Day 5 began with a headache.
I had slept in short pieces, waking whenever the refrigerator clicked or a car passed outside.
The person from the night before never returned.
That should have made me feel better.
Instead I kept wondering who he had been and why he knew my name.
I texted Mom at 7:14 a.m.
Someone came to the house last night and tried the door.
No response.
At 7:31:
He knew my name.
At 8:06:
Please call me.
At 9:22, the messages showed as read.
Mom still didn't call.
I ate bread without peanut butter because the jar was getting low.
I drank water.
Then I sat at the table with my notebook open.
I had begun drawing lines between days.
Day 1.
Day 2.
Day 3.
Day 4.
Day 5.
Twenty-five more.
The number made my chest hurt.
Around noon, Mom finally called.
"What happened last night?"
Her tone sounded irritated rather than alarmed.
"Somebody tried the door."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Did you look?"
"No."
"Then how do you know they were trying to get in?"
"The knob moved."
"Could have been somebody at the wrong house."
"He said my name."
That stopped her.
"Exactly what did he say?"
"'Maya, you home?'"
Mom looked away.
"Maybe it was someone Derek knows."
"Why would someone Derek knows come here?"
"I don't know."
"Can you ask him?"
"No."
The answer came instantly.
"Why not?"
"Because then I'd have to explain everything."
I gripped the phone.
"So you won't ask who came to our house because Derek might find out you left me here?"
"Don't twist my words."
"That's what you said."
"I said I will handle it."
"You keep saying that."
"Maya, enough."
"No."
The word escaped before I could stop it.
Mom blinked.
I had almost never told her no.
"I'm hungry," I said.
"There is food."
"Not much."
"I gave you money."
"I used almost all of it."
"Then make it last."
"For twenty-five more days?"
She closed her eyes.
"I cannot deal with this right now."
I stared at her.
There were palm trees behind her.
Real palm trees, moving in warm wind.
"Come home."
"We are not canceling the trip."
"What if he comes back?"
"Call the police if there is an actual emergency."
"How do I know what's actual?"
She made an impatient sound.
"Use common sense."
Then Derek called something from outside the frame.
Mom glanced toward him.
"I have to go."
"Does Derek know I'm alone yet?"
She looked directly at me.
"No."
"Are you going to tell him?"
"I'll tell him when I decide how."
"Today?"
"Maya."
"Today?"
The call ended.
I wrote the conversation down.
My handwriting pressed so hard into the page that the letters left dents on the sheet underneath.
That afternoon I checked Mom's social media.
She and Derek were on a boat.
The sky behind them was impossibly blue.
I looked at the photograph for a long time, trying to understand how two places could exist at once.
In one, my mother was smiling in sunlight.
In the other, I was counting crackers.
Around five, someone knocked.
I grabbed the knife before looking through the curtain.
It was Sarah Coleman from next door.
Sarah was in her thirties and had a little boy who liked drawing dinosaurs on the sidewalk with chalk. She sometimes brought our trash cans up when Mom forgot.
I didn't open the door.
"Maya?"
I stayed quiet.
She knocked again.
"I saw you through the window."
My heart beat faster.
"It's Sarah. Are you okay?"
I stepped closer but kept the door locked.
"Yeah."
"Is your mom home?"
There it was.
The question I had spent five days avoiding.
"She's busy."
"Can I talk to her?"
"She's not here."
A pause.
"When will she be back?"
I thought of Mom's instructions.
Private business.
Don't involve anyone.
Don't ruin the trip.
"I don't know."
Sarah's voice changed.
Not louder.
More careful.
"Maya, open the curtain so I can see you."
I moved it an inch.
Her face was close to the glass.
She looked at me, then at the chair wedged beneath the doorknob.
Her eyes dropped toward the knife in my hand.
"Maya."
"I'm okay."
"Put the knife down."
I did.
"Where is your mother?"
I could still have lied.
I could have said grocery store.
Work.
Dinner.
Anywhere close enough to make everything ordinary.
Instead I whispered, "Hawaii."
Sarah didn't speak.
"With Derek," I added.
"How long has she been gone?"
"Five days."
Her face went pale.
"Who's staying with you?"
I looked at the floor.
"Maya."
"Nobody."
She took one slow breath.
"Unlock the door."
"Mom said not to let people in."
"I'm not asking you to let me in. I'm asking you to come outside where I can see that you're all right."
I hesitated.
"Please."
Something in her voice made me move the chair.
I unlocked the deadbolt but left the chain fastened.
Sarah crouched outside.
"When did you last eat?"
"This afternoon."
"What?"
"Bread."
"Anything with it?"
I shook my head.
"When did you last have a proper meal?"
"I had soup yesterday."
Her expression tightened.
"Does your mother know you're alone?"
"Yes."
"Does Derek?"
I shook my head again.
"Does any adult know?"
"No."
Sarah closed her eyes for one second.
