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my mom, and for a second it felt like my parents were home again, walking through the old screen door of Wate's Landing.
    “I have to get home.” Lena was clutching her notebook against her chest like a shield.
    “You don't have to go. Come in.”
    Please.
    I wasn't offering to be polite. I didn't want to go in there alone. A few months ago, Lena would have known that. But I guess today her mind was somewhere else, because she didn't.
    “You should spend some time with your family.” She stood up on her toes and kissed me, her lips barely touching my cheek. She was halfway to the car before I could argue.
    I watched Larkin's Fastback disappear down my street. Lena didn't drive the hearse anymore. As far as I knew, she hadn't even looked at it since Macon died. Uncle Barclay had parked it behind the old barn and thrown a tarp over it. Instead, she was driving Larkin's car, all black and chrome. Link had foamed at the mouth the first time he saw it. “Do you know how many chicks I could pull with that ride?”
    After her cousin had betrayed her whole family, I didn't understand why Lena would want to drive his car. When I hadasked her, she'd shrugged and said, “He won't be needing it anymore.” Maybe Lena thought she was punishing Larkin by driving it. He had contributed to Macon's death, something she would never forgive. I watched the car turn the corner, wishing I could disappear along with it.
    By the time I made it to the kitchen, there was already chicory coffee brewing — and trouble. Amma was on the phone, pacing in front of the sink, and every minute or two she would cover the receiver with her hand and report the conversation on the other end to Aunt Caroline.
    “They haven't seen her since yesterday.” Amma put the phone back to her ear. “You should make Aunt Mercy a toddy and put her to bed until we find her.”
    “Find who?” I looked at my dad, and he shrugged.
    Aunt Caroline pulled me over to the sink and whispered the way Southern ladies do when something is too awful to say out loud. “Lucille Ball. She's missin’.” Lucille Ball was Aunt Mercy's Siamese cat, who spent most of her time running around my great-aunts’ front yard on a leash attached to a clothesline, an activity the Sisters referred to as exercising.
    “What do you mean?”
    Amma covered the receiver with her hand again, narrowing her eyes and setting her jaw. The Look. “Seems
somebody
put the idea in your aunt's head that cats don't need to be tied up, because they always come back home. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?” It wasn't a question. We both knew I was the one who had been saying it for years.
    “But cats aren't supposed to be on leashes.” I tried to defend myself, but it was too late.
    Amma glared at me and turned to Aunt Caroline. “Seems Aunt Mercy's been waitin’, sittin’ on the porch, starin’ at an empty leash hangin’ on the clothesline.” She took her hand off the receiver. “You need to get her in the house and put her feet up. If she gets lightheaded, boil some dandelion.”
    I slunk out of the kitchen before Amma's eyes got any narrower. Great. My hundred-year-old aunt's cat was gone, and it was my fault. I'd have to call Link and see if he'd drive around town with me and look for Lucille. Maybe Link's demo tapes would scare her out of hiding.
    “Ethan?” My dad was standing in the hall, right outside of the kitchen door. “Can I talk to you for a second?” I had been dreading this, the part where he apologized for everything and tried to explain why he had ignored me for almost a year.
    “Yeah, sure.” But I didn't know if I wanted to hear it. I wasn't really angry anymore. When I almost lost Lena, there was a part of me that understood why my dad had come completely unhinged. I couldn't imagine my life without Lena, and my dad had loved my mom for more than eighteen years.
    I felt sorry for him now, but it still hurt.
    My dad ran his hand through his hair and edged