Our Mom is really somebody!
He turned back around to enjoy the rest of the speech.
WHAT JOAN LAWSON WANTED TO SAY DURING HER SPEECH IN CHICAGO:
See those two kids out there? That’s right, the only two people under twenty in this whole crowd. Those are my kids.
Only, I’m not sure I have the right to call these two “my” kids anymore.
Can someone lose her own children? Not because they died, not because anyone kidnapped them, just . . . because?
I’m afraid that might have happened to me. No, I’m terrified.
You see a pretty, self-assured—maybe too self-assured—girl in a flowered dress and a slightly overweight (okay, very overweight) boy looking down at his plate.
I see echoes, memories, ghosts. Accusations.
With the others—Mike, Joey, Emma—I am still Mom. Emma begs for bedtime stories; Mike and Joey show off their latest karate moves. They are glad when I come home.
But Lori volunteers to do the dishes when I’m around just so she can hide out in the kitchen and avoid me. Chuck won’t look me in the eye.
I thought this trip would change everything. Good old magnanimous Mom, cashing in almost a decade’s worth of frequent flier miles for Lori and Chuck. But they don’t want what I have to give them.
Poor Chuck retched a few times on the airplane, threw up a teaspoon or two of bile and acted as shamed as a dog beaten for ruining a carpet.
Then he positively cringed when I told him the bellhop would carry his luggage.
What makes Chuck act so guilty? Why does he accept humiliation like it’s his natural due?
I don’t know how to help Chuck. I seem to only push him further into his shell.
Then there’s Lori—I can still hear her cruel words on the plane reverberating in my ears: “Take Chuck up, of course he’s going to upchuck.” I am her mother. It’s my job to tell her not to say things like that, not to hurt people like that. But I could say nothing. I couldn’t bear to scold her, push her further away.
I am paralyzed around my own children.
And I am supposed to be standing here telling all of you how to live your lives?
I am more frightened of giving tonight’s speech than I have been of any speech in years. Maybe ever. I am sure that my kids will see through me, will see that I don’t have any answers. But I am speaking and words are coming out of my mouth and you all are listening and laughing at the right time, so I must be saying what I’m supposed to say. I just can’t read my kids’ expressions. I can’t see what they’re thinking. I can’t—
Wait a minute. Where did Lori go?
WHAT JOAN LAWSON ACTUALLY SAID DURING HER SPEECH IN CHICAGO:
The truth is, we do have our time in a bank. Unlike any of the banks you all operate, though, we aren’t ever allowed to know how much we have left in the time bank until we’ve spent it all. All we can know is that we get to withdraw twenty-four hours every day. Everyone from the top of the Forbes 500 list to the poorest third-world orphan gets the same amount. But what you do with your daily withdrawal of time is entirely up to you. . . .
When the day comes that—surprise!—you find that you have drawn out every last second in your account at the time bank, that is not the moment to suddenly realize, Oh no! I was going to start my own business! or Oh no! I was going to leave the rat race and move to Maine! or Oh no! I was going to spend more time with my family! Say your “Oh no”s right now, while you still have time in your account. Do what you need to now, so you won’t have regrets when your account is closed.
Mom’s speech was over and people were clapping. Chuck closed his eyes for a second, and the pounding applause became a picture in his head—swirls of sound climbing higher and higher, like stairs he could never climb.
When he opened his eyes again, someone else was at the podium, thanking Mom, praising Mom, telling everyone to applaud again. And then Mom was snaking her way through the crowd. Toward him.
She caught his eye and mouthed something, but he didn’t understand. People were trying to talk to her, but she shook them off and kept walking.
Why was she in such a hurry to get to him?
But as soon as she got close, he understood.
“Where’s Lori?” she demanded.
Of course. It wasn’t Chuck she wanted. He should have known that.
Chuck glanced over his shoulder. Lori’s seat was still empty.
“I don’t know. Guess she had to go to the bathroom,” he said.
“But she disappeared a half hour ago,” Mom snapped. Chuck had never known Mom could sound so much like Lori. “Didn’t she tell you where she was going?”
Chuck shrugged.
“Come on!” Mom commanded.
She whirled around. It was all Chuck could do to keep up with her.
Outside the huge meeting room, Mom stopped only to ask someone where the nearest bathroom was. For a minute, Chuck was afraid she expected him to follow her in. But when they got to the door of the ladies’ rest room, she gave another command: “Wait here.”
Chuck stood on a rosette in the carpet. He could hear Mom calling through the wall, “Lori? Lori? Lori, are you in here?”
In seconds, Mom was out again.