Then she stood and took out her phone.
Panic rushed through me.
"Don't call her."
"I'm not calling your mother."
"Don't call Derek."
"I'm not calling Derek either."
"Then who?"
She looked at me through the narrow opening.
"Someone who can help you."
My hands started shaking.
"No. Mom said—"
"I know what your mom said."
"You don't."
"Then tell me."
I swallowed.
"She said not to ruin the trip."
Sarah's expression changed.
I would remember that look for years.
It wasn't anger exactly.
It was the moment an adult understood something was worse than she'd thought.
She asked me to stay inside while she made a call from her porch.
I watched through the curtain.
She spoke quietly, occasionally looking toward our house.
Afterward she came back carrying a grocery bag.
"I can't come inside unless you want me to," she said. "But I'm leaving this here."
Inside were crackers, fruit, granola bars, bottled water, cheese, and two sandwiches.
My stomach cramped just looking at them.
"Am I in trouble?"
"No."
"Is Mom?"
Sarah didn't answer immediately.
"I don't know what's going to happen," she said. "But none of this should have been your job."
I almost cried then.
Not because she sounded kind.
Because she was the first adult in five days who seemed to understand there was a job being done at all.
That night I ate half a sandwich and saved the other half.
I wrote Sarah's name in the notebook.
I wrote what she had brought.
I wrote that she had made a phone call.
I didn't know who she had contacted.
At 8:47 the next morning—Day 6—I saw Sarah standing at the edge of her driveway.
She wasn't alone.
A patrol car turned onto our street.
Behind it came a gray sedan.
Both vehicles slowed in front of our house.
My heart began hammering.
The patrol car stopped in the driveway.
A uniformed deputy stepped out.
A woman emerged from the gray sedan holding a folder and an identification badge.
Sarah stayed several steps behind them.
I backed away from the window.
The chair was still beneath the doorknob.
The knife was still beside the couch.
My notebook lay open on the kitchen table.
The deputy approached the porch but did not knock immediately.
Instead he positioned himself where I could see him through the front window.
Then he raised his badge to the glass.
"Maya," he called, calm and clear. "My name is Deputy Evans. We're here because someone asked us to make sure you're safe."
The woman beside him raised her identification too.
"I'm Linda Vance," she said. "I work with Child Protective Services."
I stood frozen in the hallway.
"You are not in trouble," she added.
That was the sentence that made my knees weak.
Not in trouble.
I looked at the chair.
For five days, I had believed surviving meant obeying Mom.
Keeping quiet.
Making the money last.
Not frightening Derek.
Not embarrassing her.
Not needing too much.
Not calling anyone unless I could prove the emergency was big enough.
Now two strangers were standing outside telling me something entirely different.
I removed the chair.
My fingers slipped on the deadbolt.
When the door opened, Ms. Vance did not step inside.
She crouched on the porch so her face was level with mine.
"Are you here alone?"
I nodded.
"How long?"
My throat felt dry.
"Six days."
Her expression barely changed, but Deputy Evans turned his head toward Sarah.
"Does an adult stay here at night?" Ms. Vance asked.
"No."
"Is somebody checking on you?"
"No."
"Where is your mother?"
"Hawaii."
"How long until she comes back?"
I had done the arithmetic so many times that I didn't need to think.
"Twenty-four days."
Deputy Evans walked several steps away and reached for his radio.
Sarah covered her mouth.
Ms. Vance remained in front of me.
"May we come inside?"
I looked past her at the patrol car.
Then at Sarah.
Then back at the house where I had spent six days trying to make myself small enough not to become anyone's problem.
I opened the door.
Ms. Vance entered first.
She saw the almost empty refrigerator.
The pantry.
The chair.
The knife.
The gas-station receipt I had saved.
Then she noticed the notebook.
"May I read this?"
I nodded.
She turned the pages slowly.
The grocery calculations.
The meals.
Mom's unanswered calls.
The deleted comment.
The stranger at the door.
When she reached what I had written about Day 4, she stopped.
Her finger rested beside the sentence about the emergency number.
"Why didn't you call 911?"
I looked at Deputy Evans.
Then at her.
"I didn't know if being scared counted."
For the first time, Ms. Vance's professional expression slipped.
She closed the notebook carefully.
"When you're eleven years old and you're alone in a house at night," she said, "being scared is enough to ask for help."
I looked down at my bare feet.
Outside, Deputy Evans was speaking into his radio.
Inside, Ms. Vance asked for my mother's phone number.
I gave it to her.
Then she asked for Derek's.
That was when I understood the secret was over.
Mom's trip had not ended.
But the version of the story she had told Derek was about to.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The First Person Mom Called From Hawaii Was Not Me, and Derek Finally Learned Where I Had Been
The Suitcases Were Already by the Door When Mom Told Me the Lake Trip Had Been Canceled
Part 4 of 35
