Lydia opened her mouth, then closed it.

"Anyway." Penelope blasted another smile as she stood up. "Just run the recipes by me first, okay? I know you like Dee to take on special skills projects. You're so lucky. Mom and daughter cooking together in the kitchen. Fun-fun!"

Lydia held her tongue. The only thing she and Dee did together in the kitchen was argue about when a mayonnaise jar was empty enough to be thrown away.

"Thanks for volunteering!" Penelope jogged up the bleachers, pumping her arms with Olympic vigor.

Lydia wondered how long it would take for Penelope to tell the other Mothers about the tragic death of Lloyd Delgado. Her father always said that the price for hearing gossip was having someone else gossip about you. She wished that he were still alive so she could tell him about the Mothers. He would've wet himself with laughter.

Coach Henley blew his whistle, indicating the girls should wind down their warm-up drills. The words "special skills projects" kept rolling around in Lydia's head. So, here was confirmation that the Mothers had noticed.

Lydia would not feel bad for making her daughter take a basic car maintenance class so that she would know how to change a flat tire. Nor did she regret making Dee enroll in a self-defense course over the summer, even if it meant that she missed basketball camp. Or insisting that Dee practice how to scream when she was scared, because Dee had a habit of freezing up when she was frightened and being silent was the worst thing you could possibly do if there was a man in front of you who meant to do you harm.

Lydia bet that right now, Anna Kilpatrick's mother was wishing she'd taught her daughter how to change a flat tire. The girl's car was found in the mall parking lot with a nail in the front tire. It wasn't a big leap to think that the person who'd driven in the nail was the same person who had abducted her.

Coach Henley gave his whistle two short blasts to get the team moving. The Westerly Women ambled over and formed a half-circle. The Mothers stamped their feet on the bleachers, trying to build excitement for a game that would unfold with the same drama as a mime's funeral. The opposing team hadn't even bothered to warm up. Their shortest player was six feet tall and had hands the size of dinner plates.

The gym doors opened. Lydia saw Rick scan the crowd. And then he saw her. And then he looked at the opposing side's empty bleachers. She held her breath as he considered. Then she let it out as he made his way toward her. He slowly climbed the bleachers. People who worked for a living didn't tend to sprint up bleachers.

He sat down beside Lydia with a groan.

She said, "Hey."

Rick picked up the empty bag of chips, leaned back his head, and let the crumbs fall into his mouth. Most of them went down his shirt into his collar.

Lydia laughed because it was hard to hate someone who was laughing.

He gave her a wary look. He knew her tactics.

Rick Butler was nothing like the fathers at Westerly. For one, he worked with his hands. He was a mechanic at a gas station that still pumped gas for some of their elderly customers. The muscles in his arms and chest came from lifting tires onto rims. The ponytail down his back came from not listening to the two women in his life who desperately wanted it gone. He was either a redneck or a hippie, depending on what kind of mood he was in. That she loved him in both incarnations had been the surprise of Lydia Delgado's life.

He handed back the empty bag. There were specks of potato chips in his beard. "Nice 'stache."

She touched her fingers to her raw upper lip. "Are we still fighting?"

"Are you still being grumpy?"

"My instinct tells me yes," she admitted. "But I hate when we're mad at each other. I feel like my whole world is upside down."

The buzzer sounded. They both winced as the game started, praying the humiliation would be brief. Miraculously, the Westerly Women managed to get the tip off. Even more miraculously, Dee was dribbling the ball down the court.

Rick yelled, "Go, Delgado!"

Dee obviously saw the looming shadows of three giant girls behind her. There was no one to pass to. She blindly heaved the ball toward the basket, only to watch it bounce off the backboard and drop into the empty bleachers on the other side of the gym.

Lydia felt Rick's pinky finger stroke her pinky finger.

He asked, "How did she get so amazing?"

"Wheaties." Lydia could barely get the word out. Her heart always swelled when she saw how much Rick loved her daughter. She could forgive the ponytail for that alone. "I'm sorry I've been such a bitch lately." She amended, "I mean, for the last decade."

"I'm sure you were bitchy before that."

