Where'd You Go, Bernadette

We arrived in Santiago at six in the morning. I’d never flown first-class before, so I didn’t know each seat was its own egg and when you pushed a button, it became a bed. As soon as my seat went totally flat, the stewardess covered me with a crisp white comforter. I must have smiled, because Dad looked over from his seat and said, “Don’t get too used to this.” I smiled back, but then I remembered I hated him, so I plopped on my eye pillow. They bring you this kind that is filled with flaxseed and lavender, which they microwave, so it’s toasty warm and you breathe in relaxation. I slept for ten hours.

There was a massive immigration line at the airport. But an officer waved over Dad and me, and unhooked a chain so we could go straight to an empty window reserved for families with small children. At first, I was annoyed because I’m fifteen. But then I thought, Fine, I’ll do cutsies.

The guy wore military fatigues and took forever with our passports. He kept looking at me, in particular, then at my passport. Up, down, up, down. I figured it was my stupid name.

Finally, he spoke. “I like your hat.” It was a Princeton Tigers baseball hat they sent Mom when they wanted her to give money. “Princeton,” he said. “That’s an American university, like Harvard.”

“Only better,” I said.

“I like tigers.” He placed his palm over both of our passports. “I like that hat.”

“Me, too.” I stuck my chin in my palm. “That’s why I’m wearing it.”

“Bee,” Dad said. “Give him the hat.”

“Whaa?” I said.

“Very much I’d like the hat,” the guy said, agreeing with Dad.

“Bee, just do it.” Dad grabbed my hat, but it was hooked on my ponytail.

“It’s my hat!” I covered my head with both hands. “Mom gave it to me.”

“She threw it in the garbage,” Dad said. “I’ll get you another one.”

“Get one yourself,” I told the guy. “You can order them on the Internet.”

“We can order you one,” Dad added.

“We will not!” I said. “He’s a grown man with a job and a gun. He can do it himself.”

The man handed us our stamped passports and gave a shrug, like, It was worth a try. We collected our bags and were funneled into the main part of the airport. A tour guide immediately identified us by the blue-and-white ribbons we tied to our luggage. He told us to wait while everyone else in the group went through immigration. It would be awhile.

“There’s no free lunch,” Dad said. He had a point, but I acted like I didn’t hear him.

Others with blue-and-white ribbons started appearing. These were our fellow travelers. They were mostly old, with wrinkled faces and wrinkle-free travel clothes. And the camera equipment! These people were circling one another like khaki peacocks, presenting their lenses and cameras. In between the preening, they’d pull out cloudy Ziploc bags of dried fruit and tuck little pieces into their mouths. Sometimes I’d catch their curious glances, probably because I was the youngest, and they’d smile all friendly. One of them stared so long I couldn’t resist, I just had to say it: “Take a picture. It lasts longer.”

“Bee!” Dad puffed.

One thing that was funny: beside a random windowless room, there was a sign depicting a stick figure on its knees under a pointy roof. This was the universal sign for church. Janitors, lunch-counter workers, and taxi drivers would go in and pray.

It was time to board the bus. I waited until Dad found a seat, then sat somewhere else. The highway into the city center ran along a river, which had trash scattered on its bank: soda cans, water bottles, tons of plastic, and food scraps just dumped. Kids were kicking a ball among the trash, running with mangy dogs among the trash, even squatting to wash their clothes among the trash. It was totally annoying, like, Would one of you just pick up the trash?

We entered a tunnel. The guide standing in the front of the bus got on the PA system and started rhapsodizing about when the tunnel was built, who won the contract to build it, how long it took, which president approved it, how many cars go through it every day, etc. I kept waiting for him to reveal its greatness, like maybe it was self-cleaning, or made out of recycled bottles. Nope, it was just a tunnel. Still, you couldn’t help but feel happy for the guide, that if things ever got really bad, he’d always have the tunnel.

We went to our hotel, which was a swirling concrete column. In a special conference room, an Austrian lady checked us in.

“Make sure there are two beds in our room,” I said. I was horrified when I had found out Dad and I would be sharing a room for the entire trip.

“Yes, you have two beds,” the lady said. “Here is your wowcher for the city tour and transfer to the airport.”

“My what?” I asked.

“Your wowcher,” she said.

“My what?”

“Your wowcher.”

“What’s a wowcher?”

“Voucher,” Dad said. “Don’t be such a little bitch.” The truth was I didn’t understand what the lady was saying. But I was being a little bitch in general, so I let Dad have this one. We got our key and went to our room.

“That city tour sounds fun!” Dad said. You almost have to feel sorry for him with his taped-over lens and desperate attitude, until you remember this whole thing started because he tried to get Mom locked up in a mental hospital.

“Yeah,” I said. “Do you want to go on it?”

“I do,” he said, all hopeful and touched.

“Have fun.” I grabbed my backpack and headed to the pool.

Choate was big and majestic, with ivy-covered buildings and jewels of modern architecture dotted on huge expanses of snowy lawn crisscrossed with boot paths. I had nothing against the place itself. It’s just that the people were weird. My roommate, Sarah Wyatt, didn’t like me from the start. I think it’s because when she left for Christmas break, she was living in a double all by herself. And when she got back, all of a sudden she had a roommate. At Choate, you talked about who your father was. Her dad owned buildings in New York. Every single kid, I’m not kidding, had an iPhone, and most of them had iPads, and every computer I saw was a Mac. When I said my dad worked at Microsoft, they openly mocked me. I had a PC and listened to music on my Zune. What is that thing? people would ask in the most offended way, like I had just taken a huge stinky poop and stuck earbuds into it. I told Sarah my mother was a famous architect who had won a MacArthur genius award, and Sarah said, “She did not.” And I said, “Sure she did. Look it up on the Internet.” But Sarah Wyatt didn’t look it up, that’s how little respect she had for me.

Sarah had thick straight hair and wore expensive clothes, which she liked to explain to me, and any time I said I hadn’t heard of one of the stores, she’d emit a little grunt. Marla, her best friend, lived downstairs. Marla talked all the time, and she was funny, I suppose, but she had angry acne, smoked cigarettes, and was on academic probation. Her father was a TV director in L.A., and there was lots of jabber about her friends back home who had famous people for parents. Everyone would gather at her feet as she yakked about how cool Bruce Springsteen is. And I’d think, Of course Bruce Springsteen is cool, I don’t need Marla to tell me that. I mean, Galer Street smelled like salmon, but at least the people were normal.

Then one day I went to my mailbox, and the manila envelope arrived. It had no return address, strange block writing that wasn’t Mom or Dad’s, and no letter saying who it was from, just all the documents about Mom. Then everything was better, because I started writing my book.

I knew something was up, though, one day after classes, when I got back to my room. Our dorm was Homestead, which was a creaky little house in the middle of campus where George Washington had once spent the night, according to a plaque. Oh, I forgot to mention that Sarah had this weird smell, like baby powder, but if the smell of baby powder made you feel sick. It couldn’t have been actual perfume, and I never saw any baby powder. To this day I still don’t know what it was. Anyway, I opened the front door and I heard some scurrying footsteps overhead. I went upstairs, but our room was empty. I could hear Sarah in the bathroom, though. I sat down at my desk, opened my laptop, and that’s when I smelled it. That gross baby-powder scent hung in the air over my desk. This was especially weird because Sarah had made a big point about dividing the room in half, and there were strict orders not to cross the invisible line. Just then, she darted behind me, through our room, and downstairs. The door slammed. Sarah was out on the corner, waiting to cross Elm Street.

“Sarah,” I called out the window.

She stopped and looked up.

“Where are you going? Is everything OK?” I was worried that maybe something had happened to one of her dad’s buildings.

She acted like she couldn’t hear me. She headed up Christian Street, which was weird, because I knew she had squash. She didn’t turn to go to Hill House, or the library, either. The only thing past the library was Archbold, which is where the dean’s offices are. I went to dance class, and when I got back, I tried to talk to Sarah, but she wouldn’t look at me. She spent that night downstairs in Marla’s room.

A few days later, in the middle of English, Mrs. Ryan told me that I was to immediately report to Mr. Jessup’s office. Sarah had English with me, and I instinctively turned to her. She quickly looked down. I knew then: that weird-smelling, yoga-pants-wearing New Yorker with the big diamond earrings had betrayed me.

In Mr. Jessup’s office, there was Dad, telling me it was for the best that I leave Choate. It was hilarious watching Mr. Jessup and Dad dance around each other, with every sentence starting with “Because I care so much about Bee” or “Because Bee is such an extraordinary girl” or “For the good of Bee.” It was decided that I’d leave Choate and they’d transfer my credits so I could go to Lakeside next year. (I’d apparently gotten accepted. Who knew?)

Out in the hallway, it was just me, Dad, and the bronze bust of Judge Choate. Dad demanded to see my book, but there was no way. I did show him the envelope that came in the mail, though. “Where did this come from?” “Mom,” I said. But the writing on the envelope wasn’t Mom’s, and he knew it. “Why would she send this to you?” he asked. “Because she wants me to know.” “Know what?” “The truth. It’s not like you were ever going to tell me.” Dad took a breath and said, “The only true thing is now you’ve read things you’re not old enough to possibly understand.”

That’s when I made the executive decision: I hate him.

