The Keeper of Lost Things Read online

  The list continued on into infinity. It stung and it hurt but it only bounced off the armor I had built around myself. My father could do nothing to hurt me anymore. I had blocked him from my pain many years ago.

  I stared at the television screen but they moved onto another story about a squirrel attack. While my mind was still trying to process everything I heard, I headed to the kitchen and made dinner. It was nothing more than eggs and bacon, it would have to do.

  Uncle Marvin must have smelled the dinner because he arrived home just as they were ready. He plonked down on the chair while it groaned under his weight.

  The plate was immediately placed in front of him while I sat opposite. I only let him have one bite before I asked the question I had been dying to. “Do you know my father is missing?”

  He made a humph sound.

  That was usually a yes.

  “What happened to him? Do you think he’s in trouble?”

  Uncle Marvin pointed his fork at me, a piece of bacon still clung to the prongs. “Don’t spend any time worrying about your daddy. Whatever he did, he deserved it.”

  “But he might—”

  “Don’t say another word about it,” he warned.

  I zipped my mouth, knowing anything further would only infuriate him. When Uncle Marvin was angry, bad things happened.

  We ate in silence, the only noise the whistle from my uncle’s nose as he breathed. I cleaned up afterwards and fed Matilda. I asked her about my father and she only meowed.

  It seemed Matilda was as in the dark as I was.

  I admired my new shelves once more before I went to bed that night. I ran my fingers along the new wood and imagined all the lost things that would find their home there.

  It cheered me, somewhat.

  The next day was Sunday, a day I normally spent outside the house because it was also Uncle Marvin’s day off. He would watch sports on television or mow the lawn with a machine too loud to be healthy.

  I set off for the mall, hoping I would be able to find many lost things today. It was amazing how many people were so irresponsible with their things.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t reach the mall. My traitorous feet led me to a residential neighborhood. It was lined on both sides with nice houses, all mirror images of each other.

  Earlier that morning I had gone online.

  I had found my father’s address.

  His house was one of those I now looked at. It was number twenty-three and was on the right hand side. I could see it from the end, it had a large tree in the yard.

  It looked like a nice family lived there.

  Neat and pristine.

  The opposite of my house with Uncle Marvin and his temper.

  While I was watching, the front door opened. A woman and a little girl came out and got into the car parked in the driveway. They left in the opposite direction of my location.

  The woman had to be my father’s new wife. The girl must be his new daughter. He had replaced my family quite well, apparently. To think I was related to them was surreal. The little girl had the same hair color as I did, shining under the glint of the sun like mine occasionally did.

  I wanted to hate them. They had my father while I was lost to him. They had been careless enough to lose my father. He was just another lost thing that belonged on my shelf now.

  Thanks to Frankie I now had room for him.

  He belonged in the attic with the box of his possessions.

  The sudden urge to talk about everything overwhelmed me. I wanted someone to tell me that I wasn’t crazy, that it was okay to stand outside my father’s house and feel the way I was.

  I needed someone to keep me sane.

  The edge of the precipice was slippery.

  My feet were moving before I could stop myself. They seemed to know the destination better than my brain did. I had no choice except to let them go wherever they were going.

  I was surprised to be standing outside Frankie’s house twenty minutes and a bus ride later.

  The moment I got there I wanted to turn away and go someplace else. Just because Frankie helped me to put up shelves all day and he’d walked my heavy wheelbarrow seven blocks, didn’t mean we were friends or anything.

  I told my feet to move.

  They took me to his front door.

  My hand knocked.

  The door opened a few minutes later with the head of a little girl peering out at me. She was older than the girl I had seen at my father’s house, but only just.

  “Who are you?” she asked, not unkindly.

  “Sorry, I have the wrong house,” I stammered out, stumbling over my words like an idiot. It was a bad idea coming here, one that would ensure I never trusted my feet’s opinion again.

  I turned around and started walking, leaving the little girl’s eyes on my back. They drilled two identical holes into me, searing through my shirt to reach my skin. All of me flushed with embarrassment.

  Why had I gone to Frankie’s house?

  He wasn’t my friend.

  I didn’t have any friends.

  “Em! Wait up!”

  I walked faster, increasing my pace to outrun the voice and the boy it belonged to. Frankie’s little sister must have told him there was a strange girl at the door. He had instantly pulled my image into his mind.

  “Em! Stop!”

  I didn’t walk fast enough. Frankie caught up with me, a little breathless but otherwise fine. He fell into step beside me, regaining strength into his ragged breath.

  “Go away,” I said.

  “You came to visit me,” he replied.

  “It was a mistake.”

  “I’m glad you did. Will you just stop for a moment, please?” He grabbed my arm and I instantly yanked it from his grip. I did, however, stop. “I’m happy to see you.”

  “Was that your sister at the door?” I asked, because it was the only thing I could think of that wouldn’t require me to blurt out everything inside my head.

