Free The Lost and the Found by Cat Clarke Page A

but I managed to convince her it would be tacky. It’s the kind of thing you do when your daughter’s come back from her gap year in Nicaragua or from a stay in the hospital, not when she’s been kidnapped and repeatedly raped by a psychopath.
    Laurel likes tea. Smith brought her tea when she was feeling sad. He said,
The world always looks brighter when you’ve got a mug of tea in your hand.
Mom was horrified when she heard that; she says almost exactly the same thing. When she was with him, Laurel always drank out of the same bright yellow mug with a smiley face on it, until she dropped it one day. It smashed on the concrete floor. Smith slapped her so hard she fell and cut her hand on one of the broken shards of mug. He stitched up the wound himself, doing such a good job that you can barely even see the scar on her palm. The police wondered if that meant that Smith might have been medically trained, but Laurel said she didn’t think so. He had several huge medical books that he used to refer to whenever she was ill.
    Mom comes back in with the tray and hands around the mugs. Laurel’s is red, with her name on it. Her face lights up when she sees it, then she looks to Mom for an explanation. Mom nods in my direction.
    “I…I thought you should have your own mug. It’s the same as mine.” I hold mine up as proof. My mug has a chip on it, and the
i
in my name is starting to wear off.
    Laurel looks at her mug as if it’s something precious and miraculous. Then she looks at me in pretty much the same way. “Thank you, Faith. That’s”—her voice catches—“really kind of you.”
    I shrug. “It’s no big deal.” But I’m really pleased she likes it. Everyone should have their own mug; it makes tea taste so much better.
    After tea, we all head upstairs to show Laurel her room. Mom clears her throat as she steps back to let Laurel go first. “I’m so sorry we moved, Laurel….I always wanted you to come home to your own bedroom….That’s how it was supposed to be.” She doesn’t look at Dad, and he doesn’t look at her.
    Laurel doesn’t seem to notice the awkwardness, though. “I don’t mind at all.
This
is home. Wherever you are.” She couldn’t have said anything more perfect. Mom’s eyes glisten with tears.
    “Well, what do you think?” I wish Mom didn’t sound so needy. The room is nothing compared to the presidential suite—for one thing it has a single bed instead of a king-size one—but it’s a whole lot better than where she was before. With
him.
A camp bed and a dirty sleeping bag. A bare lightbulb. Mice. Cockroaches.
    Laurel spots him immediately. “You found him!”
    I shrug again. I seem to be doing a lot of shrugging these days. “I thought you might like to have him.”
    “I can’t believe it! He looks exactly like…He looks the same!” She shakes her head and kneels down to inspect the night-light; she touches his head with a certain reverence. She looks up at me, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Is it really okay if I keep him? I don’t like the dark.”
    I nod. “Of course it’s okay!”
    Mom crouches down next to Laurel. “You can leave your door open at night, if you like. That way you’ll get the light from the landing, too.”
    Dad says, “Why don’t we leave the girls to it? Faith can show Laurel everything she needs. I’ll bring up the bags in a bit.”
    Laurel sits on the bed, moving her hand back and forth across the duvet cover. Her other hand still clutches Barnaby. “It’s nice. This room, I mean.”
    I sit down next to her. “Mom was worried you’d hate it. She says we can redecorate anytime you want.”
    “Why would I hate it? It’s perfect….A room of my own.”
    She sets Barnaby the Bear down on the chair in the corner. I want to tell her that he could really use a bath, but it doesn’t seem like the right thing to say.
    Mom’s thought of everything. Toiletries and pajamas and a hairbrush. There’s even some brand-new makeup on the