Middletown by Sarah Moon

Author:Sarah Moon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Levine Querido

* * *

Eli and Anna took turns in the Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom. Eli brushed her teeth, splashed water on her face and under her arms and went to wait for Anna who took forever. When she reappeared, Eli noticed what the extra minutes had gone to.

“Really, Anna? A cat eye when you’re on the run?”

“Really. Now, show me what my sneak of a sister has in store for me.”

“Well, as far as I can tell, we have three options. There’s actual Aunt Lisa,” Eli said, pointing to a stack of letters. “She’s been writing to Mom once every few months since they stopped talking.”

“What do the letters say?”

“What do you take me for, a monster? I needed her address, not her innermost thoughts.”

“What do they say?”

“Mostly that she misses Mom, misses us, and doesn’t understand why Mom won’t talk to her. Turns out she does live in Oxbridge, Vermont, Mom didn’t make it up.”

“Vermont is seven hours from here.”

“It’s six hours and forty-six minutes according to Google.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of gas.”

“My thoughts exactly. But you might not like my next thought.”

“What?” Anna’s voice croaked with dread.

“I understand you might not want to do this, so I want to tell you right now, I will knock over this Dunkin’ Donuts for gas money if I need to, you don’t have to say—”

“Get to the point.”

“This is a picture of your dad. His name is John.” Holding her breath, Eli passed the picture across the table. Anna closed her eyes. She took a deep breath of her own, lowering her head without opening her eyes. When she finally opened them, she stared at the picture for a long, long time.

“Black hair,” she said quietly, what seemed like hours later.

“Just like you said.”

Anna looked at Eli quickly, the hint of a tear in her right eye; she smiled slightly and nodded. “I can’t believe you remember that. Where is he?”

“He’s in her address book, and who in the hell uses an address book, and when was the last time she was together enough to use one so who knows, but I think he lives in Fairview.”

“We’re in Fairview.”

“Yeah.”

“How far is he from this Dunkin’ Donuts?”

“Eleven minutes.”

“So you’re telling me that our options are to drive for a million hours with gas we don’t have or to drive five miles and meet my long-lost, deadbeat dad, who obviously has no interest in me since he’s been maybe two hours away from us my entire life?”

“Like I said, I don’t mind committing some larceny.”

“What’s the third option?”

“Well, that’s less of an option.”

“What is it?”

“These are postcards from Sam. They’re from all over the country. The last one is from Wisconsin, but he sent it three years ago.”

“Jesus, Eli, let’s review the definition of the word option because you’re using it wrong. Okay. Let’s go find dear old Dad. This should be a helluva good time.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.