The Leaving Part 25

"No," she said. "I saw it mentioned in some articles about The Leaving." She tossed and her horseshoe clinked around the pole. "I imagine that would be the kind of thing my mother would have gone out of her way to make sure I didn't hear about, right? Since I was going to be going to the school."

"Probably, yeah," he said. "Makes sense." He held up another tiny horseshoe. "My turn."

Lucas

Ryan wasn't home for Lucas to ask questions about the book, so he started reading it.

The Leaving, by Daniel Orlean-copyright 1968-was a slim 150 pages.

The author bio said only that Orlean lived in Florida and this was his first novel.

In it, Frank Mamet has decided that he doesn't want his son, Joseph, to go away to the newly enforced government Leaving period. "They think they can raise my kids better than I can?" he says at one point. "They're wrong. Because sure, children should be protected from society's evils-but by their parents-and they simply can't be raised without an awareness of the realities of the world around them. A whole generation oblivious to the truth of the human condition is a recipe for the collapse of society."

On the eve of Joseph's Leaving, Frank takes Joseph on the run. And while they're being chased down by Leaving police, he tries to teach Joseph what life was like before the new government was formed and The Leaving started-telling him stories prompted by a small collection of old family photos. All the while, they are searching for a mysterious man who supposedly grants exceptions to families who are willing to go to work for a burgeoning shadow government.

His wife wants her children to go away like all the other kids. She wants them to be protected from the horrors of childhood; she is newly diagnosed with cancer and wants her children to not witness her decline and death. She wants them to leave and come back like the others have, with memories of having had a happy young life.

Frank has taken their son against her wishes.

Eventually Frank finds a community of people who are off the grid, living the old-fas.h.i.+oned way. Raising families together in an underground city cut off from society. He very much wants to stay, but he has left behind a dying wife and a daughter. So he leaves his son there and goes out to try to bring them back.

Turns out, his wife has died and his daughter is being cared for by a very pro-Leaving neighbor. He has to kill the woman-a childless widow-to claim his daughter and bring her with him. Alas, forces align against them and they are caught. He's sent to prison. His daughter is sent to The Leaving. His only hope is that his son will one day rise up and fight back. His son, the keeper of those family photos, the keeper of all that is real about life and loss, may one day become a hero.

By the time he was done reading, Lucas was starving. The pickings were slim, so he grabbed a slice of cold pizza and wondered whether he knew how to cook. If he didn't, it was time to learn.

What was taking Scarlett so long?

Why hadn't she texted yet?

The keeper of photos.

The camera tattoo.

He went back to his room and lay down on the sagging mattress, watching dust dance.

His brain sought connections but found none.

Then, soon, noises.

Ryan.

Miranda.

The TV.

The news: "Meanwhile, the victims of The Leaving are starting to be met with increasing skepticism about their story that they don't remember anything about the past eleven years, or about Max G.o.dard, whose fate remains unknown."

Lucas got up and joined them just in time to see the clip of Avery playing again: "They must know something."

He shouldn't have rushed her out of the RV like that.

Shouldn't have told her that, no, she could not come talk to Ryan with him.

They'd exchanged phone numbers before she left, and he'd promised her updates, but she was a distraction.

"Have you ever seen this book?" Lucas held it out to Ryan. Miranda went to his side to also look.

"No." Ryan took it from him and thumbed the pages, and the air suddenly smelled old, borderline vomit-y. Then he turned to the cover, to study the ill.u.s.tration of small children in pods beneath the t.i.tle: The Leaving. "Was it out there?"

"Out where?" Miranda asked.

"Yes." Lucas ignored her. "You've really never seen it?"

"No." Ryan turned it over.

Miranda stood at his shoulder also reading the back cover. "That is messed up," she said, almost too quickly.

"There've been a few books," Ryan said.

"This was written in 1968."

"Wait, wait, wait," Ryan said. "This is ringing a bell now. Dad was writing to some author's son or something. It was a few years ago. I'd stopped paying attention and he'd stopped telling me what he was doing anyway."

"Where's his computer?"

"Bedroom."

They went down the hall together, and Miranda followed. Ryan powered up the laptop on the desk in the corner, and they waited.

Lucas hadn't been in there yet, hadn't seen how his father had been living-in a small brown room that barely fit the queen bed and desk. Lucas was sure there had once been curtains with flowers on them, perfume bottles on a silver tray reflecting sunlight. But she was long gone and all that was, too.

Miranda had the book now. "If you don't mind my saying it, this is a stretch."

Lucas said, "Scarlett told her mother she was going to the leaving."

"All right, all right," Miranda said. "So you think it's the author? Or his son?"

"Maybe," Lucas said. "I don't know."

But it had to mean something.

When the monitor lit, Ryan clicked to an e-mail bookmark, and the mail loaded. Lucas went to sit at the desk.

There was a lot of recent spam and more than thirty-five thousand e-mails in the account, so Lucas searched for the name Orlean and found a correspondence with the author's son, Paul, from several years ago.

Thank you for your letter, Paul had written. I handle all my father's correspondence now that he has gotten on in years.

"I'll read through this," Lucas said. "I'll tell you what I find."

Ryan nodded-"Of course"-and took Miranda's hand, and they left.

I would say that my father's novel became a cult cla.s.sic in the truest sense of the word. It's not that it was cherished by a small group of people; it's that it became doctrine for a smaller group of fringe elements. People who really thought the country was going to h.e.l.l and that the government could do something about it. He has a few boxes of fan mail, which makes it look like he has a lot of fans, but they're mostly repeat customers. People who called him a visionary. He was, for a time, a well-respected scientist, but his reputation suffered after he wrote the novel. (Mind you, the print run was minuscule.) People thought he started to let the more "out there" ideas he put forth in the novel creep into his research and that he'd lost his way. Maybe he had. Anyone who saw any value in his scientific work, which focused on erasing memories, mostly saw applications for PTSD, but he started to move away from that line of research.

Which is a long way of saying that yes, it's possible the situation you are describing has something to do with his work, though I can't for the life of me see a direct connection-unless perhaps . . . a fan?

His father had written back, Can you send me the letters? Or the names and addresses of his biggest fans? Did you ever speak to the police after my son and the others disappeared? Didn't you see a connection?

That e-mail was never replied to.

How had his father even found the book?

Lucas's own Google search turned up almost no hits, and none of the coverage Lucas had seen of The Leaving had mentioned it at all.

Had his father gone to the police with it?

Lucas opened a new window, and his fingers went to work. He knew how to type, and quickly. He composed his e-mail without a single wrong keystroke: It is with regret that I write to inform you that my father, Will, with whom you had corresponded on this matter, has died. I'm his son-returned after eleven years with no memory of that time-as you may see if you follow the news at all. I was hoping we could meet? I am interested in this line of research my father was pursuing with regard to your father's book and fan base as potential inspiration for this crime.

He hit Send, then found a barely-there Wikipedia page about Daniel Orlean.

Noted again that he lived in Florida.

Then mapped directions to Tarpon Springs.

A day trip.

Easy.

Clicking away from the window, he noticed the screen saver for the first time. It was a photo of him, Ryan, and their mom and dad. On the beach. Smiling. His mother with heavy black sungla.s.ses on. He wanted very much to see her eyes through them but couldn't, so he closed his eyes and tried to picture them there but drew a blank.

His phone buzzed.

I'm home, Scarlett had written.

On my way, he wrote back.

The computer dinged.

The e-mail had bounced as undeliverable.

AVERY.