The Admissions by Meg Mitchell Moore

December

The phone.

Nora was trying not to worry. But she’d been a mother for nearly eighteen years now. She was going to worry.

It was a beautiful early-winter day in the Bay Area, which meant that it was sixty-five degrees and sunny, or would be until the fog rolled in later in the afternoon. No need for so much as a mitten. Christmas was nine days away.

She was reaching for her cell when the home phone rang.

Nobody ever called the home number. She’d threatened to have it disconnected so many times that it was now a standing joke in the Hawthorne family. Because she never had time to do anything she threatened to do, until now.

Mrs. Hawthorne?

Yes. Her hand shaking as she cradled the receiver.

A man’s voice, unfamiliar.

Nora hadn’t thought her heart could climb any farther up her throat than it had in recent weeks. But it could, it turned out, it could.

When Nora and her sister, Marianne, were young, growing up in Narragansett, Rhode Island, they used to play a game. One of them would say to the other: A genie grants you three wishes. What would you wish for?

They would say things like: I wish all the appliances in the house would turn to chocolate. Or: I wish I could have the gift of flight for twenty-four hours. Or: I wish we had pizza for dinner every night for three weeks. When they got older, they might say: I wish Jennifer Johnson would get a really bad perm that lasted for the rest of the school year. Or: I wish my breasts would grow (Nora) or stop growing (Marianne).

Mrs. Hawthorne?

Yes.

My name is Sergeant Stephen Campbell, California State Highway Patrol.

Stephen. Such an ordinary name, Nora would think later, for such an extraordinary phone call.

Three wishes, Genie, rapid-fire.

One. Say what you have to say, quickly.

Two. Tell me it’s going to be okay.

Three. Let me go back to the beginning and start over.

Mrs. Hawthorne. I’m in the security office at the Golden Gate Bridge.

The what?

Do you know how to get here, Mrs. Hawthorne?

She couldn’t say another thing. The room was whirling. She sat down on one of the kitchen stools.

Listen carefully, please. I’m going to tell you how to get here, and I want you to come right away. Do you understand me? We’re on the south side of the bridge. From where you are you have to cross the bridge to get to us.

She swallowed, tried to breathe. She watched a hand that didn’t seem like hers grasp at the edge of the counter. She watched the fingers try and fail to grip the edge. There was a sharp sound all around her, a high-pitched noise three octaves beyond glass breaking.

Mrs. Hawthorne?

Mmmmmmph. The only sound she could manage.

Later Nora would figure that it all started with her job. If she hadn’t been a working mother. If the situation with the Watkins home hadn’t happened, and then the horror show at the Millers’ house. If she’d been more available, more aware. If she’d been better. If if if.