They tried every bathroom on the main floor of the hotel. Then Mom raced to the front desk, dragging Chuck behind her.
“My daughter is missing,” she all but barked at the man behind the counter. “She’s fourteen. Light brown hair, greenish gray eyes, about five four. She was wearing a blue flowered dress. Ankle length. Have you seen her? Did you see her leave with anybody?”
The man blinked.
Mom didn’t even wait for him to answer.
“You have security tapes, don’t you?” she asked. “Your security people will need to review them. Please.”
“Ma’am, calm down,” the man said. “Are you sure you haven’t just missed connections with her? That happens all the time—one person thinks everyone’s meeting back in the room, the other person thinks they’re meeting in the lobby. . . .”
Mom looked quickly at Chuck, then looked away. Chuck understood: Mom had just decided he couldn’t be trusted to go check the room by himself.
“My son and I will go look in our room,” Mom said. “But in the meantime, could you please contact security? Call me. I’ll be in room 1709.”
The elevator ride felt endless. Mom kept biting her lip and looking at Chuck nervously. Chuck didn’t know what to say. When the elevator reached the seventeenth floor, Mom was out the doors before they were completely open. By the time Chuck caught up with her, she’d already zipped in and out of the room.
“She’s not there,” Mom said. All the color was gone from her face. “I’m going back downstairs. Call me at the front desk if Lori shows up. And no matter what you do, don’t leave.”
Mom disappeared down the hall.
Chuck stood at the door, left behind.
He backed up until he was sitting on the bed. He watched the door glide toward the doorframe, and stop. And then, even though nothing moved, nothing changed, he kept watching that door, memorizing every shadow and groove, as if that could help find Lori.
Lori heard the elevator ding. She fought to regain her self-control—all she had to do was keep her sobs silent until whoever was getting on or off the elevator passed by and out of earshot. She’d found the perfect place for crying: a little alcove around the corner from the elevator on the seventeenth floor. She was thoroughly hidden by a huge, fake potted plant. And as long as Lori didn’t make any noise, nobody would turn this way, because all the rooms were in the other direction.
Lori had managed to keep quiet through three elevator arrivals and departures already. She was terrified that someone—a kindly bellhop, a curious maid—might discover her and try to comfort her. Lori didn’t want to be comforted. She wanted to cry and cry and cry, wail and scream, until she could face Mom and Chuck (and hundreds of bankers?) again.
All she had to do was wait a minute or two, and then she could go back to sobbing. . . .
Lori listened for the elevator to leave. She could feel the wails building inside her. Even though she had her lips clamped tightly together, a moan escaped.
Footsteps came toward her, muffled by the thick carpet.
“Lori? Oh, Lori!”
It was Mom. She held out her arms like she expected Lori to do some Prodigal Son routine, throwing herself at Mom and begging forgiveness.
Except Lori hadn’t done anything wrong. Everything was Mom’s fault.
Lori didn’t budge.
“Where have you been?” Mom asked.
“Here.” Lori sniffed. She would have said more, but her throat betrayed her, closing over and choking out all Lori’s words. Lori knew just how she looked: red eyed, runny nosed, tear streaked. It wasn’t fair. Mom still looked great.
“Why?” Mom asked, looking genuinely bewildered. For a split second, Lori could have run to Mom, cried on her shoulder. Then Mom said, gently, “What happened?”
She honestly didn’t know. She didn’t understand at all.
“I didn’t like your speech,” Lori mumbled.
Mom’s expression changed in an instant, hardening into fury.
“Fine,” she spit out. “You didn’t like my speech. That’s no reason to scare me to death. Didn’t you know how worried I’d be? What did you think I’d think when I finished my speech and you were gone? I’ll tell you what I thought. I was imagining you dead in some dark alley or kidnapped or raped or—or . . . This is Chicago. It’s a big city. You’re not in safe little Pickford County anymore—”
Lori couldn’t stand it.
“I know,” she interrupted. “In Pickford County, mothers don’t make fun of their kids in front of thousands of people.”
Mom drew back as though Lori had slapped her. Lori was afraid she’d gone too far. Kids in the Lawson family were not allowed to talk to grown-ups like that. And Mom was already mad.
“What do you mean?” Mom said sharply.
“‘We were afraid Lori would grow up to be a strip artist—’” Lori quoted.
“That’s not what I said!” Mom protested.
“Close enough,” Lori hissed. She knew Mom had really said, “My husband was a little concerned . . .,” but it was too dangerous to bring up Dad. Just saying his name would be like hauling a nuclear bomb into their battle.