We took a charter plane from Santiago really early in the morning and landed in Ushuaia, Argentina. We rode a bus through the little plaster city. The houses had Spanish-style roofs and mud yards with rusty swing sets. When we arrived at the dock, we were ushered into a kind of hut, with a wall of glass dividing it the long way. This was immigration, so of course there was a line. Soon the other side of the glass filled up with old people decked out in travel clothing and carrying backpacks with blue-and-white ribbons. It was the group that had just gotten off the ship, our Ghosts of Travel Future. They were giving us the thumbs-up, mouthing, You’re going to love it, you have no idea how great it is, you’re so lucky. And then everyone on our side started literally buzzing. Buzz Aldrin, Buzz Aldrin, Buzz Aldrin. On the other side was a scrappy little guy wearing a leather bomber jacket covered with NASA patches, and his arms were bent in at the elbows like he was itching for a fight. He had a genuine smile, and he gamely stood on his side of the glass while people in our group stood next to him and took pictures. Dad took one of me and him, and I’m going to tell Kennedy, Here’s me visiting Buzz Aldrin in prison.

When I got back to Seattle after leaving Choate, it was a Friday, so I went straight to Youth Group. I walked in on the middle of some stupid game called Hungry Birdies, where everyone was divided into two teams and the mommy birds had to pick up popcorn from a bowl using a piece of red licorice as a straw, then run it over to the chicks and feed it to them. I was shocked that Kennedy was playing something so babyish. I watched until they noticed me and then it turned quiet. Kennedy didn’t even come over. Luke and Mae gave me a big Christian-style hug.

“We’re so sorry about what happened to your mother,” said Luke.

“Nothing happened to my mother,” I said.

The silence got stiffer, then everyone looked at Kennedy, because she was my friend. But I could tell she, too, was afraid of me.

“Let’s finish the game,” she said to the floor. “Our team is up, ten — seven.”

We got our passports stamped and emerged from the tent. A lady said to follow the white line to the captain, who will welcome us onboard. Just hearing the words “the captain” made me run along the splintery dock so fast I knew it wasn’t my legs but my excitement carrying me. There, at the bottom of some stairs, stood a man in a navy suit and a white hat.

“Are you Captain Altdorf?” I said. “I’m Bee Branch.” He had a confused smile. I gulped some air and said, “Bernadette Fox is my mother.”

Then I saw his name badge. CAPTAIN JORGES VARELA. And under it, ARGENTINA.

“Wait—” I said. “Where’s Captain Altdorf?”

“Ahh,” said this false captain. “Captain Altdorf. He’s before. He’s now in Germany.”

“Bee!” It was Dad, huffing and puffing. “You can’t just run off like that.”

“Sorry.” My voice cracked and I started crying in my mouth. “I’ve seen so many pictures of the Allegra that it’s making me feel a lot of closure.”

That was a lie, because how can seeing a ship give you closure? But after Choate, I quickly learned that in the name of closure Dad would let me do anything. I could sleep in Mom’s Airstream, not go back to school, and even come to Antarctica. Personally, I found the concept of closure totally offensive, because it would mean I was trying to forget about Mom. Really, I was going to Antarctica to find her.

When we got to our cabin, our bags were waiting for us. Dad and I each had two: one suitcase with normal clothes, plus a duffel with our expedition stuff. Dad immediately started unpacking.

“OK,” he said. “I’ll take the top two drawers, and you can have the bottom two. I’ll take this side of the closet. Great! The bathroom has two drawers. I’ll take the top one.”

“You don’t have to comment on every boring thing you do.” I said. “This isn’t Olympic curling. You’re just unpacking a suitcase.”

Dad pointed to himself. “What you are looking at is me ignoring you. That’s what the experts told me to do, so that’s what I’m doing.” He sat down on his bed, dragged his duffel between his legs, and unzipped it in one clean swoosh. The first thing I saw was his neti pot, the thing he uses to irrigate his nasal passages. There was no way I was going to be in the same tiny room while Dad did that every day. He stuck it in a drawer, then continued unpacking. “Oh, God.”

“What?”

“It’s a travel humidifier.” He opened a box. Inside was a machine the size of a mini cereal box. Then his face twisted and he turned to the wall.

“What?” I said.

“I asked Mom to get one for me, because the Antarctic air is so dry.”

My eyes widened into saucers, and I thought, Oh, God, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to go on this trip if Dad was going to be crying the whole time.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen.” Thankfully it was a Kiwi voice crackling over a speaker in the ceiling. “Welcome onboard. As soon as you’re settled, please join us in the Shackleton Lounge for welcoming cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.”

“I’m going.” I dashed out of there, leaving Dad alone to blubber.

Whenever I lost a baby tooth, the tooth fairy used to leave me DVDs. My first three were A Hard Day’s Night, Funny Face, and That’s Entertainment. Then, for my left front tooth, the tooth fairy left me Xanadu, which became my favorite movie of all time. The best part was the final number in the brand-new roller disco, which was all shiny chrome with polished wood, curved velvet seats and walls made of shag carpet.

That’s what the Shackleton Lounge looked like, plus it had bunches of flat-screen TVs hanging from the ceiling, and windows to look out. I had it all to myself because everyone else was still unpacking. A waiter put out potato chips on the tables, and I munched down one basket all by myself. A few minutes later, a pack of supertan people wearing shorts, flip-flops, and nametags ambled up to the bar. They were crew members, naturalists.

I walked over. “Can I ask you a question?” I said to one of them, Charlie.

“Sure.” He popped an olive into his mouth. “Shoot.”

“Were you on the trip that left just after Christmas?”

“No, I started mid-January.” He dropped a couple more olives into his mouth. “Why?”

“I was wondering what you knew about one of the passengers. Her name is Bernadette Fox.”

“That I wouldn’t know.” He spit a bunch of pits into his palm.

Another equally tan guide whose nametag said FROG asked, “What’s your question?” He was Australian.

“It’s nothing,” the first naturalist, Charlie, said, and kind of shook his head.

“Were you on the New Year’s trip?” I asked Frog. “Because there was a woman on it named Bernadette—”

“The lady who killed herself?” Frog said.

“She didn’t kill herself,” I said.

“Nobody knows what happened,” Charlie said, widening his eyes at Frog.

“Eduardo was there.” Frog reached into a bowl of peanuts. “Eduardo! You were here when the lady jumped. It was the New Year’s trip. We were talking about it.”

Eduardo had a big round Spanish-looking face and spoke with an English accent. “I believe they’re still investigating.”

A woman with curly black hair piled on top of her head got in on the conversation. KAREN, said her badge. “You were there, Eduardo? — aaagh!” Karen screamed and spit out a mouthful of beige pasty stuff into a bowl. “What’s in there?”

“Shit, those are peanuts?” Charlie said. “I’ve been spitting my olive pits in there.”

“Crap,” Karen said. “I think I broke a tooth.”

And then it all started happening really fast: “I heard she escaped from a mental institution before she got here.” “I chipped a tooth.” “How could they let someone like that onboard? is my question.” “That’s your tooth?” “They’d let anyone on if they have the twenty grand.” “You fucker!” “Gee, I’m sorry.” “Thank God she killed herself. What if she killed a passenger, or you, Eduardo—”

“She didn’t kill herself!” I screamed. “She’s my mother, and there was no way she’d ever do that.”

“She’s your mother,” Frog muttered. “I didn’t know.”

“None of you knows anything!” I gave Karen’s chair a kick, but it didn’t move because it was bolted to the floor. I flew down the back stairs, but I had forgotten our room number and even what deck we were on so I kept walking and walking through these horrible narrow hallways with low ceilings and which reeked of diesel fuel. Finally one of the doors opened, and it was Dad.

“There you are!” he said. “You ready to head upstairs for orientation?”

I shoved my way past him into the room and slammed the door. I waited for him to come back in, but he didn’t.

Off and on, throughout preschool and even the beginning of kindergarten, my skin was blue because of my heart. Most times you could hardly tell, but other times it was pretty bad, which meant it was time for another operation. Once, before my Fontan procedure, Mom took me to the Seattle Center and I was playing in the huge musical fountain. I had stripped down to my underwear, and I was running up and down the steep sides, trying to outsmart the shooting water. An older boy pointed. “Look,” he told his friend. “It’s Violet Beauregarde!” That was the bratty girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who turned blue and ballooned into a huge ball. I was puffy because they’d pumped me up with steroids to get me ready for surgery. I ran to Mom, who was sitting on the edge. I stuffed my face in her breasts. “What is it, Bee?” “They called me it,” I squeaked. “It?” Mom’s eyes were across from mine. “Violet Beauregarde,” I managed to say, then burst into fresh tears. The mean boys huddled nearby, looking over, hoping my mom wouldn’t rat them out to their moms. Mom called to them, “That’s really original, I wish I’d thought of that.” I can pinpoint that as the single happiest moment of my life, because I realized then that Mom would always have my back. It made me feel giant. I raced back down the concrete ramp, faster than I ever had before, so fast I should have fallen, but I didn’t fall, because Mom was in the world.

I sat down on one of the narrow beds in our tiny room. The ship’s engine began to rumble, and the Kiwi came over the PA.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. The sound cut out for a second, like he was about to announce something bad and he had to collect his thoughts. Then, he came back on. “Say good-bye to Ushuaia, because our Antarctic adventure has just begun. Chef Issey has prepared the traditional bon voyage roast beef and Yorkshire pudding to be served in the dining room, after our orientation.”

There was no way I was going to that, because it would mean sitting with Dad, so I decided to get to work. I pulled out my backpack and took out the captain’s report.

My plan was to follow in Mom’s footsteps because I knew something would jump out, some kind of clue that nobody but me would notice. What, exactly? I had no idea.

The first thing Mom did was charge $433 at the gift shop a few hours after she got on board. The bill wasn’t itemized, though. I headed out, then realized this was also my perfect opportunity to toss Dad’s neti pot. I grabbed it, then walked toward the front of the ship. I passed a trash can in the wall and chucked the neti pot, then covered it with paper towels.

I turned the corner to the gift shop, and that’s when — whoa — the seasickness hit. It was all I could do to keep it together to slowly turn around and back down the stairs, one by one, very gently, because I’d vomit if I jerked my body even a little. I’m not kidding, it took me, like, fifteen minutes. When I got to the landing, I carefully stepped into the hallway. I took a deep breath, or tried to, but all my muscles had seized up.

