Free The Unseen World by Liz Moore Page A

right?”
    â€œYes,” said Ada.
    â€œAre you just calling to say hi?” Liston asked her.
    â€œNo,” said Ada.
    â€œWell,” said Liston. “What’s going on?”
    â€œWhen I woke up this morning David was gone,” Ada said, “and he’s still gone.”
    â€œOkay,” said Liston. “He didn’t leave a note?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you look all around the house?”
    â€œYes.”
    Liston said, “What time is it?” as if talking to herself, and then sighed.
    Ada paused. She wasn’t certain how to ask what she needed to ask. She wanted to know what Liston knew. “Do you know where he is?” she asked finally, because it was as close as she could come.
    â€œI don’t, honey,” said Liston. “I’m sorry.
    â€œDid you call the police?” asked Liston.
    â€œNo,” said Ada, and then she said it again for emphasis.
    Liston paused. “That might be a good thing to do,” she said.
    Ada was silent. She looked at the clock on the wall: watched its second-hand tick.
    â€œI’m sorry, kiddo,” said Liston finally. “Listen, come over. We can go for a drive and look for him, okay?”
    Ada left a note for David before she left the house. It said, David. I’m out looking for you with Liston. Please wait here until we’re back. Ada .
    She put it on the kitchen table, facing the kitchen door, where he was most likely to see it upon his return. Though David and she always came through the side door of the house, nearest the kitchen, he insisted on letting visitors in through the front door. “It’s nicer that way,” he said once, when she asked why. He was like this, always: old-fashioned and formal in certain ways—he was knowledgeable, for example, on subjects such as tea and place settings, heraldry, forms of address—irreverent, outrageous, in others.
    She walked outside toward Liston’s house, and saw that Mrs. O’Keeffe, their next-door neighbor, was sitting in her lawn chair in her yard. She had macular degeneration and wore dark glasses all year-round. She was perhaps ninety years old, and in the warmer months she satoutside beginning at sunrise and only went in to eat. Ada walked over to her, and she raised a veined thin hand in greeting. Ada leaned down to address her.
    â€œMrs. O’Keeffe,” Ada said to her, bent at the waist. “It’s Ada Sibelius.”
    She turned her face up in Ada’s direction. “Hello, Ada,” she said.
    â€œDid you see my father leave this morning, by any chance?” she asked.
    â€œLet me think,” said Mrs. O’Keeffe.
    She put a hand to her cheek tremblingly.
    â€œI believe I did,” said Mrs. O’Keeffe.
    â€œWas he carrying anything?” Ada asked.
    â€œNow, I can’t recall,” said Mrs. O’Keeffe.
    â€œWhich way did he walk?”
    â€œThat way,” she said, pointing down Shawmut Way toward Savin Hill Ave: the way one walked to cross over the bridge into the rest of Dorchester.
    â€œWhat was he wearing?” Ada asked her. “Did he say hello to you?”
    But again she couldn’t recall.
    Liston’s car was a station wagon with wooden sides and a bench seat across the front. She was leaning against it when Ada arrived, and she held the passenger door open.
    â€œHi, baby,” said Liston. She looked worried. She was wearing sunglasses on her head and an oversized windbreaker. They pulled out, and Liston turned left on Savin Hill Ave. She asked where Ada thought they should look for him and she suggested they go over the bridge, first to David’s favorite restaurant, Tran’s; and then to the library in Fields Corner; and then along Morrissey Boulevard, passing the beaches on the way to Castle Island, toward which David often jogged; and finally to the lab.
    â€œAnyplace else?” asked Liston.
    â€œI don’t know,” said