Me Neither

At 1:43 in the morning, Alison checked where her daughter was. She did this without putting on her glasses, which made the map bloom softly around the edges: France was a pale shape beneath her thumb, roads dissolving into one another, town names requiring more commitment than she was willing to give them. The blue dot was still in Lyon. Good. She put the phone facedown on the bedside table.

Beside her, Neil made the small clicking sound at the back of his throat that had accompanied twenty-three years of marriage and, according to him, did not constitute snoring. Alison had once recorded it as evidence. He had listened to eleven seconds before declaring the recording inconclusive.

She closed her eyes. At 1:51, she checked again. Still Lyon. This was ridiculous.

Jenny was twenty-two. She had completed a degree, survived three student houses, once removed a mouse from Alison's kitchen using a salad bowl and a copy of The Sunday Times, and had travelled alone before, if one counted the train to Edinburgh, which Alison privately did not. Lyon was hardly the wilderness. Jenny had sent photographs that evening: a square glowing apricot in the late sun, a plate containing something she claimed was quenelle and Alison thought looked medically concerning, her left foot beside the Rhône, identifiable by the silver ring on her second toe. She was fine. Alison turned the phone facedown again.

At 2:07, the dot was in their house.

She sat up so quickly that Neil rolled onto his back. "What?" "Nothing." "Mm." His breathing settled again.

Alison enlarged the map. The dot hovered over their address. For several seconds she simply looked at it, waiting for the obvious explanation to arrive. It did not. She opened Jenny's messages.

Made it back. Hotel is actually lovely. Woman at reception has a tiny dog called Bernard. I may steal him. Night xx — sent at 11:18.

Alison typed Are you awake?, stared at the words, then deleted them. Of course Jenny wasn't awake; that was the point of hotels at two in the morning. She opened the location app again. Home.

"Neil." Nothing. "Neil." A grunt. "Where's Jenny's old phone?" This produced one eye. "What?" "Her old phone. The one with the cracked screen." Neil's eye closed again. "Drawer?" "Which drawer?" "The drawer." There were seventeen drawers downstairs. Neil referred to all of them as the drawer.

Alison got out of bed. The landing was cold beneath her feet — she had left her slippers downstairs again, although she had spent fourteen years telling Jenny not to walk barefoot through the house, because human beings apparently became immune to their own advice once they had children. Jenny's bedroom door stood open, and Alison stopped beside it.

They had not changed the room since she left for university. That wasn't sentimentality; there had simply been no reason. The pale green walls were still covered with the little pinholes left by photographs, and a stuffed rabbit sat on the windowsill with one ear folded forward, looking less beloved than exhausted. The bed was made.

Downstairs, the old phone wasn't in the kitchen drawer with the batteries, elastic bands, birthday candles, takeaway menus and three keys nobody could identify, nor was it in the sideboard, the hall table, or the basket beneath the stairs where obsolete technology went to wait for a responsible recycling decision. Alison checked the app. The dot had moved.

She enlarged the map until the outline of the house filled the screen. It appeared to be at the back now, near the kitchen. She looked up.

The kitchen was visible through the doorway. Moonlight lay across the tiles. On the draining board, two wine glasses stood upside down on a tea towel; Neil had washed them after dinner because she had cooked, an arrangement they had maintained for years despite the dishwasher standing eighteen inches away. Nothing moved.

Alison walked into the kitchen and switched on the light. The refrigerator hummed. The tap dripped once. She opened the back door and looked into the garden. The rosemary bush shivered slightly in the wind; beyond it, the lawn was silver with dew, and Jenny's bicycle still leaned against the shed because she had refused to take it to university on the grounds that Bristol contained hills designed by sadists. Alison locked the door, then checked that she'd locked it, and smiled despite herself.

There you are.

This was how it started, presumably. First you checked your daughter's location twice at two in the morning. Then you checked locks you had just locked. By Christmas you were standing in the garden wearing a colander to prevent satellites reading your thoughts.

She made tea. While the kettle boiled, she opened the app again. The dot was upstairs. Alison's finger remained on the screen. A little pulse radiated from the blue circle. Once. Twice.

Upstairs.

She heard something. Not footsteps. Something lighter — a soft knock, followed by another.

Alison put down the phone. The sound came again from above her. For a moment she was aware of every familiar thing in the kitchen: the warm kettle beneath her palm, the smell of yesterday's coffee grounds, the chip in the blue sugar bowl Jenny had made at school and insisted was intentional, her own dressing gown tied too tightly around her waist. Then she went upstairs.

Neil was asleep. The bathroom was empty. Jenny's bedroom door was closed.

Alison stood on the landing. She was certain it had been open. Almost certain. At two-thirty in the morning, she no longer trusted the distinction.

She touched the handle. "Jenny?" The name escaped before she could stop it. Nothing answered.

Alison opened the door.