“Little girl, you sick?” a voice sliced into my ears. Even the sound of a voice made me feel like throwing up, that’s how bad it was.

I turned stiffly. It was a housekeeper, her cart bungeed to a handrail.

“Here, lady, take this for seasick.” She handed me a little white packet.

I just stood there, barely able to lower my eyes.

“Oh, you sick, lady.” She handed me a bottle of water. I could only look at it.

“What cabin you in?” She picked up the ID badge around my neck. “I help you, little girl.”

My room was a few doors away. She opened it with her key and propped open the door. It required fierce determination, but I slowly managed the steps. By the time I entered, she had closed the shades and turned down the beds. She put two pills into my hand and offered me the opened water bottle. I just stared at them, but then counted to three and summoned the concentration to swallow the pills, then sat on a bed. The woman kneeled and pulled off my boots.

“Take off your sweater. Take off pants. It’s better.”

I unzipped my hoodie, and she pulled it off by the cuffs. I squirmed out of my jeans. I shivered with the air against my bare skin.

“You lie down now. You sleep.”

I gathered the strength to slip under the chilly covers. I curled up and stared at the wood paneling. My stomach was filled with the wobbly chrome eggs Dad had on his desk. I was alone with the rumbling of the engine, the tinkling of the hangers, and the opening and closing of drawers. It was just me and time. It was like when we had a backstage tour at the ballet, and I saw the hundreds of weighted ropes, the bank of video monitors, and the light board with one thousand lighting cues, which were all used for one small scenery change. I was lying there on the bed, seeing the backstage of time, how slowly it went, everything it’s made up of, which is nothing. The walls were dark blue carpet on the bottom, then a metal strip, then shiny wood, and then beige plastic to the ceiling. And I thought, What horrible colors, they might kill me, I have to close my eyes. But even the effort of that seemed impossible. So, like the ballet stage manager, I pulled one rope in my brain, then the other, then five more, which closed my eyelids. My mouth hung open, but no words came out, just a crackly moan. If there were words to it, what they would say was, Anything but this.

Then it was fourteen hours later, and there was a note from Dad saying he was in the lounge, listening to a seabird lecture. I jumped out of bed, and my legs and stomach got sloshy again. I pulled the chain on the window shade. It was like we were on the inside of a washing machine. I got pitched back onto the bed. We were crossing the Drake Passage. I wanted to absorb it, but there was work to do.

The ship’s hallway was festooned with barf bags, pleated like fans and tucked in the railing joints, behind hand-sanitizer dispensers, in door pockets. The ship was so tipped that one of my feet was walking on the wall and the other was on the floor. The reception area was really wide, which meant there were no railings to grab onto if you wanted to cross it, so they had rigged a Spider-Man web of ropes. I was the only person. Like sick animals, everyone else had retreated into their warrens of misery. I pulled on the door of the gift shop, but it was locked. A lady working behind the desk looked up. She was massaging something into the inside of her wrist.

“Are you open?” I mouthed.

She walked over and unlocked the bottom metal strip. “Are you here for the origami paper?” she said.

“Huh?” I said.

“The Japanese passengers are doing an origami demonstration at eleven. I have the paper if you’d like to participate.”

I had noticed them, a group of Japanese tourists. They didn’t speak a word of English, but they had their own interpreter, who got their attention by waving a stick with ribbons and a stuffed penguin dangling from it.

The boat jerked, and I fell into a basket of Harmsen & Heath sweatshirts. I tried to get up, but there was no way. “Is it always this bad?”

“This is pretty rough.” She went behind the desk. “We’re getting thirty-foot swells.”

“Were you here for Christmas?” I asked.

“Yes, I was.” She opened a little unlabeled jar and dipped her finger into it. She started rubbing the inside of her other wrist.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “What’s that in the jar?”

“It’s a cream for motion sickness. The crew couldn’t function without it.”

“ABHR?” I said.

“Actually, yes.”

“What about tardive dyskinesia?”

“Wow,” she said. “You know your stuff. The doctor tells us the dosage is so low there’s no chance of it.”

“A woman was on the Christmas trip,” I said. “She bought a bunch of stuff from the gift shop on December twenty-sixth, in the evening. If I give you her name and room number, could you look up the receipt so I can see exactly what she bought?”

“Oh—” The woman gave me an odd look that I couldn’t figure out.

“It’s my mother,” I said. “She bought four hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise.”

“Are you here with your dad?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you go back to your cabin, and I’ll dig up the receipt. It might take about ten minutes.”

I gave her my room number and pulled myself along the ropes and back to my room. I had been all excited about having a TV, but then got less excited when the only two stations were showing Happy Feet and the seabird lecture. The door swung open. I jumped up. It was Dad… followed by the gift shop lady.

“Polly said you asked to see a copy of Mom’s receipt?”

“We were instructed to get your father,” she told me, shamefaced. “I did bring some origami paper.” I glowered at her, Kubrick style, and threw myself on the bed.

Dad gave Polly a look like, I’ll take it from here. The door closed, and Dad sat across from me. “The naturalists felt really bad about last night,” he said to my back. “They came to find me. The captain spoke to the whole crew.” There was a long pause. “Talk to me, Bee. I want to know what you’re thinking and feeling.”

“I want to find Mom,” I said into the pillow.

“I know you do, baby. So do I.”

I turned my head. “Then why were you at a stupid seabird lecture? You’re acting like she’s dead. You should be trying to find her.”

“Now?” he said. “On the ship?” The side table was crammed with Dad’s eyedrops, reading glasses with one lens taped over, dark glasses with one lens taped over, those awful Croakie things that keep your glasses on, his heart-rate monitor, and a bunch of little tubes of vitamins you put under your tongue. I had to sit up.

“In Antarctica.” I pulled the captain’s report out of my backpack.

Dad took a deep breath. “What are you doing with that?”

“It’s going to help me find Mom.”

“That’s not why we’re here,” he said. “We’re here because you wanted closure.”

“I just told you that to trick you.” It’s pretty obvious to me now that you can’t say that to somebody and expect them to be fine with it. But I was too excited. “You’re the one who made me think of it, Dad, when you said the letter from the Harmsen guy was just a lawyer talking. Because if you look at the captain’s report with an open mind, it proves that Mom loved it down here. She was having such a good time, drinking and going out all day, that she decided to stay. And she wrote me a letter telling me that, so I wouldn’t get worried.”

“Can I give you another interpretation?” Dad said. “I see a woman who kept to herself and drank a bottle of wine at dinner, and then moved on to the hard stuff. That’s not having a fun time. That’s drinking yourself to death. And I’m sure Mom did write you a letter. But it was mainly full of paranoid rants about Audrey Griffin.”

“It says, ‘highly probable.’ ”

“But we’ll never know,” Dad said. “Because she never mailed it.”

“She gave it to a passenger to mail when they got back home, but it got lost.”

“How come this passenger failed to report that during the interrogation?”

“Because Mom told them to keep quiet.”

“There’s a saying,” Dad said. “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Do you know what that means?”

“Yeah.” I fell onto the pillow and gave a big puff.

“It means that when you’re trying to figure something out, don’t start off being too exotic in your reasoning.”

“I know what it means.” I moved my head because I had landed in a patch of drool.

“It’s been six weeks, and nobody’s heard from her,” he said.

“She’s somewhere waiting for me,” I said. “It’s a fact.” A pulsing aura of energy attacked the right side of my face. It was emanating from Dad’s junk on the table. There was so much of it, and it was so neatly arranged, it was worse than a girl, it just made me sick. I jerked myself up to get away from it.

“I don’t know where you’re getting this from, sweetheart, I really don’t.”

“Mom didn’t kill herself, Dad.”

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t have too much to drink one night and fell overboard.”

“She wouldn’t have let that happen,” I said.

“I’m talking about an accident, Bee. By definition, nobody lets an accident happen.”

A plume of smoke rose from behind the desk chair. It was the humidifier Mom had bought for Dad, now plugged in with an upside-down bottle of water sticking out of it. Just like Dad wanted.

“I know why it’s convenient for you if Mom killed herself.” Until I started saying the words, I had no idea they were tamped down in my stomach. “Because you were cheating on her, and it gets you off the hook because you can go, Blah blah blah, she was crazy all along.”

“Bee, that’s not true.”

“You look for horses,” I said. “While you spent your whole life at work, me and Mom were having the best, funnest time ever. Mom and I lived for each other. She wouldn’t do anything close to getting drunk and walking next to a ship’s balcony because it would mean she might never see me again. That you think she would shows how little you know her. You look for horses, Dad.”

“Where is she hiding, then?” Dad asked, starting to blow. “On an iceberg? Floating on a raft? What’s she been eating? How’s she keeping warm?”

“That’s why I wanted the receipt from the gift shop,” I said really slowly, because maybe then he’d understand. “To prove that she bought warm clothes. They sell them there. I saw them. Parkas and boots and hats. They also sell granola bars—”

“Granola bars!” That was it for Dad. “Granola bars? That’s what this is based on?” The skin on Dad’s neck was translucent and a big vein trembled. “Parkas and granola bars? Have you been outside yet?”

“No—” I stammered.

He stood up. “Come with me.”

“Why?”

“I want you to feel the temperature.”

“No!” I said as emphatically as I could. “I know what cold feels like.”

“Not this kind of cold.” He grabbed the captain’s report.

“That’s mine,” I yelled. “That’s private property!”

“If you’re so interested in facts, come with me.” He grabbed me by the hood and dragged me out the door. I was grunting, “Let me go!” and he was grunting, “You’re coming with me!” We elbowed each other up the steep and narrow staircase one level, then two levels, and we were clawing and cussing so fiercely it took us both a second to register that we had become the focus of attention. We were in the lounge. The Japanese people sat at origami-paper-covered tables, just staring at us.

