Mindy Mejia - Leave No Trace

I didn’t know what she wanted me to see. I saw a semiprecious stone, no different than the minerals in our rock garden, or the four-pound agate she’d found in college and kept uncut on her bedside table – her prize specimen. Our house was littered with rocks as paperweights, doorstops, and decorations. I saw their form and function, nothing more.

‘So, it’s sedimentary,’ I offered, but it was the wrong thing to say. She shut the drawer and turned inward, telling me to go play until dinner, which we both knew she wasn’t going to make.

I didn’t see the necklace again until a few months later when she took the copper study job on the iron range, packed her things, and left before I got home from school. The four-pound agate was gone from her bedside table and the pendant necklace was lying on my pillow. I didn’t think about it in those first few days of her bewildering absence, when every sound in an empty room brought me running, stupidly expecting to see the rich tumble of her hair, her thin frame turning to me and restoring what she’d fractured. It wasn’t until after Dad read me her letter and we started to accept she wasn’t coming back, that I remembered the afternoon she’d shown it to me.

Had I failed some obscure geology test? Was there a hidden meaning in the agate, something that might have made her stay if I’d said the right thing, been the right daughter? I had no one to ask and the questions only grew louder with every milestone she missed, every day without her in it. The questions became my brothers and sisters. They were with me always, in my blood, until five years later when I found an answer that sent me to the depths of Congdon Psychiatric Facility.

I must have dreamed about the agate necklace because it shimmered in the shadows of my mind as I lay in bed, unwilling to get up after another late night studying Boundary Waters topographical maps and the restless non-sleep that followed. The necklace itself was gone and I didn’t want to think about where, so instead I rolled over and saw Jasper lying patiently in my bedroom doorway, waiting for me.

‘You want to take a drive today, Jazz?’

He answered by walking over to the bed, laying his head on the sheets, and licking my elbow.

I sighed. ‘No kisses. Time to put your game face on.’

Today was a huge day. Today Lucas took his first sanctioned step toward the Boundary Waters. My plan was simple: If Lucas could prove himself capable of behaving in public – i.e., not running off or assaulting anyone – then Dr Mehta had agreed he might be able to join a search party to locate his father. I’d set up different field trips every day, with progressive liberties attached to each outing. First we started by taking a walk around Congdon’s neighborhood and worked up to our last test at the end of the week, a drive up the shore to Split Rock Lighthouse with Dr Mehta in tow.

I showered, gulped down a quick breakfast, and drove Jasper up the hill to Congdon, where at least fifteen ‘Free Lucas Blackthorn’ protesters waved signs and took footage with their phones. Lucas’s escape attempts from Congdon and St Mary’s had given fuel to both sides of the fire raging on the social media sites. To those who believed he was a dangerous criminal, it proved his unbalanced state of mind. For the protesters – whose presence outside the gates seemed to grow every day – his actions were a desperate plea for help and the Congdon staff had become the instruments of his oppression. This morning the red-haired girl, who’d led the charge on the police motorcade the night we brought Lucas back, took several halting steps toward my car as I pulled up to the guardhouse, talking and gesturing at me. I kept the window rolled up and flashed my badge at the guard, who quickly opened the gate and waved me through. Pulling up to the drop-off zone at the main entrance, I saw Bryce already waiting with Lucas out front to meet us. They’d dressed him in street clothes for our outing, or at least a mental health facility’s version of street clothes – he wore a bright turquoise hoodie, sweatpants, and a baby blue stocking cap with cat ears courtesy of Dr Mehta’s wife, who bought cat caps for all the patients and never knew most of them ended up ripped to pieces or shoved into snowbanks within a few days of their annual arrival. At least the hat sort of matched his arm sling.

Jasper rumbled a hello as we climbed out of the car and I let him sniff Bryce’s shoes while Bryce looked less than comfortable.

‘Is that the same dog that chewed on this guy’s foot?’

‘I don’t know.’ I nodded to the holster on his belt. ‘Is that the same Taser you tried to kill us with?’

Lucas’s eyes widened and he stepped back, pulling against the grip Bryce had on his good arm. Bryce bristled, but before he could retaliate Jasper’s muzzle started wandering up his leg.

‘I was doing my job,’ he said. ‘Now call off your fucking dog.’

‘Fucking,’ Lucas muttered. ‘Why do people always say that?’

I escorted everyone back toward the car. ‘It’s an expression. An all-purpose word for people who don’t know very many.’

‘Fuck you, Maya.’ Bryce jerked open the car door.

‘See? Adjective. Verb. It can be a noun, too. Like, Isn’t Bryce such a dumb fuck? ’

Bryce cursed some more and threatened to call Dr Mehta while I engaged the child locks and waved the two of them into the backseat. Jasper climbed in front next to me and immediately turned around to inspect Lucas, who was glancing between his sling and the hand Bryce was using to grip his Taser handle.

‘Don’t get bent out of shape, Bryce. It was just an example.’ I handed back a blanket covered in dog hair. ‘Here, put this on him.’

Bryce made Lucas double over and covered him with the blanket as we pulled out of the parking lot. The protesters parted as the gate opened, hovering only a few feet away from the car. They were near enough to see the blanket and I held my breath as we pulled through them, not too fast, not too slow, only exhaling when we got halfway down the block.

Bryce uncovered our patient, and we drove for a few minutes in silence.

‘Free Lucas Blackthorn.’

‘What?’ I glanced in the rearview mirror.

‘That’s what those signs said the other night. That’s who those people are.’ Lucas looked behind us, but Congdon was already out of sight. ‘They want you to let me go.’

Sighing, I tried to explain the situation, the controversial celebrity he’d become, but the more I said, the more agitated both passengers became. Jasper whined and tried to pace, hitting me in the face with his tail, rubbing his head nervously against the seats. I steered the car over the cracked and potholed pavement, climbing higher up the hill until we reached the Enger Trailhead.

‘Look, it’s complicated.’ I checked the parking lot to make sure it was empty before pulling into a spot. ‘These people don’t understand the legal system or the mental health system.’

‘Neither do I,’ Lucas muttered.

Jasper and I got out and then let Bryce and Lucas out of the backseat. Bryce immediately lit up a cigarette.

‘All you need to know is that they love you,’ Bryce puffed. ‘They hate me, they hate Maya, and they love you, all right?’

‘Bryce.’

He rolled his eyes and turned away, scanning the perimeter. ‘I can’t even log in to Twitter anymore, I’m getting tagged on so many posts. I had to cancel my Facebook account. One of my cousins is out there protesting and texting me every day. Every freaking day. She thinks I’m the reason he got sent to St Mary’s.’

‘Bryce, we can talk about this later.’ We could talk about how I sided with his cousin on that one, but right now Lucas was absorbing every word, his gaze shifting between the two of us.