The Goal

128

a camping trip with Dave. I was wondering if you had heard from her."

Immediately he's spreading the alarm to Julie's mother. She gets on the phone.

"Why did she leave?" she asks.

"I don't know."

"Well, I know the daughter we raised, and she wouldn't just leave without a very good reason," says Julie's mother.

"She just left me a note saying she had to get away for awhile."

"What did you do to her?" yells her mother.

"Nothing!" I plead, feeling like a liar in the onslaught.

Then her father gets back on the phone and asks if I've talked to the police. He suggests that maybe she was kidnapped. I tell him that's highly unlikely, because my mother saw her drive away and nobody had a gun to her head.

Finally I say, "If you hear from her, would you please have her give me a call? I'm very worried about her."

An hour later, I do call the police. But, as I expected, they won't help unless I have some evidence that something criminal has taken place. I go and put the kids to bed.

Sometime after midnight, I'm staring at the dark bedroom ceiling and I hear a car turning into the driveway. I leap out of bed and run to the window. By the time I get there, the head- lights are arcing back toward the street. It's just a stranger turn- ing around. The car drives away.

Monday morning is a disaster.

It starts with Davey trying to make breakfast for himself and Sharon and me. Which is a nice, responsible thing to do, but he totally screws it up. While I'm in the shower, he attempts pan- cakes. I'm midway through shaving when I hear the fight from the kitchen. I rush down to find Dave and Sharon pushing each other. There is a skillet on the floor with lumps of batter, black on one side and raw on the other, splattered.

"Hey! What's going on?" I shout.

"It's all her fault!" yells Dave pointing at his sister.

"You were burning them!" Sharon says.

"I was not!"

Smoke is fuming off the stove where something spilled. I step over to shut it off.

Sharon appeals to me. "I was just trying to help. But he wouldn't let me." Then she turns to Dave. "Even / know how to make pancakes."

"Okay, because both of you want to help, you can help clean up," I say.

When everything is back in some semblance of order, I feed them cold cereal. We eat another meal in silence.

With all the disruption and delay. Sharon misses her school bus. I get Davey out the door, and go looking for her so I can drive her to school. She's lying down on her bed.

"Ready, whenever you are, Miz Rogo."

"I can't go to school," she says.

"Why not?"

"I'm sick."

"Sharon, you have to go to school," I say.

"But I'm sick!" she says.

I go sit down on the edge of the bed.

"I know you're upset. I am too," I tell her. "But these are facts: I have to go to work. I can't stay home with you, and I won't leave you here by yourself. You can go to your grandmother's house for the day. Or you can go to school."

She sits up. I put my arm around her.