“You here for origami?” said the Japanese translator with mixed emotion, because on the one hand it looked like nobody had shown up for their workshop, but on the other hand, who would want to teach origami to the two of us?

“No, thanks,” Dad said, letting go of me.

I sprinted across the lounge and accidentally brushed against one of the chairs, which I had forgotten was bolted down, so instead of it tumbling out of the way, it nailed me in my ribs and I ricocheted into one of the tables, plus the boat started pitching.

Dad was on me. “Where do you think—”

“I’m not going outside with you!” We were a wrestling, scratching, slapping bundle of origami paper and brand-new Patagonia, tumbling toward the exit. I stuck my foot against the doorjamb so Dad couldn’t push me any farther.

“What was Mom’s big crime, anyway?” I screamed. “That she had an assistant in India doing errands for her? What’s Samantha 2? It’s just something so people can sit around and have a robot do all their shit for them. You spent ten years of your life and billions of dollars inventing something so people don’t have to live their own lives. Mom found a way of doing it for seventy-five cents an hour, and you tried to have her committed to a mental hospital!”

“That’s what you think?” he said.

“You were a real rock star, Dad, walking down the aisle of the Microsoft Connector.”

“I didn’t write that!”

“Your girlfriend did!” I said. “We all know the truth. Mom ran away because you fell in love with your admin.”

“We’re going outside.” All Dad’s working-out obviously had some effect, because he picked me up with one arm as if I were made of balsa wood, and with the other yanked open the door.

Right before it shut, I caught a glimpse of the poor Japanese people. Nobody had moved. Some hands were frozen in midair, in the middle of doing a fold. It looked like a wax museum diorama of an origami presentation.

I hadn’t been outside yet the whole trip. Instantly my ears stung and my nose became a burning-cold stone at the end of my face. The wind blew so hard it froze the inside of my eyes. The tops of my cheeks felt like they might crack.

“We’re not even in Antarctica yet!” Dad howled through the wind. “Do you feel how cold it is? Do you?”

I opened my mouth, and the saliva on the inside froze, like an ice cave. When I swallowed, which took all my effort, it tasted like death.

“How did Bernadette keep alive for five weeks in this? Look around! Feel the air! We’re not even in Antarctica yet!”

I pulled my hands inside my cuffs and made fists with my numb fingers.

Dad shook the report at me. “The only truth here is that Mom was safely onboard January fifth at six p.m. and then she started drinking. The waters were too rough to anchor. And that was it. You’re looking for facts? Feel this. This wind, this cold, these are the facts.”

Dad was right. He’s smarter than me, and he was right. I would never find Mom.

“Give me that,” I said, and swiped at the report.

“I won’t let you do this, Bee! It’s not good for you, constantly searching for something that isn’t there!” Dad shook the report at me, and I tried to grab it, but my joints were too stiff and my hands caught on my sleeves and then it was too late and every last piece of paper got sucked high into the heavens.

“No! It’s all I have!” With each word, my icy breath knifed the inside of my lungs.

“It’s not all you have,” Dad said. “You have me, Bee.”

“I hate you!”

I ran to our room and swallowed two more white pills, not because I was seasick, but because I knew they would knock me out, and I just slept. I woke up once and I wasn’t tired anymore. I looked out the window. The sea was choppy and black and so was the sky. A lone seabird hung in the air. Something bobbed in the water. It was a huge chunk of ice, our first harbinger of the horrible land ahead. I took two more pills and fell back asleep.

Then music filled the room, ever so faintly, and over the span of a couple of minutes it gradually got louder. I’m starting with the man in the mirror… It was Michael Jackson, a wake-up call coming from the speakers, and there was a blazing crack between the window shade and wall.

“Well, good morning,” said the voice over the PA. After his ominous pause, he continued, “For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of looking out the window, welcome to Antarctica.” With those words, I shot up. “Many of you are already on deck relishing the clear, still morning. We got our first glimpse of land at six twenty-three, when we came upon Snow Hill Island. We’re now making our way into Deception Bay.” I yanked the cord on the shades.

There it was, a black rocky island with snow on top, black water under it, and a big gray sky above, Antarctica. I got a huge knot in my stomach because if Antarctica could talk, it would be saying only one thing: you don’t belong here.

“The Zodiacs will be begin loading at nine thirty” the Kiwi continued. “Our naturalists and camera experts will be leading walks. And kayaks are always available for those who prefer to go kayaking. The temperature is minus thirteen degrees Celsius, eight degrees Fahrenheit. Good morning and, again, welcome to Antarctica.”

Dad burst in. “You’re up! How about a swim?”

“A swim?”

“It’s a volcanic island,” he said. “There’s a hot spring, which warms a patch of water near the shore. What do you say? Do you want to take a dip in the Antarctic Ocean?”

“No.” I was looking back at myself. It was like the old Bee was standing there saying to me, “What are you talking about? That’s something you’d love to do. Kennedy would freak.” But the new Bee was the one who controlled my voice and she answered, “You can go, Dad.”

“I have a feeling you’re going to change your mind,” Dad said, all singsong. But we both knew he was faking.

Days passed. I could never tell what time it was because the sun never set, so I went by Dad. He’d set his alarm for six a.m. like at home, then go to the gym, then I’d hear Michael Jackson singing, and Dad would come back to shower. He figured out a system where he’d bring clean underwear into the bathroom and emerge in that, then get dressed the rest of the way in the room. Once he said, “It’s the damndest thing. I can’t find my neti pot anywhere.” Then he’d head off to breakfast. He’d return with a plate of food for me and a Xerox of the six-page New York Times Digest, which had big handwritten letters across the top, FRONT DESK COPY ONLY — DO NOT BRING TO ROOM. It was printed on the back of the previous day’s leftover menus. I liked seeing what fish they served the night before, because I’d never even heard of any of them, things like toothfish, hake, wreckfish, and red porgy. I saved them in case Kennedy doesn’t believe me. Then Dad, the layer king, would elaborately get into his expedition clothes and salve himself with sunblock, lip stuff, and eyedrops, and head out.

Soon, black rubber boats with motors called Zodiacs would ferry the passengers ashore. After the last Zodiac headed out, I’d stir to life. It was just me and the vacuum cleaners. I’d go to the way-top floor, which is the library, where I kept tabs on an epic Settlers of Catan game some passengers were playing. There were a bunch of jigsaw puzzles too, which got me excited because I love puzzles, but inside the boxes I’d find a note saying, “This puzzle is missing seven pieces” or some number, and I thought, Why would I do that puzzle? There was another lady there, too, who never got off the ship, I don’t know why. She didn’t talk to me, but was always working in a Sudoku Easy Does It book. On top of each page, she wrote the place where she did the puzzle, as a souvenir. They all said, “Antarctica.” Mostly, though, I just sat in the library. It had glass on all sides, so I could see everything. All you need to know about Antarctica is it’s three horizontal stripes. On the bottom, there’s the stripe for the water, which is anywhere from black to dark gray. And on top of that, there’s a stripe for the land, which is usually black or white. Then there’s a stripe for the sky, which is some kind of gray or blue. Antarctica doesn’t have a flag, but if it did it should be three horizontal stripes of different shades of gray. If you wanted to get really artsy, you could make it all gray, but say it was three stripes of gray, for the water, the land, and the sky, but that would probably take too much explaining.

Eventually, the flotilla of Zodiacs would head back to the ship. I couldn’t tell which one Dad was on, because all the passengers were issued the same red hooded parkas and matching snow pants, probably because red makes them stick out best against the gray. The guides get to wear black. I made sure I was back in my room when the first Zodiac returned, so Dad would think I’d been moping. The housekeeper always left a towel twisted into the shape of a bunny on my pillow, and each day it got more elaborately accessorized. First, the towel bunny was wearing my dark glasses, then my hair band, then one of Dad’s Breathe Right strips.

Dad would burst in, still carrying the cold on his clothes, full of information and stories. He’d show me pictures on his camera, and say the photos didn’t do it justice. Then he’d go to the dining room for lunch, and bring me back something, then afterward he headed back out for the afternoon excursion. My favorite time was the evening recap, which I’d watch on TV in my room. Every day, the scuba divers went down and videotaped the seafloor. In this hostile, black water, it turns out there’re millions of the craziest sea creatures I’d ever seen, things like glassy sea cucumbers, worms covered with graceful, foot-long spikes, fluorescent-colored sea stars, and copepods, which are spotted and striped, like out of Yellow Submarine. The reason I’m not calling any of them by their scientific names (not like I even would) is because they don’t have names yet. Most of this stuff humans are seeing for the very first time.

I tried to love Dad and not hate him for his fake cheer and the way he gets dressed. I tried to imagine what Mom saw in him back when she was an architect. I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone who finds every little thing he does a total delight. It was sad, though, because the thought of him and all his accessories always made me sick. I wished I’d never made the connection about Dad being a gigantic girl, because once you realize something like that, it’s hard to go back.