  “Yeah, that’s Lillian. She’s ten and has this thing where she likes to answer the door and pretend she’s opened the door to another world or something. I don’t know, I don’t really understand her sometimes.”

  Would I understand my little sister?

  Would she play silly games that didn’t make sense?

  I shook the thoughts away. “You look like her.”

  “But better, right?” His eyes sparkled with cheekiness. Maybe it wasn’t such a mistake going to him. I was feeling a little less panicked. “Why did you come over? Do you want to hang out or something?”

  “My father is missing,” I blurted out.

  “That’s terrible. What happened?”

  “I don’t know. But he has this whole other family I didn’t know about and he stayed in the city without telling me. I haven’t seen him in ten years and he replaced me. And now he’s missing.”

  “Woah, slow down. You haven’t seen your dad in ten years?” I nodded. “That is totally his loss. I bet if he really knew you he would have told you everything.”

  “I highly doubt that.” The thought was ludicrous, but sweet of him to say.

  “What do you know about his new family?” Frankie asked, his expression curious and sympathetic at the same time. He had the most honest face of anyone I had ever met.

  “They live at 23 Huxton Street. He has a wife and a daughter. They look like they have the perfect life. Except for my father being missing, anyway.”

  “Have you gone there? Did you speak with them?” Always so many questions, always making my head spin trying to answer them.

  “I went there but I didn’t go in.”

  “Do you want to?”

  Did I?

  They wouldn’t know me.

  “Maybe.”

  Frankie smiled and it felt like maybe things would be okay. “How about we grab a milkshake and talk about it some more? There’s no way we can make decisions like that on an empty stomach.”

  I allowed myself to nod and the
n followed Frankie as he took my hand. He seemed to know his neighborhood well, even though he hadn’t lived here for very long.

  He took me directly to a small diner where we slid into the booth. A waitress hurried over to us, white teeth all showing in her smile. “Frankie, good to see you again. Do you want the usual?”

  He looked from her to me. “Chocolate okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Make it two, please, Diana.”

  “Coming right up,” she said happily. How could someone be so happy when they were spending their Sunday morning bringing strangers food and beverages?

  Frankie was opening his mouth, ready to ask another million questions. I got in first, cutting him off. “Where did you live before Lakeside?”

  “A tiny little town called Belmont. It had a population of two hundred and thirteen people,” he said, almost as happily as the waitress.

  Maybe they slipped antidepressants into the food here.

  That would explain it.

  “Why did you move here?”

  “We had a small family business but it burned down. My parents took it as a sign that it was time to move on. We’ve lived in twelve places since I was four years old.”

  “That’s almost a difference place every year.”

  “Yep. We move around a lot.”

  Diana delivered our milkshakes at that moment, hushing our conversation abruptly. We waited until she left again before speaking once more.

  “Why do you move so much?” I asked, reeled into this boy and all his mysteries. I was starting to understand why he asked so many questions.

  Frankie shrugged one shoulder. “Just do.”

  He was hiding something.

  I wasn’t the only one with secrets.

  Now wasn’t the time to press for answers but I would get them eventually. The more I knew about Frankie, the more I suspected that he was lost.

  Just like me.

  His past was a puzzle that I would find all the pieces for and then join together. It was only a matter of time before I discovered everything about him.

  “Do you live with your mom?” Frankie asked. “I mean, if you don’t live with your dad, you must live with someone.”

  “My mother is dead.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “She died when I was a baby so I never knew her. My Uncle Marvin said she was beautiful and too good for my father.”

  “Is that who you live with, your Uncle Marvin?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He hates everyone.”

  Frankie made a face before taking a long sip of his milkshake. I didn’t want to answer any more questions about me. He knew enough already, more than his fair share, really.

  We drank our milkshakes in silence before leaving the diner. It was a nice place, I liked it. Even with Perky Diana and her too-smiley mouth.

  Frankie insisted on walking me home. I left him at the door, thanking him for his time and assuring him I didn’t need him to accompany me all the way inside.

  Not even to check the shelves.

  Or check for burglars.

  The excuses he came up with to come inside were laughable but none of them worked. I hurried inside alone and closed the door securely behind me.

  Right before running straight into Uncle Marvin.

  And he wasn’t happy.

  Chapter 7

  “Who was that boy?” Uncle Marvin demanded. Both his hands were poised on his hips, making him seem ten times bigger than he normally did.

  He almost managed to suck in his big belly.

  “He’s just a boy from school,” I replied, eager to get away from the conversation. There was a reason I didn’t want my worlds colliding and this was a prime example of how it started.

  “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “But he wants to be.” I shrugged, indifferent. I couldn’t speak on behalf of Frankie. “You need to stay away from him and all the other boys. Especially the ones that walk you home.”

  “Why? I’m sure he’s not planning on hurting me,” I replied. Even for Uncle Marvin he seemed to be blowing the whole thing out of proportion.

  “Boys are bad and they’ll do horrible things to you. They are nothing but trouble and will get you caught up in their trouble. Do you understand?”

