Page 38 of ClickBack

I put the car in park and find the messages I missed. There are several from her, arranged in increasing levels of concern. I also owe Jarrett one. Before I open the door, I send it.

Me: Home. My daughter appears to have established a command post.

Then I get out with his cap on my head and his shorts below my knees, carrying the clothes in which my daughter last saw me. There are easier ways to start an interrogation.

“Good morning, honey.”

“It’s almost noon.”

“Good afternoon, then.”

She closes the notebook. “You didn’t answer.”

“I was asleep.”

“I checked your location.”

“And here I am.”

She looks at the cap, then at the shorts. “Yes. Here you are.”

I go past her to unlock the door. She follows me inside without waiting to be invited, which is fair. I have been doing the same thing at her house for years.

In the kitchen, I set my bag on a chair and reach for the coffee pot. The timer did its job without me. There is something almost touching about that, yesterday’s version of me taking care of a morning she had no idea she would be missing.

“You aren’t going to say anything?” Rae asks.

“Would you like coffee?”

“Ma.”

I turn around. “I’m forty-four years old.”

“I wasn’t checking your age. I was checking whether you were alive.”

The answer is sharp enough that I look at her properly. Beneath the scarf and the irritation, she is tired. She has been sitting on my porch with a notebook because she has an exam to prepare for and a mother who left her to invent explanations for an unfamiliar address downtown.

I set the mug down.

“I should have answered.”

“One message would have worked.”

“You’re right.”

She has prepared for a longer fight. I can see her putting parts of it away.

“Were you with him?”

“If I say yes, are you going to check his location, too?”

“Jarrett Simmons, Ma.”

“I heard you.”

“I didn’t say his name before.”

I pour my coffee. She watches me add creamer, then pulls out a chair.