Sometimes it was so great I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that I got to be me. We’d pass icebergs floating in the middle of the ocean. They were gigantic, with strange formations carved into them. They were so haunting and majestic you could feel your heart break, but really they’re just chunks of ice and they mean nothing. There were ebony beaches dusted with snow, and sometimes there was a lone emperor penguin, giant, with orange cheeks, standing on an iceberg, and you had no idea how he got there, or how he was going to get off, or if he even wanted to get off. On another iceberg, a smiling leopard seal, sunning herself, looked like she wouldn’t hurt a fly, but she’s one of the most vicious predators on earth, and she’d think nothing of leaping up and grabbing a human in her razor teeth and pulling him into the freezing water and shaking him until his skin slid off. Sometimes I looked over the edge of the ship at the sea ice, like white jigsaw puzzle pieces that will never fit together, and passing through sounded like clinking cocktails. There were whales everywhere. Once, I saw a pod of fifty killer whales, mommies and babies, frolicking in a pack, blowing happily, and penguins hopping across the inky ocean like fleas, then propelling themselves to safety on an iceberg. If I had to choose, that would be my favorite part, the way the penguins pop out of the water and onto land. Hardly anyone in the world gets to see any of this, which put pressure on me to remember it especially well, and to try to find words for the magnificence. Then I’d think of something random, like how Mom used to write notes to put in my lunch. She’d sometimes include one for Kennedy, whose Mom never wrote her notes, and some were stories that would take weeks to play out. And then I’d get up from my seat in the library and look through the binoculars. But Mom was never there. Pretty soon, I stopped thinking about home, and my friends, because when you’re on a boat in Antarctica and there’s no night, who are you? I guess what I’m saying is, I was a ghost on a ghost ship in a ghost land.

One night, it was the evening recap and Dad brought me a plate of cheese puffs, then went back up to the lounge, and I watched it on TV. A scientist gave a presentation about counting penguin chicks as part of an ongoing study. Then it was time to announce the plan for tomorrow, which was going to Port Lockroy, to a British military outpost left over from World War II, which was now an Antarctic heritage museum where people live and run a gift shop and a post office. Where we are all encouraged to buy Antarctic penguin stamps and mail letters home!

My heart started doing gymnastics and I paced around wildly, repeating, Oh-my-God-Oh-my-God-Oh-my-God, waiting for Dad to burst through the door.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” came the voice through the speakers. “That was another wonderful recap. Chef Issey has just informed me that dinner is ready. Bon appétit.”

I flew up to the lounge because maybe Dad was sitting there stunned, but the gathering had broken up. A pack of people was shuffling down the stairs. I ran to the back and took the long way to the dining room. There was Dad, sitting at a table with some guy.

“Bee!” he said. “Would you like to join us for dinner?”

“Wait, weren’t you at the recap?” I asked. “Didn’t you hear—”

“Yes! And this is Nick, who’s studying the penguin colonies. He was telling me he always needs helpers to count penguin chicks.”

“Hi…” I was so scared of Dad in that moment that I took a step back and bumped into a waiter. “Sorry… hi… bye.” I turned around and walked as fast as I could out of there.

I ran to the chart room, which is a gigantic table with a map of the Antarctic Peninsula laid across it. Each day, I’d watch crew members mark our ship’s path with a dotted line, and afterward passengers would drop by and painstakingly copy it onto their maps. I pulled open a huge flat drawer and found the map of Mom’s journey. I placed it on top and followed with my finger the dot-dot-dot. Sure enough, her ship had stopped at Port Lockroy.

The next morning, Dad was at the gym, and I went out on deck. Plunked onto the rocky shore was a black wooden building, L-shaped, like two Monopoly hotels, with white window trim and cheery red shutters. Penguins dotted the landscape. The backdrop was a field of snow, looming over which was one big, pointy mountain rising above seven smaller scrunched-together ones, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Dad had signed up to go kayaking with the first group, then to Port Lockroy with the second group. I waited until he was gone, then ripped the tags off my red parka and snow pants and suited up. I fell in with the stream of passengers clomping, astronaut-like, down the stairs to the mudroom. It was full of lockers and had two huge openings on either side where floating docks were tethered. I headed down a ramp to a sputtering Zodiac.

“Port Lockroy?” confirmed a crewman. “Did you scan out?”

He pointed me to a stand with a computer. I scanned my ID badge. My photo popped up on the screen, along with the words ENJOY YOUR TIME ASHORE, BALAKRISHNA! I felt a surge of annoyance at Manjula, who was supposed to have made sure I got called Bee, but then I remembered she was an Internet bandit.

A dozen red suits crammed into the Zodiac with Charlie at the motor. It was mostly women who had all seen enough penguins for one lifetime and felt the need to start shopping. They were bursting with questions about what there was to buy.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said with a tinge of resentment. “T-shirts.”

It was the first time I’d been out on the glassy water. Bitter wind attacked me from all sides. My whole being instantly shrank, and any time I moved, my skin hit a new cold patch in my snowsuit, so I became trapped in stillness. I turned my head the teeniest bit possible, just enough to see the shore.

The closer we got to Port Lockroy, the building strangely got smaller and smaller, which was the first time I got scared. Charlie gunned the engine and drove the Zodiac onto the rocks. I belly-rolled off the big inflated side and dropped my life jacket. I scrambled across the big rocks, avoiding the singing gentoo penguins guarding their rock nests until I reached a wooden ramp leading to the entrance. A British flag flapped in the cold gray wind. I was the first one there, and I flung open the door. Two girls, college-aged, kind of goofy and enthusiastic, greeted us.

“Welcome to Port Lockroy!” they said in British accents.

It was one of those miserable situations where it was just as cold inside as it was outside. I was in a room with turquoise-painted walls. This was the gift shop, with colorful banners hanging from the ceiling; tables full of books, stuffed animals, and postcards; and glass cubbies of sweatshirts, baseball hats, and anything you could embroider a penguin on. There were no signs of Mom, but why would there be? This was just the gift shop.

Across this room was an opening leading to the rest of Port Lockroy, but the English girls blocked it. I kept it together and acted interested in the bulletin boards while the other passengers trickled in and oohed and aahed at the swag. Even the sudoku lady had torn herself away from the library for this outing.

“Welcome to Port Lockroy,” alternated the girls. “Welcome to Port Lockroy.”

It seemed like we had been standing there for an hour already. “Where is everyone who lives here?” I finally asked. “Where do you live?”

“You’re looking at it,” said one. “Let’s wait for everyone to get in before we begin the lecture.” Then they started up again, “Welcome to Port Lockroy.”

“But where do you sleep?” I asked.

“Welcome to Port Lockroy. Is that everyone? Oh, we have some more coming.”

“Is there, like, a dining hall where everyone else is?”

But the girls looked right over my head. “Welcome to Port Lockroy. OK, it looks like we’re all here.” One of them began her spiel. “During World War Two, Port Lockroy was a secret outpost for the British military—” She stopped because the group of Japanese tourists had just entered, and with them, the usual low-grade confusion. I couldn’t take it anymore. I squeezed past the English girls.

There were two small rooms. I went left, into an old-fashioned command center with desks and rusty machines full of dials and knobs. But no people. At the far end was a door marked DO NOT OPEN. I passed a wall of decaying books and pulled at the door. Blinding light blasted me back: it led outside to a snowfield. I closed the door and backtracked to the other room.

“In 1996 the U.K. Antarctic Heritage Trust paid to turn Port Lockroy into a living museum,” one of the girls was saying.

This room was a kitchen, with rusty stoves and shelves full of weird food rations and British tins. There also was a door marked DO NOT OPEN. I raced to that and yanked it open. Again… eye-watering snow shock.

I quickly shut the door. Once my eyes readjusted, I returned to the main section and tried to figure things out. OK, there were only three doors. The front door where we came in, and these other two leading outside…

“During the war, Port Lockroy was home to Operation Tabarin—” the girls went on.

“I don’t understand,” I butted in. “How many people live here?”

“Just the two of us.”

“Where do you live live?” I said. “Where do you sleep?”

“Here.”

“What do you mean, here?”

“We roll our sleeping bags out in the gift shop.”

“Where do you go to the bathroom?”

“We go outside—”

“Where do you do your laundry?”

“Well, we—”

“Where do you shower?”

“This is how they live,” a tourist lady snapped at me. She had freckles, blue eyes, and a bunch of gray in her blond hair. “Stop being rude. These girls come down for three months and pee in a tin can for the adventure.”

“It really is just the two of you?” I said weakly.

“And the cruise ship passengers like you who come visit.”

“So nobody has, like, gotten off one of the ships to live with you…?” The sound of the words coming out of my mouth, and the whole idea that Mom would be here waiting for me, struck me as so babyish that all of a sudden I burst into the most babyish tears. Swirled into my humiliation was anger at myself for letting my hope gallop off so stupidly. Snot sheeted down my face and into my mouth and down my chin and onto my new red parka, which I had been excited about, because we got to keep it.

“Dear God,” the freckled lady said. “What’s wrong with her?”

I couldn’t stop crying. I was trapped in the fun house of pemmican rations, photographs of Doris Day, crates of whiskey, a rusty can of Quaker Oats where the Quaker Oats guy is a young man, Morse code machines, long johns with butt flaps hanging from a clothesline, and baby bibs that read ANTARCTICA BEACH CLUB. Charlie, chin lowered, spoke into the radio clipped to his parka. Lots of concerned ladies asked, What’s wrong? something I now know how to say in Japanese, which is Anata wa daijbudesu?

I burrowed through the gathering nylon mass and made it out the front door. I stumbled down the ramp and, when I got to the bottom, clambered over some big rocks as far as I could go and stopped at a little inlet. I looked back, and there were no people. I sat down and caught my breath. There was one elephant seal, swaddled in her own blubber, lolling on her side. I couldn’t imagine how she was ever going to move. Her eyes were big black buttons, oozing black tears. Her nose, too, was oozing black. My breath was dense clouds. The cold seized me. I didn’t know if I’d ever move again. Antarctica was truly a horrible place.

“Bee, darling?” It was Dad. “Thank you,” he said quietly to a Japanese lady who must have led him to me. He sat down and handed me a handkerchief.

“I thought she was here, Dad.”

“I can see why you might have thought that,” he said.

I cried a little, but then stopped. Still, the crying continued. It was Dad.

“I miss her, too, Bee.” His chest jerked violently. He was bad at crying. “I know you think you have a monopoly on missing her. But Mom was my best friend.”

