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“Okay. And what does that look like? Do you have to see them every day?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s having contact every day. Texting or talking on the phone. And seeing each other at least once a week.”

He seemed to think about this.

“So me going out there wouldn’t work unless I stayed a month or I flew back and forth every week.”

“I think so.”

“That’s not really doable for me. Hawaii’s pretty far and I’ve got some family stuff going on. I can’t take off for that long.”

“Well,” I said. “I’ll be back on the mainland in three and a half months.”

“Yeah. Maybe then?”

“Sure. Sounds like fun.”

I couldn’t be sure, but I thought there was disappointment in the silence.

Maddy knocked on my doorframe. “Ready?”

I nodded and put up a finger. “I’ve got to go,” I said into the phone. “Maddy wants to watch a movie.”

Justin and I hung up, and I went out to the living room to watch Forrest Gump.

This movie always bugged me. Maybe because watching Jenny—Forrest’s beautiful, tortured love interest—reminded me too much of Mom.

Maddy must have been thinking the same thing. When the credits began to roll, she put the TV on mute and looked over at me. “Have you talked to Amber recently?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Do you know where she is?”

I paused a moment. “No. Her phone’s disconnected. Again.”

Maddy looked annoyed. “Probably didn’t pay the bill. You know, for someone who asks you for as much money as she does, she sure ends up in collections a lot. God, I hate her.”

I looked away from her. My relationship with my mother was complicated. It wasn’t complicated for Maddy though, she knew exactly how she felt about it.

“I called the cafe,” I said. “They said she quit three months ago. Just stopped showing up for work.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

I’d stopped calling jails and hospitals years ago when this kind of thing happened. Filing a missing person’s report was a waste of time. Amber moved too fast, was too impulsive. She’d go to a concert and climb onto a tour bus and end up across the US. Or she’d meet a guy at a bar and get invited to live on his boat for four months in Florida.

The only time I knew for sure where my mother went was when she’d resurface suddenly. Then I’d get a little peace of mind for a few weeks until she vanished again.

Maddy shook her head. “I wouldn’t worry about it. She’s like black mold, she always comes back.”

She was right. She always did.

But I’d call her landlord anyway. Just in case.

Just in case she left someone behind when she went…

“I don’t understand how that woman made this,” Maddy said, going on, waving a hand over my face. “A fully functional member of society.”

“She had a very different life than I did, Maddy. I don’t think all of it’s her fault.”