“Lori, that was just a story. You were two years old, for crying out loud.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not two anymore. How do you think it made me feel, hearing that? To know that for eight years you’ve been saying God knows what about me to all these strangers? People I don’t even know?” Lori held back a wail. If she was going to fight with Mom, she wasn’t going to be all weak and teary. “I mean, you were talking about diapers! How many bankers in America know the intimate details of how I was potty trained?”
“Oh, Lori.” Mom slumped against the ritzy, expensive-looking etched wallpaper behind her. Everything around them was too fancy. Lori wished they were fighting someplace real.
But someplace real, Lori wouldn’t have the nerve to say anything. Beside fake trees, seventeen stories above ground, Lori couldn’t stop herself.
“Maybe you want to be famous and have all these people oohing and aahing over you, but what about me and Chuck and Joey and Mike and Emma? Don’t we have any rights to privacy?”
“Oh, Lori,” Mom said again, and took a ragged breath. “When I started giving these speeches, I didn’t know anything. I was just a high school graduate, and I was talking to people with college degrees—doctorates, some of them. The only subject I was an expert in was you kids. The only thing I’d ever studied was the way you all looked taking your first steps, the smiles you gave out, the—the way you smelled, fresh from your baths—”
Lori couldn’t listen.
“Save the flowery descriptions for the bankers,” she said, brushing past her mother. She had to get away from Mom. She was terrified of what she might say next if she stayed. “That was all a long, long time ago. Did it ever occur to you that you aren’t an expert on any of us anymore?”
She was down the hall now, but she couldn’t resist shouting back, “Given how little we’ve seen you the past eight years, I’m surprised you even remember our names, let alone any cutesy anecdotes about how we looked taking our first steps.”
She rounded the corner, wanting mostly to find a door so she could give it a good, satisfying slam. But she’d forgotten: She still didn’t have a key to room 1709. She didn’t have anywhere else to go, though, so she ran to the room, anyway, and gave the door a hard kick, instead of knocking. It swung open. It must not have been fully latched.
Chuck sat on the bed, blinking at her.
“Um, Mom’s looking for you,” he said blankly. “I think she’s kind of worried.”
Lori wanted to be home so she could flounce upstairs and shut the door of her own room so hard that the whole house would shake. She wanted privacy. She wanted to be alone. She settled for going into the bathroom. But the door must have been designed to prevent slamming—even her hardest shove sent it only gliding gently closed.
Somehow that made Lori madder than ever.
Mom came in only a few minutes after Lori.
“Lori’s here,” Chuck said. He inclined his head toward the bathroom door. “In there. I was just going to call the front desk, like you said—”
“I know,” Mom said. “I saw her. We talked.”
And then she practically dived onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow. She lay without moving.
Things were getting really weird.
Locked in the bathroom, Lori slumped against the cold porcelain tub on the cold tile floor. She couldn’t cry with abandon anymore because Chuck was right there on the other side of the door. She tried to distract herself.
She remembered a story Gram had told her once about Mom.
When Mom was fourteen, she’d started showing off one day in the hog barn at the Pickford County Fair. She’d turned cartwheels the whole way down the barn’s aisle, not seeming to care at all that her hands and her sandals might easily end up covered in a stinky mess. She’d landed right at the feet of, as Gram put it, “that good-lucking Lawson boy.” And instead of being embarrassed, Mom had raised her arms high, victoriously, like a real gymnast.
The next thing anyone knew, Mom and Dad were going out.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Pop had gotten wind of Mom’s feat, and he went around telling all his friends about it at Farm Bureau Council and down at the Pickford Farmers’ Exchange. Lori could just hear how he’d say it: Can you believe my own daughter doesn’t have the sense God gave her, not to go turning cartwheels in manure? But the Lord must truly protect the ignorant, because she came up with clean hands and shoes. A miracle, if I ever heard of one. Got herself a boyfriend out of it, too.
Mom had been embarrassed then. She’d refused to go into the Pickford Farmers’ Exchange for a whole year. She’d boycotted anything to do with Farm Bureau until she was out of high school.
“I think she was even kind of mad we insisted on inviting everyone on council to her wedding,” Gram had chuckled.
Lori had always liked that story. She liked imagining Mom so much younger, turning cartwheels and falling in love. It made her seem more like Lori—not like someone who belonged in hotels and up at podiums.
It also made it seem like maybe someday Lori might be able to cartwheel into someone’s heart and fall in love herself.
But Mom must not remember anything at all about turning those cartwheels and Pop embarrassing her. Because if she did, she wouldn’t be going around the country telling everyone horrible stories about Lori.