“She was my best friend,” I said.

“I knew her longer.” He wasn’t even being funny.

Now that Dad was crying, I was, like, both of us can’t be sitting on rocks in Antarctica crying. “It’s going to be OK, Dad.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said, blowing his nose. “It all started with that letter I sent Dr. Kurtz. I was only trying to get Mom help. You have to believe me.”

“I do.”

“You’re great, Bee. You’ve always been great. You’re our biggest accomplishment.”

“Not really.”

“It’s true.” He put his arm around me and pulled me close. My shoulder fit perfectly under his shoulder. I could already feel the warmth from his armpit. I nestled in closer. “Here, try these.” He reached into his parka and pulled out two of those pocket-warming heat biscuits. I yowled, they felt so good.

“I know this trip has been hard on you,” Dad said. “It’s not what you wanted it to be.” He let out a big gooey sigh. “I’m sorry you had to read all those documents, Bee. They weren’t meant for you. They weren’t something a fifteen-year-old should have had to read.”

“I’m glad I read them.” I didn’t know Mom had those other babies. It made me feel like there were all these children Mom would rather have had, and loved as much as she loved me, but I was the one who lived and I was broken, because of my heart.

“Paul Jellinek was right,” Dad said. “He’s a great guy, a true friend. I’d like us to go down to L.A. and spend some time with him one day. He knew Bernadette best. He realized that she needed to create.”

“Or she’d become a menace to society,” I said.

“That’s where I really failed your mom,” he said. “She was an artist who had stopped creating. I should have done everything I could to get her back.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know how. Trying to get an artist to create… it’s gigantic. I write code. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. You know, I’d forgotten, until I read that Artforum article, that we used Mom’s MacArthur money to buy Straight Gate. It was like Bernadette’s hopes and dreams were literally crumbling around us.”

“I don’t know why everyone’s so down on our house,” I said.

“Have you ever heard that the brain is a discounting mechanism?”

“No.”

“Let’s say you get a present and open it and it’s a fabulous diamond necklace. Initially, you’re delirious with happiness, jumping up and down, you’re so excited. The next day, the necklace still makes you happy, but less so. After a year, you see the necklace, and you think, Oh, that old thing. It’s the same for negative emotions. Let’s say you get a crack in your windshield and you’re really upset. Oh no, my windshield, it’s ruined, I can hardly see out of it, this is a tragedy! But you don’t have enough money to fix it, so you drive with it. In a month, someone asks you what happened to your windshield, and you say, What do you mean? Because your brain has discounted it.”

“The first time I walked into Kennedy’s house,” I said, “it had that horrible Kennedy-house smell because her mother is always frying fish. I asked Kennedy, What’s that gross smell? And she was, like, What smell?”

“Exactly,” Dad said. “You know why your brain does that?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“It’s for survival. You need to be prepared for novel experiences because often they signal danger. If you live in a jungle full of fragrant flowers, you have to stop being so overwhelmed by the lovely smell because otherwise you couldn’t smell a predator. That’s why your brain is considered a discounting mechanism. It’s literally a matter of survival.”

“That’s cool.”

“It’s the same with Straight Gate,” he said. “We’ve discounted the holes in the ceilings, the wet patches in the floors, the cordoned-off rooms. I hate to break it to you, but that’s not how people live.”

“It’s how we lived,” I said.

“It is how we lived.” A long time passed, which was nice. It was just us and the seal and Dad whipping out his ChapStick.

“We were like the Beatles, Dad.”

“I know you think that, sweetie.”

“Seriously. Mom is John, you’re Paul, I’m George, and Ice Cream is Ringo.”

“Ice Cream,” Dad said with a laugh.

“Ice Cream,” I said. “Resentful of the past, fearful of the future.”

“What’s that?” He asked, rubbing his lips together.

“Something Mom read in a book about Ringo Starr. They say that nowadays he’s resentful of the past and fearful of the future. You’ve never seen Mom laugh so hard. Every time we saw Ice Cream sitting there with her mouth open, we’d say, Poor Ice Cream, resentful of the past, fearful of the future.”

Dad smiled a big smile.

“Soo-Lin,” I started to say, but even uttering her name made it difficult to keep talking. “She’s nice. But she’s like poop in the stew.”

“Poop in the stew?” he said.

“Let’s say you make some stew,” I explained, “and it’s really yummy and you want to eat it, right?”

“OK,” Dad said.

“And then someone stirs a little bit of poop in it. Even if it’s just a teeny-tiny amount, and even if you mix it in really well, would you want to eat it?”

“No,” Dad said.

“So that’s what Soo-Lin is. Poop in the stew.”

“Well, I think that’s rather unfair,” he said. And we both had to laugh.

It’s the first time during this whole trip that I let myself really look at Dad. He had on a fleece headband over his ears and zinc oxide on his nose. The rest of his face was shiny from sunblock and moisturizer. He wore dark mountain-climbing glasses with the flaps on the side. The one lens that was taped over didn’t show because the other lens was just as dark. There was really nothing to hate him for.

“So you know,” Dad said, “you’re not the only one with wild ideas about what happened to Mom. I thought maybe she’d gotten off the ship, and when she saw me with Soo-Lin she somehow dodged us. So you know what I did?”

“What?”

“I hired a bounty hunter from Seattle to go to Ushuaia and look for her.”

“You did?” I said. “A real-life bounty hunter?”

“They specialize in finding people far from home,” he said. “Someone at work recommended this guy. He spent two weeks in Ushuaia looking for Bernadette, checking the boats coming in and out, the hotels. He couldn’t find anything. And then we got the captain’s report.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Bee,” he said carefully. “I have something to tell you. Have you noticed I haven’t been frantic about not being able to get email?”

“Not really.” I felt bad because only then did it occur to me that I hadn’t thought about Dad at all. It was true, he’s usually all into his email.

“There’s a huge reorg they’re probably announcing as we sit on these rocks.” He checked his watch. “Is today the tenth?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

“As of the tenth, Samantha 2 is canceled.”

“Canceled?” I didn’t even understand how that word could apply.

“It’s over. They’re folding us into games.”

“You mean for, like, the Xbox?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “Walter Reed pulled out because of budget cuts. At Microsoft, you’re nothing if you don’t ship. If Samantha 2 is under games, at least they can ship millions of units.”

“What about all those paraplegics you’ve been working with?”

“I’m in talks with the UW,” he said. “I’m hoping to continue our work over there. It’s complicated because Microsoft owns the patents.”

“I thought you owned the patents,” I said.

“I own the commemorative cubes. Microsoft owns the patents.”

“So, like, you’re going to leave Microsoft?”

“I left Microsoft. I turned in my badge last week.”

I’d never known Dad without his badge. A terrible sadness poured in through my head and filled me to the brim, like I was a honey bear. I thought I might burst of sadness. “That’s so weird,” is all I could say.

“Is now a good time to tell you something even weirder?” he said.

“I guess,” I said.

“Soo-Lin is pregnant.”

“What?”

“You’re too young to understand these things, but it was one night. I’d had too much to drink. It was over the moment it began. I know that probably seems really… what’s a word you would use… gross?”

“I never say gross,” I said.

“You just did,” he said. “That’s what you called the smell at Kennedy’s house.”

“She’s really pregnant?” I said.

“Yep.” Poor guy, he looked like he was going to barf.

“So basically,” I said, “your life is ruined.” I’m sorry, but something in me made me smile.

“I can’t say that thought hasn’t occurred to me,” he said. “But I try not to think of it that way. I’m trying to frame it as my life being different. Our lives being different. Me and you.”

“So me and Lincoln and Alexandra are going to have the same brother or sister?”

“Yep.”

“That’s so random.”

“Random!” he said. “I’ve always hated when you used that word. But it is pretty random.”

“Dad,” I said. “I called her Yoko Ono that night because she was the one who broke up the Beatles. Not because she’s Asian. I felt bad.”

“I know that,” he said.

It was good that sappy-eyed seal was there, because we could both just watch her. But then Dad started putting in eyedrops.

“Dad,” I said. “I really don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but…”

“But what?”

“You have way too many accessories. I can’t keep track of all of them.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to, isn’t it?”

We were quiet for a while, and then I said, “I think my favorite part of Antarctica is just looking out.”

“You know why?” Dad asked. “When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It’s the same as a runner’s high. These days, we all spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us. It’s a nice change.”

“I have an idea,” I said. “You should invent an app so that when you’re staring at your phone, it tricks your brain into thinking you’re staring at the horizon, so you can get a runner’s high from texting.”

“What did you just say?” Dad spun his head to look at me, his mind in high gear.

“Don’t you dare steal my idea!” I gave him a shove.

“Consider yourself warned.”

I groaned and left it at that. Then Charlie came over and said it was time to head back.

At breakfast, Nick the penguin-counter asked me again if I’d be his assistant, which did sound pretty fun. We got to leave before everyone else, in our own Zodiac. Nick let me stand next to the outboard and steer. The best way to describe Nick would be to say that he didn’t have any personality, which sounds mean, but it’s kind of true. The closest he came to personality was when he told me to scan the horizon wide, like a searchlight, back and forth, back and forth. He said after he was down here the first time driving a Zodiac that he went back home and immediately got into a car accident because he was looking left to right, left to right, and ended up rear-ending the car directly in front of him. But that’s not personality. That’s just a car accident.

He dropped me off at an Adélie penguin colony and gave me a clipboard with a satellite map marked with some boundaries. This was a follow-up to a study a month back, where another scientist had counted the eggs. It was my job to see how many had successfully hatched into chicks. Nick sized up the colony.

“This looks like a complete breeding failure.” He shrugged.

I was shocked by how casually he said this. “What do you mean, a complete failure?”

