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the tv is blaring and the bathroom light is on.
    I avoid looking toward the office as I head out again.
    If there’s one thing Mom likes better than a playground, it’s a playground at night.
I make the rounds, but the place is empty. Everything is in shadow. A swing creaks
in a breeze. A piece of paper rattles across the ground. I sit down on the bench,
pull my zipper up to my chin and shove my hands into my pockets. “Where are you,
you silly cow?”
    I’m talking to myself again. I clamp my mouth shut. But everyone does it, don’t they?
    When I scuff my feet on the ground, I discover a hole in my runners. I check under
the bench to make sure Bandit’s not on the loose. “What am I doing?” My laugh sounds
crazy in the dark.
    I bite the inside of my cheek until it hurts so much that tears fill my eyes. I try
to swallow the feeling that I’m losing it. Any day it will be me yelling at servers
at the coffee shop. Making rude remarks about people to their faces.
    It’s no wonder Grand always keeps us at arm’s length.
    On the street, a cop car slows down. I hold still until it moves off, its light smearing
the dark.
    I do another slow circuit of the playground, and then the community center. When
I poke my head into the arena, all I see is a dad standing over his kid, yelling.
I hear echoing voices, skates banging against boards, the hiss of skates on ice.
    At Tim Hortons, the customers are all lit up in the windows. Even though I don’t
see Mom, I go in and ask for the washroom key. When the server in a dorky hairnet
gives it to me right away, I tell him, “I changed my mind.”
    If the key’s still here, my mother’s not inside.
    I feel him watching me as I leave. “Where can she be?” I ask myself.
    A man stands aside to let me pass. “I’m sorry?” he says.
    I don’t answer.
    She’s done this before, taking off with no notice. Dozens of times. Sometimes for
an hour. Sometimes for a whole day—or three. And when she gets back, she is mad,
as if I am making a fuss over nothing.
    When I run out of places to look for her, I head back to the room.
    I plan to call Grand. I should call Grand. I had it all figured out, what I was going
to say. Someone has to be the grownup. And it can’t be me .
    I think of how Jake moved between his furry and feathered creatures. Petting, stroking,
murmuring. And how hard it is for me to touch my own bitter-smelling mother, to pick
up after her, to hear her nighttime mumblings, her daytime rants.
    Where is she?
    I slump onto the bed and pull the covers over my head. The tv drones in the background.
I wish I had something warm and soft to hang on to.
    I don’t know how much later I am startled awake by Mom looming over me. “Where is
it? What did you do with it?”
    “With what?” I squint up at her.
    She whacks me with her shoe. “The ticket.” She pulls off her other shoe. She bangs
them together. “I was keeping it safe. You were the last person wearing my shoes—you
know what I mean.”
    “Calm down.”
    “Where is my ticket?” Her cheeks are flushed.
    “It’s somewhere safe.”
    She yanks the bedspread so hard I hear it rip. “I went to claim the winnings. You
made me look like a real jerk. I emptied my whole purse. Then I remembered it wasn’t
there. You should have heard the guy. Just because I took off my shoe—”
    “Please don’t tell me you hit him.”
    “Why would I hit anyone?”
    “You just hit me.”
    “You deserved it. I checked both shoes. No ticket. Where is it?”
    I can imagine the scene. Mom dumping the contents of her purse on the counter. Adding
her shoes to the pile. Ranting and raving while the poor store clerk edges away,
reaching for the phone, a panic button.
    I guess it wasn’t that store where the lady was so nice to me. The way she managed
those two kids, she could have handled my mother. I pull myself up against the headboard.
“So what happened?”
    “When?”
    “After you took off your shoes?”
    “I put them right