disappear together. Like old times.

Or maybe not. In the end, my second-grade OCD couldn’t save us.

Obviously there was a lot of packing and preparation in the months leading up to our escape, but me being six and totally self-absorbed, I remember none of this. Alls I know is that one day we were in the desert, and the next, we were on the 405 Freeway trying to get to LAX with my grandmother in the driver’s seat. It was just the three of us, waiting with the rest of the cars to get to our respective point B’s. Sitting in traffic, I watched an accident on the shoulder through a frame made with my thumbs and pointer fingers. There was an ambulance, a mangled car, and a stretcher covered with a white sheet. No bueno. Convinced that whatever was underneath was dead, I held my breath because breathing suddenly felt like bragging. I squatted up to the window and watched from the backseat of my grandmother’s Nissan, trying not to choke on her cigarette smoke.

“Lena, sit back.” She was a barker. Effie, my mother’s mother, is the type of grandmother who’d rather give an order than a cookie. I loved her because I knew she could break me if she really wanted to. And most times I imagined she did want to. I admired her restraint.

Without protest, I sat back down on my butt and shoved myself as far back into the upholstery as possible, craning my neck to see the coffin on wheels being rolled into the ambulance. Nobody seemed to care. I closed my eyes and smoked a secondhand Virginia Slim.

At the airport, I waited in the car while Frances got out to handle the whole checking-in-to-move-your-only-child-halfway-around-the-world-for-God-knows-what process, which surprisingly didn’t take long at all. Commanded to be still, I followed her with my eyes like a haunted-house portrait. See Frances waiting in line. See Frances at the ticket counter. See Frances handing someone some papers. See Frances smiling. See Frances waving.

She motioned to me from inside, giving me the international hand sign for “Get out of the car and come start the rest of your life!” I could have sworn I saw her mouth those words, so I jumped to put my fingers on the handle.

“No, Lena, stay,” rasped Effie from the driver’s seat, not even bothering to turn around or even eye me from the car mirror. She hadn’t said much more than “Umm-hmm” since the accident. The sudden presence of her voice made the car almost claustrophobic. Only she could make “stay” sound like a complete sentence. There was no question of obedience. This was the woman whose number my mother made me repeat like a prayer of protection whenever I went somewhere alone—Girl Scout camp, sleepovers, down the street. You okay, little brown-eyed girl? Yes. What’s Grandmommy’s number? 779–7520! Good girl. So with one syllable I sat back in my seat and looked straight ahead, ignoring my mother, who was standing alone waiting for me.

Then we drove off.

After however long it takes to get away with stealing someone, my grandmother dropped me off at the house of an unfamiliar and hugely fat old woman I’d never seen before, except for maybe in my nightmares. Truthfully, she was perfectly nice, but still—hello, I had been kidnapped!

Grandmommy said I’d be staying with Mrs. Humongobutt (as my memory calls her now) for some adult-sanctioned and therefore indeterminate amount of time. She also said that my mother was going on ahead to Spain without me. That’s when I knew this was all bullshit. That nothing was going as planned. Because I knew us. Me and Frances, we were forever. That’s when I decided not to run. She’d be coming for me. I don’t even remember shedding more than two or three tears, and those were just for show. Didn’t want them to suspect anything. She was going to come for me—eventually, maybe.

Swaddled in a muumuu on most days, Mrs. H made me feel more houseguest than hostage. I remember her gray hair, parted in four parts and then braided into thick ropes the length of ChapStick. Her granddaughter lived there too (or maybe she was brought in to keep me company), and the two of us played while she was cooking, which was always. Her granddaughter was no new Jocelyn, but prisoners can’t be picky. Her name was something like LaNiece or Michelle. Whatever, she’s barely important—actually, that’s not right. Without her constant distractions—it was at Humongobutt’s that