Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Rhodes turn in his seat. “I didn’t have a choice, Am. It wasn’t like I canceled the trip because I wanted to.”
“Were you in the military or something?” I asked.
“Yeah” was all he gave me.
But Amos didn’t leave me hanging. “In the Navy.”
“The Navy,” I confirmed but didn’t ask more about it because I figured if Mr. Rhodes hadn’t even been willing to tell me what branch, he wouldn’t want to tell me more. “Well, it’s not too far of a drive. Maybe one day you can go.”
In the seat behind me, the kid made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a grunt, and I regretted opening the subject again. What if he didn’t take him? I needed to shut the hell up.
“Is it true your mom got lost somewhere around here in the mountains?”
I didn’t wince, but Mr. Rhodes turned around again. “Am!”
“What?”
“You can’t ask stuff like that, man. Come on,” Mr. Rhodes snapped, shaking his head incredulously.
“I’m sorry, Aurora,” he mumbled.
“I don’t mind talking about her. It was a long time ago. I miss her every day, but I don’t cry all the time anymore.”
Too much information?
“I’m sorry,” Amos repeated after a second of silence.
“It’s okay. No one ever wants to talk about it,” I told him. “But to answer your question, she did. We used to go hiking all the time. I was supposed to go with her, but I didn’t.” That same pang of guilt that I had never gotten over, that slept in my gut, safe and warm and tremendous, opened an eye. As much as I didn’t mind talking about my mom, there were some specific things that were difficult to bring out into the world for everyone to know. “Anyway, she went for her hike and never came back. They found her car, but that was it.”
“They found her car, but how could they not find her?”
“Your dad might know more details than I do. But they didn’t find her car for a few days. She had told me she was going to do one hike, but Mom would always change her mind last minute and decide to do something that wasn’t on a trail if she wasn’t in the mood or if there were too many people on the trailheads. That’s what they thought happened. Her car wasn’t where she had said she would be. Unfortunately, it rained a lot in those days, and it washed out her footprints.”
“But I don’t get how they didn’t find her. Dad, don’t you have to do search and rescue a few times a year? You always find people.”
Beside me, the big man shifted a bit in his seat, but I kept my gaze forward. “It’s harder than it sounds, Am. There are almost two million acres of the San Juan National forest alone.” Mr. Rhodes stopped talking for a second like he was watching his words. “If she was a strong hiker, in shape, she could have gone just about anywhere, especially if she wasn’t known for staying on trails.” He paused again. “I remember the case file said she was a good climber too.”
“Mom was a great climber,” I confirmed. She had been a fucking daredevil. There was nothing she had been scared of.
We used to go to Utah every chance possible. I could remember sitting off to the side when she did some kind of climb with her friends and being amazed by how strong and agile she was. I used to call her Spiderwoman she was so good.
“She could have gone anywhere,” Mr. Rhodes confirmed.
“They looked,” I told Amos. “For months. Helicopter. Different search and rescue teams. They did a few more searches for her over the years, but nothing ever came of it.” Remains had been found before, but they hadn’t been hers.
The silence was thick, and Amos broke it by muttering, “That sucks.”
“Yeah, it does,” I agreed. “I figure she was doing what she loved to do, but it still sucks.”
There was another rush of silence, and I could feel Mr. Rhodes eyeball me.
I looked over and managed to smile a little. I didn’t want him to think Amos had upset me—not that he probably genuinely cared.
“Which trail did she do?” Amos asked.
Mr. Rhodes gave him the name, shooting me a side look like he remembered bringing it up during our tutoring session.
There was another pause, and I glanced at the rearview mirror once more. The boy looked thoughtful and troubled. Part of me was expecting him to drop it before he spoke up again. “Are you doing the hikes to find her?”
Mr. Rhodes mumbled something under his breath that I was pretty positive had a couple curse words in there. Then the meaty palm of his hand scrubbed up and down the center of his forehead.