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people like us. Did he think that evil only comes after the bad? That darkness only seeps into a corner?
    Hayden looks up at me from the paper. He reads at a third-grade level, something that Mom said could only occur because of homeschooling. It was the only thing—besides the always-available refrigerator—that was good about homeschooling. His eyes are pooling with tears.
    “Are we going to find Mom today?” he asks.
    I put my arm around him. I cannot answer that question and if I did and I told the truth, he would shatter right there in that Formica booth. I can’t have that.
    “Look, don’t cry. Don’t make a move. I’m getting you a hot chocolate.”
    “I don’t want any.”
    “I don’t care,” I say as I start to get up.
    “Is everything all right?” A woman in a maroon sweater and expensive jeans says to me.
    I look at her. “He’s fine. He wants a hot chocolate and I don’t think it’s a good idea. Sugar, makes him hyper.”
    Her face is kind and she nods. “My boys lived on sugar and they turned out all right. One’s a doctor.”
    I smile politely and shrug my shoulders. I don’t know why she had to add that her son’s a doctor. I imagine she probably worms that detail into any conversation she’s in. I get that she’s proud of her son, but honestly, why bring that up?
    I turn to Hayden. “Stay right here. I’ll get you that hot chocolate.” I look over at the woman. “And a donut too.”
    As I loop around the ferry with the speed of an Olympian, I notice a man looking at the Times front page. Me and that bad school photograph again. I drop three quarters in the vending box on the opposite side of the ferry and take out the rest of the papers. I dump them in another recycle box. Even though my hair is way shorter and blond now, I’m not taking any chances.
    A few minutes later I return with the hot chocolate, a coffee and two maple bars. I don’t need the energy, but I do need something in my stomach.
    “When the boat docks we’re going to the bank,” I tell Hayden. “After that, we’re going to find a place to stay.”
    “What about Mom?”
    My reassuring smile fades. “We need to establish a home base first. He won’t kill her. You know that.”
    Hayden doesn’t really know it, not in the way that I do. But he nods anyway. I know that the man who has our mother wants to possess her. He won’t kill her. Killing her would take away all that motivates him. Keeping my mother, owning her, was what kept him breathing and hunting. It also kept us running. No one could help us.
    IT HAD ALL STARTED SO innocently. I remember my mother telling me about it. It was before Hayden was born. I was about his age when I first started to understand that we were a little different from other families. It might have been earlier, but when you’re not of school age, you don’t mark time the same way. Seasons blend together and time seems to go on forever. No rituals divide the months. No back-to-school shopping. No carnivals. No winter breaks. I’m not even sure where we were living then, except I remember the smells of the country. Cow smells. A dairy farm was nearby. The land was flat, long, and green all the way to the edge of the horizon. Later, I learned we had been living in eastern Nebraska, not far from the Iowa border.
    Mom was on the sofa talking to somebody on the phone. It wasn’t a cell phone, but a landline that ran from the wall in the kitchen all the way to the living room. Her voice carried a sharp edge that brought me from my bedroom upstairs. She was crying. Seeing Mom cry made me cry too. I watched from the hallway. Something told me to stay put. Just listen.
    “  …  what am I supposed to do now?” she was asking.
    I moved a little closer, but still out of view. It was nighttime and I was wearing a pale yellow flannel nightgown. On my feet were slippers made to look like pink bunny rabbits. I loved those slippers more than anything. I never saw them again after that