The Missing -2014- Instant

“This time’s different,” she said, but her voice wavered.

That was the start. For the next six weeks, they were inseparable in the way only summer allows—no school, no clock, no witness but the sun. She taught him how to skip stones across the creek so they’d bounce seven times. He showed her the treehouse, and she declared it “a fire hazard and a masterpiece.” They lay on the roof at midnight, counting satellites, and she told him about her mom who’d left when she was ten, about the four cities she’d lived in since, about the way she never stayed long enough to unpack. the missing -2014-

P.S. The treehouse is definitely a fire hazard. “This time’s different,” she said, but her voice

“Good,” she said. “Then you won’t be boring.” She taught him how to skip stones across

The house was empty. No porch chairs, no curtain flicker, no Mira. The For Sale sign was gone. In its place, a single sheet of notebook paper taped to the front door, weighed down by a flat gray stone.

“No,” he admitted.