“Adélies are hardwired to lay their eggs in the exact same place each year,” he said. “We had a late winter, so their nesting grounds were still covered with snow when they made their nests. So it looks like there’s no chicks.”

“How can you even tell?” Because there was no way I could see that.

“You tell me,” he said. “Observe their behavior and tell me what you see.”

He left me with a clicker and headed off to another colony, saying he’d return in two hours. Adélies may be the cutest penguins of all. Their heads are pure black except for perfect white circles, like a reinforcement, around their tiny black eyes. I started at the top left corner and clicked each time I saw a gray fuzz-ball sticking out from between an Adélie’s feet. Click, click, click. I worked my way across the top of the mapped area, then dropped down and worked my way back. You have to make sure not to count the same nest twice, but it’s almost impossible because they’re not in a neat grid. When I was done I did it over again and got the same number.

Here’s what surprised me about penguins: their chests aren’t pure white but have patches of peach and green, which is partially digested krill and algae vomit, which splatters on them when they feed their chicks. Another thing is penguins stink! And they’re loud. They coo sometimes, which is very soothing, but mostly they screech. The penguins I watched spent most of their time waddling over and stealing rocks from one another, then having vicious fights where they’d peck each other until they bled.

I climbed high on the rocks and looked out. There was ice, in every possible form, stretching forever. Glaciers, fast ice, icebergs, chunks of ice in the still water. The air was so cold and clean that even in the way distance, the ice was as vivid and sharp as if it were right in front of me. The immensity of it all, the peacefulness, the stillness and enormous silence, well, I could have sat there forever.

“What behavior did you observe?” Nick asked when he got back.

“The penguins that spent most of their time fighting were the ones with no chicks,” I said.

“There you go,” he said.

“It’s like they’re supposed to be taking care of their chicks. But because they don’t have any, they have nothing to do with all their energy. So they just pick fights.”

“I like that.” He checked my work. “This looks good. I need your John Hancock.” I signed at the bottom, to verify that I was the scientist.

When Nick and I arrived back at the ship, Dad was in the mudroom peeling off his layers. I scanned my ID card. It bonged, and the screen read: BALAKRISHNA, PLEASE SEE OFFICIAL. Hmm. I scanned it again. Another bong.

“That’s because you didn’t scan out,” Nick said. “As far as it knows, you’re still on the ship.”

“Well, ladies and gentleman,” said the overhead voice, followed by the big pause. “We hope you enjoyed your morning excursion and that you’re hungry for some Argentinean barbecue, which is now being served in the dining room.” I was halfway up the stairs when I realized Dad wasn’t with me. He was standing at the scanner, with a puzzled look on his face.

“Dad!” I knew everyone would be charging the buffet line and I didn’t want to get stuck at the end.

“OK, OK.” Dad snapped to, and we beat the lunch crowd.

There was no afternoon excursion because we had to cover a huge distance and didn’t have time to stop. Dad and I went to the library to look for a game to play.

Nick found us there. He handed me some papers. “Here’s copies of your data, and past data, in case you’re interested.” So maybe that was his personality: nice.

“That’s so cool,” I said. “Do you want to play a game with us?”

“No,” he said. “I have packing to do.”

“Too bad,” I told Dad. “Because I’d really like to play Risk, but we need three players.”

“We’ll play with you,” a British girl’s voice said. It was one of the two girls from Port Lockroy! She and the other girl had handwritten labels stuck to their shirts that said their names, and ASK ME ABOUT PORT LOCKROY. They were freshly showered, with gigantic smiles stretched across their shiny faces.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“There’s not a ship scheduled to visit Port Lockroy for two days,” said Vivian.

“So the captain said we could spend the night on the Allegra,” said Iris. They both wanted to talk so badly that they were like racecar drivers jockeying to cut each other off. It must have been from the lack of anyone else’s company.

“How are you going to get back?” I asked.

“There was a change of plans involving Nick—” Vivian started.

“That’s why there’s no afternoon excursion.” Iris finished.

“The Allegra has to take him to Palmer,” Vivian said.

“So we’ll end up crossing paths with the next ship to visit Port Lockroy, and Vivian and I will transfer to that—”

“The cruise companies like to keep it hush-hush, though—”

“They like to give the passengers the impression they’re all alone in the vast Antarctic Ocean so these crew transfers are only ever done in the dead of night—”

“And you’ll be pleased to know we’ve showered!” said Vivian, and they both burst into giggles, ending the talking derby.

“I’m really sorry if I was rude,” I said.

I turned to Dad, but he was heading down to the bridge. I didn’t call after him because Dad knows my strategy for Risk, which is to occupy Australia at the outset. Even though Australia is small, there’s only one way in and out, so when it comes time to conquer the world, if you don’t have Australia, you go in and your armies get trapped there until your next turn. Then the next player can gobble up the single armies you’ve left in your path. I had the three of us quickly pick our colors and distribute our armies before Dad came back. On my first four turns, I yoinked Australia.

Playing Risk with these girls was so fun because in my whole life I’ve never seen two people happier. That’s what a hot shower and peeing in a proper toilet will do. Vivian and Iris told me a funny story about how one day they were sitting at Port Lockroy between cruise ships and a huge fancy yacht pulls up and it’s Paul Allen’s yacht, the Octopus, which he and Tom Hanks got off and then requested a tour. I asked the girls if they got to shower on the Octopus, but they said they were too afraid to ask.

The freckled lady who called me rude at Port Lockroy sat down with a book and saw me and Vivian and Iris laughing like we’d known one another forever.

“Helloooo,” I said to her like a big smiling cat.

Before she could respond, the voice over the PA said, “Well, good evening.” He was announcing a bunch of whales on the starboard side, which I’d already seen. A few more “Well, good evening”s came and went, announcing a photography lecture, and then dinner, and then March of the Penguins, but we didn’t want to stop the game, so we took turns running plates of food from the dining room up to the library. With each announcement, Dad would pop up and give me the thumbs-up through the window, and I’d give him the thumbs-up in return. The sun was still blazing, so the only way to judge the passage of time was by the people trickling out of the library. Pretty soon, even Dad stopped appearing, and it was just the three of us playing Risk. Hours must have passed. It was just us and the cleaning crew. Then there seemed to be another “Well, good evening,” but I couldn’t be sure because of the vacuum. Then sleepy-eyed passengers with parkas over their pajamas appeared on the deck with their cameras.

“What’s going on?” I said. It was two in the morning.

“Oh, we must be at Palmer,” Vivian said with a hand flutter. It was her turn, and she actually thought she was about to seize Europe.

More people appeared on the deck, but I couldn’t see over their heads. Finally, I stood on my chair. “Oh my God!”

There was a little city, if you’d call a bunch of shipping containers and a couple corrugated metal buildings a city. “What is that place?”

“That’s Palmer,” Iris said.

Palmer was short for Palmer Station. When Nick said he was packing, and when Iris said we were dropping Nick off at Palmer, I figured it was to count penguins on some island.

“That’s where Nick is stationed for the next month,” Vivian said.

I knew all about the three places in Antarctica where Americans can live. They are McMurdo Station, which looks like an awful dump with about a thousand people. There’s, of course, the South Pole, which is way far inland and impossible to get to, with twenty people. And Palmer Station, with about forty-five people. All three are populated by scientists and support staff. But I had checked the chart room and asked the captain: the Allegra never stopped at Palmer Station.

Still, here we were.

“Are we getting off?” I asked the girls.

“Oh, no,” Iris said.

“Scientists only,” Vivian added. “They run a very tight operation.”

I dashed out onto the deck. A few Zodiacs streamed back and forth the two hundred yards between our ship and Palmer Station. Nick was heading away from us on a Zodiac stacked with coolers and food crates.

“Who are those people coming aboard?” I wondered aloud.

“It’s a tradition.” Charlie the naturalist was standing next to me. “We let the scientists at Palmer come aboard for a drink. “

I must have had quite a look on my face, because Charlie quickly added, “Nope. People apply five years out to get to Palmer. Beds and supplies are extremely limited. Moms from Seattle don’t end up there on a whim. I’m sorry to be like that. But, you know.”

“Bee!” whispered a wild voice. It was Dad. I figured he was asleep because it was two in the morning. Before I could speak, he was shepherding me down the stairs. “I started thinking when your ID didn’t scan,” he said, his voice all trembly. “What if Bernadette got off the ship but she didn’t scan out? Her ID card would show she was still onboard, so everyone would naturally conclude that she had disappeared from the ship itself. But if she got off the ship somewhere and didn’t scan out, she might still be there.” He pulled open the door to the lounge, which was filling up with some pretty ratty-looking people, scientists from Palmer Station.

“Neko Harbor was the last place Mom got off,” I said, trying to put it together. “And then she got back on.”

“According to the scan of her ID card,” Dad explained again. “But what if she slipped off the ship later? Without scanning out? I was at the bar just now, and some lady went up and ordered a pink penguin.”

“A pink penguin?” My heart started quaking. That was the drink from the captain’s report.

“It turns out the lady is a scientist at Palmer Station,” Dad said. “And the pink penguin is their official drink.”

I searched the faces of the new arrivals. They were young and scruffy, like they could all have worked at REI, and full of laughter. Mom’s face wasn’t among them.

“Look at that place,” Dad said. “I didn’t know it existed.”

I kneeled on a window seat and peered out. A series of red walkways connected the blue metal buildings. There were a dozen electricity poles sticking up, and a water tank with a killer whale painted on it. A gigantic orange ship was docked nearby, nothing like a cruise ship, but more like one of those industrial types that are always in Elliott Bay.

“According to the woman, Palmer Station is the plum assignment in all of Antarctica,” Dad said. “They have a chef who was trained at the Cordon Bleu, for God’s sake.”

Below, Zodiacs were coming and going between our ship and the rocky shore. There was an Elvis mannequin in one of the Zodiacs, which the naturalists were videotaping to much hooting and hollering. Who knew. It must have been some inside joke.