  “He’s a nice person.”

  “So you think. There is no such thing as a nice teenage boy. Stay away from him or you’ll be thrown out of here so fast your head will spin and your butt will be sore for days. Now, do you understand?”

  “Yes, Uncle Marvin.”

  “Good. Now make me lunch, I’m hungry.”

  I made him a baloney sandwich.

  I spent time with my lost things.

  I checked the news for updates on my father.

  I went to bed.

  The next morning was Monday, the beginning of the school week and yet another morning when I had to get up and pretend like I wasn’t the liar I was.

  On the way in through the school gates I checked the lawn and courtyard for lost things. They were both clear. Either someone else was doing my job or people were getting better at not losing things.

  My usual desk was occupied in English class. That probably should have been the clue that today wasn’t going to be a good one. Just as the teacher started the class, someone knocked on the door and then opened it.

  Two policemen whispered something to the teacher before looking at me. Instantly I thought of all the lost things, and that girl’s accusation that I’d stolen her book, and I thought for sure they knew what I did.

  I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  I rescued lost things so they weren’t lost anymore.

  Some people didn’t see it that way.

  The police were one of them.

  “Miss Gabrielle, please step outside. These police officers would like a word with you,” the teacher said, ever so politely with the fuzz watching his every move.

  Every pair of eyes in the chairs followed me out of the room. One of the policemen was really tall, the other extra short. They made for a mismatched pair.

  We assembled in the corridor, a row of lockers on one side and doors on the other. I blinked at them, waiting expectantly for them to raise the problem. Then, and only then, would I be able to think up a plausible lie to solve it.

  “Miss Gabrielle,” Tall Cop said. “We are here to discuss your father, Marshall Gabrielle.”

  Oh.

  So this wasn’t about me, but my absent father.

  “I know he’s missing. I saw it on the news.” And thanks for informing his daughter of that fact prior to having to hear it on the six o’clock news. Well done, boys in blue.

  “Very well then, so you know his wife has reported him missing and is very concerned about his wellbeing. When was the last time you spoke with Mr. Gabrielle?” It was Short Cop this time, holding a pad with a stubbed pencil in his little fat fingers.

  “Ten years ago,” I replied flatly. I wasn’t going to show any emotion, this was just routine. They didn’t care about my problems and wouldn’t be able to solve any of them anyway.

  “You haven’t had any contact with him since then?”

  “Nope. Father of the Year, huh?”

  Short Cop wrote something in his notepad and I couldn’t read it no matter how hard I tried. “So you wouldn’t know anything about his current whereabouts or if he had any enemies?”

  “Nope.” I let the word pop on my lips. “Have you discovered anything about his disappearance?”

  They exchanged a glance, one that asked the other if they should say anything. Tall Cop spoke next. “We believe he might have gotten into something he shouldn’t have. Some business deals gone wrong, if you know what I mean.”

  “Do you think he’s dead?”

  He scrambled for an answer. “We can’t rule anything out at the moment. But rest assured we are doing everything we can to locate your father.
Thank you for your time, Miss Gabrielle.”

  As they were walking away, I blurted out something I was supposed to keep locked inside. “What are they like? His new family?”

  They stopped and spun around slowly, almost like they were trying to move in slow motion to buy themselves some more time. It only made me more impatient.

  While I waited for an answer my heart hammered in my chest and my breath caught in my throat. I was at risk of having a major coronary.

  “They seem very nice,” Tall Cop said. “They are very eager to get Mr. Gabrielle back and have been most cooperative.”

  Nice.

  Eager.

  Cooperative.

  No wonder my father left me to shack up with them. They were everything I wasn’t.

  I nodded so the cops didn’t have to stand there awkwardly any longer. They were starting to feel sympathetic toward me and I just didn’t need it.

  They started walking again and this time I let them go.

  I wasn’t going to cry.

  I returned to my desk in class, ignoring all the eyes on me that were drilling little holes into my skin. It didn’t matter what the others thought. Maybe I would tell them a lie, say they were here to arrest me and I went all ‘I want a lawyer’ on them and dodged the charges.

  Anything but the truth.

  Class was torture after that little encounter. Even the teacher seemed to be interested in the reason for my police visit. I found him staring at me curiously on more than one occasion.

  Unfortunately, it was a double period.

  I sat there until lunchtime.

  The bell was my savior, making me want to scream ‘Hallelujah’ at the top of my lungs when it finally came. I grabbed my stuff and got out of there as fast as humanly possible.

  I moved so fast I was almost at the front of the cafeteria line. I grabbed my lunch and found an empty table. Hopefully it would remain that way for the full forty-five minutes allocated to enjoying the midday meal.

  Two girls from my English class passed by my table. They were the blonde kind, full of giggles and hair advice. “Did you make bail, Emmeline?” one threw at me as she passed. Her friend giggled.

  “I hear orange is a very fetching color,” the other replied, once her fake giggles were under control. “You’ll be a hit with all the other criminals.”