"I was a lot more fun."

He raised his eyebrow. They had met at a Twelve Step meeting thirteen years ago. Neither one of them had been a lot of fun.

"I was thinner," she tried.

"Sure, that's what matters." Rick kept his eyes on the game. "What's gotten into you, babe? Every time I open my mouth lately, you howl like a scalded dog."

"Aren't you glad we're not living together?"

"We gonna have that fight again?"

She almost started to. The words, "but why do we need to live together when we live right next door to each other?" were right on the tip of her tongue.

The effort didn't go unnoticed. "Nice to see you can keep your mouth shut when you really want to." He whistled as Dee tried for three points. The ball missed, but he still gave her a thumbs-up when she glanced his way.

Lydia was tempted to tell him that Dee wouldn't give a rat's ass about his approval if they lived together, but decided to save it for the next time they were yelling at each other.

Rick sighed as the opposing team got the ball. "Oh Lord, here we go."

The dinner-plate girl was blocking Dee. She didn't even have the decency to raise her arms.

Rick sat back against the bleachers. His boots rested on the seat in front of him. There were oil stains on the cracked brown leather. His jeans had grease spots. He smelled faintly of engine exhaust. He had kind eyes. He loved her daughter. He loved animals. Even squirrels. He had read every book Danielle Steele had ever written because he got hooked in rehab. He didn't mind that most of Lydia's clothes were covered in dog hair or that her only regret about their sex life was that she couldn't do it wearing a burqa.

She asked, "What do I need to do?"

"Tell me what's going on in that crazy head of yours."

"I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you."

He thought it over for a moment. "All right. Just don't mess up my face."

Lydia stared at the scoreboard. 100. She blinked. 120. "I just ..." She didn't know how to say what she needed to say. "It's just history coming back on me."

"That sounds like a country music song." He looked her in the eye. "Anna Kilpatrick."

Lydia chewed her lip. He wasn't asking a question. He was giving an answer. He'd seen all the clippings she'd kept on Anna Kilpatrick's disappearance, the way Lydia's eyes filled with tears whenever the girl's parents were on the news.

He said, "I heard the police found a new clue."

"All they can do now is hope they find the body."

"She might be alive."

"Optimism is a sliver of glass in your heart."

"That from another song?"

"From my father."

He smiled at her. She loved the way the lines around his eyes crinkled. "Babe, I know I asked you to stay away from the news, but I think you should know something."

Rick wasn't smiling anymore. She felt her heart lurch in her chest.

"Is she dead?" Lydia put her hand to her throat. "Did they find Anna?"

"No, I would've told you right off. You know that."

She did know that, but her heart was still racing.

"I saw it in the crime blotter this morning." Rick was visibly reluctant, but he pushed on. "It happened three days ago. Paul Scott, architect, married to Claire Scott. They were downtown. Got robbed. Paul took the wrong end of a knife. Died before they got him to the hospital. Funeral's tomorrow."

The Mothers erupted into another round of cheering and clapping. Dee had somehow managed to get the ball again. Lydia watched her daughter sprint down the court. Dinner-Plate Hands snatched away the ball. Dee didn't give up. She chased after the girl. She was fearless. She was fearless in every aspect of her life. And why wouldn't she be? No one had ever slapped her down. Life hadn't had a chance to hurt her. She had never lost anyone. She had never known the sorrow of having someone taken away.

Rick asked, "You gonna say something?"

Lydia had a lot to say, but she wasn't going to let Rick see that side of her; that angry, brutal side that she'd anesthetized with coke and when the coke was too much, pushed down with food.

"Liddie?"

She shook her head. Tears streamed down her face. "I just hope he suffered."

ii.

It's your birthday today, the fourth birthday that has passed without you. As usual, I set aside some time to go through our family photos and let all of the memories wash over me. I only allow myself this pleasure once a year, because doling out these precious memories is what gets me through the countless, endless days without you.