“So the pink penguins on the captain’s report…,” I said, still trying to compute.

“They weren’t for Bernadette,” Dad said. “They must have been for a scientist, like Nick, who was being dropped off at Palmer Station, and who Bernadette befriended.”

I was still stuck on something. “But Mom’s ship didn’t come anywhere near Palmer Station—” Then I realized. “I know how we can check!”

I ran out of the lounge and down the stairs to the chart room, Dad on my heels. On the shiny wooden block was the map of the Antarctic Peninsula, with the little red dotted line showing our journey. I opened the drawer and leafed through the maps until I found the one dated December 26.

“This is the trip Mom took.” I laid it out and placed brass weights on the corners.

I traced the red dotted path of Mom’s trip. From Tierra del Fuego, the Allegra stopped at Deception Island like we did. Then it looped up and around the Antarctic Peninsula and went deep into the Weddell Sea, and back around, to Neko Harbor and Adelaide Island, but after that it turned around and went back through the Bransfield Strait to King George Island and down to Ushuaia. “Her boat didn’t come near Palmer Station.” There was no way around it.

“What are these?” Dad pointed to gray dashes intersecting the red dotted line. It happened in three different spots.

“A current or something,” I guessed.

“No… these aren’t currents,” Dad said. “Wait, they each have a symbol…” It was true. In these gray lines were a snowflake, a bell, and a triangle. “There’s got to be a key…”

There was, on the bottom left. Next to these symbols were the words SITKA STAR SOUTH, LAURENCE M. GOULD, and ANTARCTIC AVALON.

“I know the name Laurence M. Gould from somewhere,” I said.

“They sound like the names of ships,” Dad said.

“Where do I know it from—”

“Bee?” Dad said with a huge smile on his face. “Look up.”

I raised my head. Out the window, that huge ship, all orange hull, in blue block letters: RV LAURENCE M. GOULD.

“It crossed paths with Mom’s ship,” Dad said. “And look where it is now.”

I was afraid to say what I was thinking.

“She’s here, Bee!” Dad said. “Mom is here.”

“Hurry!” I said. “Let’s go ask one of those people in the lounge—”

Dad grabbed my arm. “No!” he said. “If Mom finds out, she might pull another disappearing act.”

“Dad, we’re in Antarctica. Where could she go?”

He gave me a look, like, Really?

“OK, OK, OK,” I said. “But tourists aren’t allowed off. How are we—”

“We’re going to steal a Zodiac,” he said. “We have exactly forty minutes.”

It was then that I realized he was holding our red parkas. He grabbed my hand and we twirled down one, two, three levels until we landed in the mudroom.

“How are you both doing tonight?” said a girl behind the counter. “Or is it morning already? It is!” She returned to her paperwork.

“We’re about to go back upstairs,” Dad said loudly.

I pushed him behind a bank of lockers. “Give me the jackets.” I stuffed them in an empty locker and led him to the crew section, where I had been with Nick. On the wall was a line of black parkas. “Put one of those on,” I whispered.

I strolled to the floating dock, where a Zodiac was tied up. The only crew member was a Filipino. His nametag said JACKO.

“I heard one of the sailors talking,” I said. “The ship is picking up satellite signals from Palmer Station, so they’re all on the bridge calling home for free.”

Jacko disappeared up into the ship, two steps at a time. I whispered to Dad, “Now!”

I zipped myself into a gigantic crew parka and rolled up the sleeves. We grabbed two life vests and clambered into a Zodiac. I unlooped the rope from its cleat, then pushed a button on the motor. The engine coughed to life. We broke from the Allegra and headed across the sparkling black water.

I looked back. A few passengers were still on deck taking pictures, but most had retired inside. The sudoku lady was now in the library. Iris and Vivian sat at our Risk game, looking out the window. Most of the cabin shades were lowered. As far as the ship was concerned, Dad and I were cozily on board.

“Get down,” Dad said. A Zodiac was now headed in our direction. “You’re way smaller than anyone who should be out here.” He stepped in front of the motor and grabbed hold of the wand. “Lower,” he said. “All the way.”

I lay belly-down on the plank bottom. “Take off your stupid glasses!” Dad was wearing his clear ones, and the taped-over lens was really noticeable.

“Shoot!” He fumbled to stuff his glasses into his pocket and zipped his jacket to above his nose.

“Who is it coming toward us?” I asked. “Can you tell?”

“Frog, Gilly, and Karen,” Dad said all lockjawed. “I’m going to gently sway this way. Nothing too extreme, just getting a little distance.” He waved at them.

I felt their Zodiac pass.

“OK, we’re good,” he said. “Now I’m looking for a place to dock…”

I peeked over the rubber edge. Palmer Station was all around us. “You just ram really fast up onto the rocks—” I said.

“No you don’t—”

“Yes you do,” I said, standing up. “Just full speed—”

Dad did, and I suddenly got pitched onto the inflated rubber edge. I grabbed onto the rope railing, and my body slammed against the outside. My feet and one knee got trapped between the hard rubber and the rocky shore. “Gaaah!” I screamed.

“Bee! Are you OK?”

I didn’t think I was, actually. “I’m fine.” I pulled free and stood up, wobbly. “Oh, no!” That other Zodiac had circled back around, and those onboard were waving their hands and shouting. At us. I ducked behind the boat.

“Go,” Dad said.

“Where?”

“Just find her,” he said. “I’ll hold them off. Our ship leaves at three a.m. That’s thirty minutes from now. Find someone. Ask for Mom. She’ll either be here or she won’t. If you want to return, you must radio our ship by two fifty. Got that? Two fifty.”

“What do you mean, if I want to return?”

“I don’t know what I mean,” said Dad.

I took a big gulp and stared up at the corrugated sprawl.

“Make sure you”—Dad reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a small black velvet bag with a gold silk rope—“give her this.”

Without saying good-bye, I limped up the road, most of its gravel eaten away by erosion. On my left and right were shipping containers, different shades of blue, with stenciled signs. REEFER, VOLATILE, FLAM LOCKER, CORR LOCKER, THE BAT CAVE. On wooden decks, tents were set up. They had real doors, and funny flags, like a pirate, or Bart Simpson. Even though the sun was in the sky, I was walking through the silence of night. As I continued, the buildings became denser and connected by a Habitrail of red bridges and bundled pipes. To my left was an aquarium with squid and starfish pressed up against the glass, and strange sea creatures like from the evening recap. There was a big aluminum drum, and next to it a sign with a martini glass which read ABSOLUTELY NO GLASS CONTAINERS NEAR THE HOT TUB.

I arrived at the steps leading to the main building. Halfway up, I dared to look back.

The other Zodiac had pulled next to Dad’s. One of the guides had climbed into it. There seemed to be some arguing going on. But Dad stayed positioned at the motor, which meant the guides had their backs to me. So far, I hadn’t been spotted.

I opened the door and found myself alone in a big toasty room with carpet tiles and a row of aluminum picnic tables. It smelled like an ice rink. One wall was devoted to shelves filled with DVDs. Toward the back was a counter and an open stainless-steel kitchen. On a dry-erase board were the words WELCOME HOME, NICK!

Laughter erupted from somewhere. I ran down the hall and started opening doors. One room was nothing but walkie-talkies plugged into charging stations. A huge sign read NO COFFEE MUGS ALLOWED EXCEPT FOR JOYCE’S. The next room was desks and computers and oxygen tanks. One was just weird scientific machines. Then there was a bathroom. I heard voices from around the corner. I ran toward them. Then I tripped.

On the floor was a spaghetti pot sitting atop a flattened-out trash bag. Inside the spaghetti pot was a T-shirt with something familiar on it… a rainbow handprint. I reached down and picked it out of the cold gray water. GALER STREET SCHOOL.

“Dad,” I cried. “Daddy!” I ran back down the hall to the wall of windows.

Both Zodiacs were zooming away from Palmer Station, toward our ship. Dad was in one of them.

Then, at my back, “You little rotter.”

It was Mom, standing there. She was wearing Carhartt pants and a fleece.

“Mom!” Tears sprang up in my eyes. I ran to her. She dropped to her knees, and I just hugged her so hard and buried my body in her. “I found you!”

She had to carry all my weight in her arms because I had just given up. I stared into her beautiful face, her blue eyes examining me like they always used to.

“What are you doing here?” she said. “How did you get here?” Her wrinkles radiated like sun rays from her smiling eyes. There was a big stripe of gray running down her part.

“Look at your hair,” I said.

“You almost killed me,” she said. “You know that.” Then, with tears and confusion, “Why didn’t you write?”

“I didn’t know where you were!” I said.

“My letter,” she said.

“Your letter?”

“I sent it weeks ago.”

“I never got your stupid letter,” I said. “Here. This is from Dad.” I handed her the velvet bag. She knew what it was, and pressed it to her cheek and closed her eyes.

“Open it!” I said.

She untied the cord and pulled out a locket. In it was the photograph of Saint Bernadette. It was the necklace Dad had given her after she won her architecture prize. It was the first time I’d ever seen it.

“What’s this?” She pulled out a card and held it away from her face. “I can’t read what it says.” I took it from her and read it aloud.

1. BEEBER BIFOCAL

2. TWENTY MILE HOUSE

3. BEE

4. YOUR ESCAPE

FOURTEEN MIRACLES TO GO.

“Elgie,” Mom said, and breathed out a sweet relaxed smile.

“I knew I’d find you,” I said, and hugged her my tightest. “Nobody believed me. But I knew.”

“My letter,” Mom said. “If you never got it—” She pulled my arms apart and looked into my face. “I don’t understand, Bee. If you never got my letter, how are you here?”

“I did it like you,” I said. “I slipped away.”