reflect the finished book.
Jenna Mason crosses the Washington Middle School parking lot with her head down. If she looked up, she’d notice the small group of moms huddled around Beth Hopkins’s sports activity vehicle. She might pick up snippets of their conversation or notice that they stop talking when she walks by. She would see them staring, and she wouldn’t miss Leigh Duffy whispering in Beth’s ear or Beth’s shock. She would realize that she isn’t as invisible as she believes. Not anymore. But Jenna is pressed for time. She needs to find her son Josh before the bell rings. He left his homework binder behind, again.
She knows she’s enabling him. A responsible parent would let her son suffer the consequences of not turning his homework in on time. Some tough love would teach him to pack his book bag before bed and have it ready by the door come morning. Another parent would drop the binder off at the front office, but that would bring attention to both her and Josh. Marks on his grades would earn her an email from the teacher, something else she’s determined to avoid. The less interaction with anyone through any means, the less people will remember them when they disappear.
Jenna has spent her entire adult life flying under the radar as much as humanly possible without fully disappearing off the face of the earth. An impossibility now that her twelve-year-old convinced her to stay put. Somewhat. He wants a normal life. He wants to surf and skateboard, hang out at the park or on the beach. He wants friends, real friends he doesn’t have to abandon and never see again because Jenna forces them to move frequently and without notice. How many times has she picked Josh up from school, their trunk stuffed with suitcases and cardboard boxes, and left town? Too many to count.
Jenna cuts through the schoolyard. Kids congregate in their cliques like dolphin pods. They fiddle with their phones, Snapping and TikTok’ing or whatever it is kids do with their devices. Josh has tried to explain, but since she won’t allow him a smartphone (too easy to track), she hasn’t gone out of her way to learn more about social media. Though Josh has given her an earful about how embarrassing it is to be seen with a flip phone. He prefers not to use it than get mocked for having one, which is why he didn’t answer when she called him about the binder a few minutes after he left the house to walk to school.
She beelines to the lunch tables under the green and gold canopy, the school’s colors, where she knows Josh sits with his friend Anson before class starts. Anson sees her before Josh. He waves.
“Hello, Ms. Mason.”
Josh swivels on the bench. “Mom!” His eyes bug then dart around to see who’s watching. He hunches, trying to look smaller, invisible like her, but for a different reason. She doesn’t want to make a lasting impression. Josh just embarrasses easily. She knows it’s his age, but she can’t help blaming herself. He’d be confident like his father was at twelve if he weren’t afraid that she’d yank him from the life they’ve created for themselves over the last eighteen months.
Jenna smiles. “Hi, Anson. Josh.” She stretches her son’s name, softening the reprimanding undercurrents in her tone with a look and sets the white binder covered in vibrant shades of permanent marker on the table. Josh is a doodler, though his artwork is more realistic than her quirky characters. She still can’t believe her YouTube cartoon went viral several years back. Some days she wishes it hadn’t. She can never go fully underground again. But it pays the bills and then some. She can finally buy Josh Vans at the Shoppes in Carlsbad rather than worn sneakers with stained soles at the Salvation Army. They can eat out at restaurants with linen napkins, like the ones her parents took her to when she was young, rather than the reheated meals from canned food at the shelters she once frequented. All in all, their lifestyle has improved the last year and a half, though it hasn’t assuaged the constant urge to look over her shoulder everywhere she goes.
Josh drags the binder toward him and stuffs it in his red backpack. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t answer my call.”
He grimaces. “My phone’s dead.”
She grips the edge of the table, channeling her anger into the metal instead of at her