The Chance You Won't Return by Annie Cardi Read Free Book Online

studied her face closely, as though her cheekbones and eyelids were hiding something.
    But nothing seemed different. And I didn’t know what else to do except steal her maps. “All right,” I said. “Show us tomorrow.”
    “You girls sleep well.” She turned back to her work, sighing thoughtfully to herself as she made another note above Scotland.
    Jackson still tight in her arms, Katy elbowed me out of the kitchen and upstairs. But when we passed the door to our parents’ room, I stopped. “I’m going to tell Dad,” I said.
    “He’s asleep,” Katy said. “He has to get up in a couple hours. He’ll be mad.”
    “No, he won’t. He’ll want to know Mom’s planning an around-the-world tour at two in the morning. That’s not super normal.”
    “She always wakes up and does stuff like that. It’s just, I don’t know, a fun idea or something. Come on, please, just tell Dad tomorrow.”
    I glanced at my parents’ door, imagining Dad snoring lightly, one foot peeking out from under the covers. I wanted to go in and tell him that Mom was planning to run away, fix the car engine, or steal a hot-air balloon, but all of that sounded ridiculous. She wasn’t slurring her words or talking about conspiracy theories or having seizures. She wasn’t stuck in bed. When I tried to put my anxieties into words, I couldn’t. And if I couldn’t even talk about how Mom’s expressions and gestures were suddenly different and why that seemed so wrong, what would I tell my father when I woke him a few hours before his route started?
    But I knew he’d was concerned, too. After he’d picked up Mom’s car from the dentist’s office, where she’d left it that afternoon, he was quieter, and he didn’t joke around during dinner or anything, even though he’d said he’d take care of everything. And he would. I didn’t need to wake him up right now for that to happen.
    “All right,” I grumbled, letting myself be led down the hall.
    “He’ll probably say it’s nothing. Stress or something,” Katy said. Jackson curled up on the floor between us.
    I couldn’t see her face in the dark. She wanted so badly for there to be nothing wrong. I wondered if she was thinking about Florida, of when our family had gone there for April vacation when Teddy was still a baby. Katy was probably hoping Mom’s imaginary trip would be something like that. Mom made sand castles with Teddy while Dad taught Katy and me how to bodysurf. We threw ourselves into waves, riding them until we scraped ourselves on the shore. At night I would lie in bed and still feel the rocking sensation of the ocean. That was before Mom lost the baby.
    But I didn’t want to remember that part. I feel asleep, making myself think about wave after wave after wave.
    I slept through my alarm the next morning, so by the time I got up, Dad had already left for work. I wouldn’t be able to talk to him until after school, and the meeting with Mr. Kane. That would be fine; Dad would talk to Mr. Kane and then he’d figure out what was wrong with Mom.
    For breakfast, Mom made a pile of toast slathered with butter and jam, not asking if that was what we wanted. Usually we made our own breakfasts. At least the maps were gone. For a moment, I hoped the previous twenty-four hours had been a fluke, just an off day for my mom. But when I reminded her about the meeting with Mr. Kane, she tilted her head at me. “Today?”
    “Yes.” Geez, how could she have forgotten? “You know, you don’t have to —”
    “No, no.” She seemed out of breath as she grabbed a notepad and pen. “These things are important. Here, I’ll write it down. What did you say? Kane?”
    I repeated the information to her twice to make sure she’d gotten it down. As much as I wished this meeting didn’t exist, it would be worse if Mom didn’t show up at all and had to reschedule. She promised she wouldn’t forget. “I’ve done so many of these things I can practically sleep through