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look like?" Mom asked. "I haven't seen him in ten years."
    "He looks like me," I said.
    "That's not what I mean," Mom said. "Is he clean-shaven? Does he have a beard, a mustache? The last time I saw him, he had a mustache."
    "Clean-shaven," I said. "Didn't Faye keep you up to date on that stuff ?"
    But before Mom had a chance to tell me what she and Faye talked about when they talked about Budge, the telephone rang. We both jumped at the sound.
    "That's probably Jack," Mom said, but I could tell from her end of the conversation that it wasn't. She said "Yes" a few times, and "I see" and "I understand," but not much else.
    "That was the police," she told me as she hung up. "They're sending a detective over later to interview me."
    "Why?" I asked. "You haven't seen him in ten years."
    "They're taking that Ohio report pretty seriously," Mom replied. "The town where they saw him was on Route Seventy."
    "They really think he's coming here?" I asked. "To see me?"
    "It wouldn't be a social call," Mom said. "Get dressed, Willa. I'm going to call Jack, and then I'll take a shower. The detective won't be coming for an hour. We'll order room service. I don't know about you, but I'm hungry."
    I hadn't eaten anything since I'd thrown up, and I still felt more queasy than hungry. But there was no point starving to death before I got to meet my father, who apparently was on his way over to kill me.
    I went to the bathroom and took a quick shower. I looked around the bathroom to see if the motel provided razorblades. There weren't any, although there was a little card that said if I needed any, or a comb, or a toothbrush, I should just call room service. It was nice to have that as an option, although I couldn't see doing it with Mom five feet away.
    Instead, I carefully peeled the bandage off my palm and rammed my fingernails into the cut. The pain was sharp enough to race through my whole body. I gasped, but Mom didn't hear. I put the bandage back on and finished getting dressed.
    "Jack spent the night at Val's," Mom said. "Not much of a night. Their flight was delayed, and they didn't get to Orlando until after midnight. Then their cabdriver got lost, so they didn't get to her place until nearly two. Val wants Jack to be there when the girls wake up."
    "But he's coming back," I said.
    "Of course he is," Mom said. "He'll be here before supper. With any luck, we'll be home by then."
    "Mom?" I said.
    "What?"
    "Did you ever love Budge?" I asked.
Would I have loved him?
I couldn't ask.
    "I told myself I did," Mom said. "But I had no idea what love was until I met Jack. I'm taking my shower. Don't answer the phone or open the door. I'll call room service after I get dressed. That should time out pretty well."
    She gathered her clothes and walked into the bathroom. I turned the TV on and watched pictures of my father and my sisters and a gas station in Ohio scroll over and over again.

Seven
    M OM, CURT, AND PAULINE were playing canasta. Mom didn't know how, so they taught her. They offered to teach me too, but I wasn't interested. I'm not sure Mom was either, but we appreciated that Curt and Pauline had given up whatever their plans for the day were to keep us entertained. They brought a pile of magazines, and I was leafing through them, keeping half an eye on the cable news station. They didn't have any new information about Budge or Krissi, but that didn't stop them from obsessing over the story. They showed an interview with Crystal's father, threatening to kill the murderer of his daughter and granddaughters with his bare hands. They showed another interview, this one with Crystal's sister begging Dwayne to return with little Krissi. Then they interviewed a former FBI profiler about what sort of man kills his wife and children, and why he might select one daughter to live. He was followed by a criminal pathologist, who explained what kind of damage multiple knife wounds could cause.
    They showed Kelli Marie's kindergarten teacher and Pastor