The room was empty. Of course it was. A branch tapped softly against the window. She laughed once under her breath. "Idiot."

She crossed the room and drew the curtain aside. The branch of the neighbour's apple tree had grown farther than she realised. In daylight she would ask Neil to cut it back.

On Jenny's desk sat a mug full of pens, two dried-out highlighters and a bottle of perfume with perhaps half an inch left in the bottom. Alison picked it up. She had bought it for Jenny's seventeenth birthday after three visits to three different shops, because Jenny had described the scent she wanted as "clean, but not soap clean, and a bit green." At the time, Alison had thought this an absurd specification. Now she could have recognised it in a railway station. She put the bottle down.

Her phone vibrated. The blue dot was in the room with her.

Alison looked at the bed, then under it, which was so ridiculous she nearly laughed again. A cardboard box had been pushed against the wall. She crouched and pulled it out. Inside were school exercise books, a pair of ballet shoes Jenny had worn for approximately six weeks at the age of nine, several cables, and the yellow plastic hairbrush she had once refused to go on holiday without. At the bottom lay a phone. Cracked screen.

Alison exhaled. "Oh, for God's sake." She pressed the button. Nothing. Dead.

She sat back on her heels, holding it. There would be some technical explanation — an old device attached to Jenny's account, location lag, Wi-Fi, satellites behaving badly. Neil would know, or pretend to; in the morning he would say something involving servers, and she would stop listening halfway through while still being grateful.

She put the phone beside her. Underneath it was a photograph: Jenny at perhaps eight years old, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter in a red swimsuit, eating toast, her hair wet, jam on her chin.

Alison remembered the day. They had put the paddling pool in the garden. Jenny had stayed in until her lips went blue and denied being cold. Neil had burned sausages. A wasp had drowned in Alison's wine. Nothing else had happened.

When Jenny was small, Alison had checked everything — bathwater with her wrist, bedroom windows, car-seat straps, temperatures by pressing her lips against a forehead. Later it had been schoolbags, train times, whether there was enough money on the emergency card Jenny claimed never to use. Each check had once had a purpose. The purpose had gone; the checking hadn't.

Her phone vibrated. A message.

why are you awake

Alison looked at the time. 2:46. She typed: Couldn't sleep.

The reply came after half a minute. me neither.

Alison stared at it. She almost typed Why? Her thumb rested above the keyboard. Everything okay?

This time the dots appeared for long enough that she expected a paragraph. Then: yes. Nothing else.

Alison looked at Jenny's photograph. The red swimsuit had white daisies on it. She had forgotten that.

A moment later another message arrived. You? Alison glanced at the old phone beside her, then at the dark window. Yes. She put the phone down.

night mum x

Night love.

No further message came.

Alison stayed on the carpet. The branch touched the window again.

Tap. Tap.

She put the old phone back in the box but kept the photograph.

On the landing, Neil was standing in the bedroom doorway, hair flattened on one side. "You found it." "The phone?" He nodded. "How did you know?" Neil rubbed his face. "You've been checking that app since she left." "I have not." He looked at her. "Not constantly." "Of course not."

Alison held up the old phone. "It was showing her here."

Neil glanced at it. "Probably cached. Or synced."

"Those are both words."

"I can invent more if you like."

"That won't be necessary."

He touched her shoulder as he passed her and went back to bed.

Alison remained on the landing. "Neil?" He turned. "Did you ever check where she was?"

"No." The answer came too quickly. She looked at him.

Neil rested one hand on the doorframe. "Once."

"When?"

"Freshers' week."

"Once?"

A pause. "Possibly twice."

She smiled. "Good night."

"Good night."

•

In the morning, Alison found the secateurs in the drawer. Neil was at the kitchen table reading the news when she carried them toward the back door.

"What are you doing?"

"The apple tree."

"At eight in the morning?"

"It's been tapping against Jenny's window."

He looked toward the ceiling. "You know she doesn't sleep there anymore."

Alison stopped. "Yes."

Neil went back to his coffee. She put the secateurs on the counter.

After breakfast she went upstairs. Jenny's room looked smaller in daylight. The green paint was faded where posters had once kept the sun away. Dust had gathered along the edge of the skirting board. The bottle of perfume stood on the desk beside the photograph Alison had propped against it. The branch rested against the outside of the window.

Her phone was in her dressing-gown pocket. She had not opened the location app since the night before.

Alison unlatched the window. Cold air moved into the room, carrying the smell of wet leaves and somebody's chimney smoke. The branch slipped a few inches inside, leaves trembling against the curtain. She pushed it gently away.

Clean, but not soap clean, and a bit green.

She thought of the message.

me neither

She had not asked why. Her hand moved toward her pocket, then stopped.

Outside, a blackbird landed on the branch and tilted its head toward the open window. Somewhere downstairs, Neil put the kettle on.