My favorite photograph is from your first birthday. Your mother and I were far more excited than you were, though you were generally a happy baby. To you, this birthday was just another day. Nothing remarkable except the cake, which you immediately destroyed with your fists. There were only two of us on the guest list. Your mother said it was silly to publicly mark an event that you would never remember. I readily agreed, because I was selfish, and because I was never happier than when I had my girls all to myself.

I timed myself as the memories ebbed and flowed. Two hours. No more. No less. Then I carefully placed the pictures back into the box, closed the lid, and put them on the shelf for next year.

Next, as is my routine, I walked to the sheriff's office. He stopped returning my calls long ago. I could see the dread in his eyes when he saw me through the glass partition.

I am his challenger. I am his failure. I am his pathetic pain in the ass who won't accept the truth that his daughter walked away.

Our first birthday without you, I went to the sheriff's office and calmly requested to read all of the files pertaining to your case. He refused. I threatened to call the newspaper. He told me to go ahead. I went to the payphone in the lobby. I slotted in a quarter. He came over and hung up the phone and told me to follow him back into the squad room.

We performed this same kabuki theater year after year until finally, this year, he gave up without a fight. A deputy led me back to a small interrogation room where they had laid out copies of all the files pertaining to your investigation. He offered me a glass of water, but I pointed to my lunch box and thermos and told him I was fine.

There is no clear narrative to a police report. Your file has no beginning, middle, and end. There are summaries of witness statements (most of their names unhelpfully blacked out), handwritten notes from detectives that use a language I have yet to master, statements that have proven to be false and others suspected to be false (again, blacked out) statements that have proven to be true (everybody lies to some degree when questioned by the police) and interview notes with a paltry list of suspects (yes, their names are all blacked out like the others).

Two different types of maps have been taped together, one showing downtown and the other showing the campus, so that your last known footsteps can be traced across town.

There are also photographs: your dorm room with favorite clothes unaccounted for, toiletries mysteriously gone, textbooks abandoned, reports half finished, a missing bicycle (though it was later found).

The first sheet of paper in your file is the same sheet of paper I saw on the first anniversary of your birthday, then the second, the third, and now the fourth.

CASE PENDING UNTIL FARTHER LEADS.

Your mother would've used a red pen to correct the word to FURTHER, but I take craven pleasure in knowing that from the very first page, they are wrong.

This is what the weather was like on Monday, March 4, 1991: The high was 51 degrees. The low was 37. The skies were cloudless. There was no precipitation. The dew point was 34 degrees. Winds came out of the northwest at sixteen miles per hour. There were twelve hours and twenty-three minutes of visible daylight.

These were some of the items in the news that week: The murder trial of Pamela Smart began.

Rodney King was beaten by members of the Los Angeles Police Department.

A United Airlines flight went down near Colorado Springs.

President Bush declared the Iraq War was over.

You disappeared.

Here are the sheriff's explanations for why he thinks you left us: You were angry with us because we wouldn't let you live off campus.

You were furious that we would not let you drive to Atlanta for a concert.

You had been arguing with your sister about the provenance of a straw hat.

You had stopped speaking to your grandmother because she had implied that you were gaining weight.

The sheriff has no children of his own. He does not understand that these high states of emotion are simply a by-product of being a nineteen-year-old young woman. These disagreements were such minor storms in our family ecosystem that at the start of the investigation, we failed to mention even one of them.

Which, to his thinking, meant that we were trying to hide something.

In fairness, you were no stranger to the police. You had been arrested twice before. The first time, you were caught in a secure lab at the university protesting the research of genetically modified organisms. The second time, you were caught smoking pot in the back of Wuxtry, the record store where your friend Sally worked.

Here are the so-called clues the sheriff cites to support his runaway theory: Your toothbrush and hairbrush were gone (or maybe you'd accidentally left them in the communal shower).

A small leather satchel was missing from your roommate's closet (or maybe she'd let a friend use it for Spring Break).

Some of your clothes seemed to be missing (or borrowed without your permission).

Most damningly, you had left an unfinished love letter on your deskKiss you in Paris ... hold your hand in Rome ...

Here, said the sheriff, was proof that you were planning to leave.

Here, said your sister, was proof that you were writing a music review of Madonna's "Justify my Love."