Finding Abbey Road by Kevin Emerson Page A

. . I feel like we can defend our decision to help her out, but the reality is that we harbored her for four months. If Melanie decided to come after us, she’d have a pretty good case.”
    â€œExcept for the part where she’s not a responsible parent and she hit her kid,” says Caleb.
    I think about the real story that Val told me: the fight she had with Melanie on Christmas Eve and how technically Val hit her first.
    More secrets that only I know.
    â€œBut we can’t really prove she’s irresponsible,” says Charity. “Can we?”
    â€œTheir house is a mess,” I offer. “There’s evidence of drug use everywhere.”
    â€œBut they’d clean that up before any lawyers or police could find it,” says Randy. “Maybe in time the social worker would figure it out. And ultimately, Val only has to make it another year until she’s eighteen.”
    â€œBut it’s not fair,” says Caleb. “We haven’t just been harboring her, we’ve been helping her. Doesn’t it matter that she’s getting her GED and pursuing emancipation? She needs us if she’s going to finish all that. Plus, it’s not like she’s really going to go home. If we turn her in, she’s either going to run again or self-destruct.”
    â€œI know,” says Charity.
    â€œCan we talk to Melanie?” I wonder aloud. “What if you told her all this?”
    Charity shakes her head. “I tried.”
    â€œYou did?” says Caleb. “When?”
    â€œOver the weekend. I called her after you told me Val had run again. Let’s just say it didn’t go well. I barely got past ‘hello’ before she started cursing me out. My call is probably what led her to go to the police. That woman . . .”
    As we talk, I have this strange sensation, like there is a ghost at the table. A dark space missing from all of this . . .
    It’s Eli.
    Missing not just from his son’s life, but from his daughter’s, too. His family. Except he’s not a ghost. He’s flesh andblood and hiding out in another world, and no matter what his legal issues would be, he’s leaving his children without a parent. Val needs a dad. Especially with a mom like Melanie. She needs him around even more than Caleb does. Even just to have an opinion about what she should do. To be someone for her.
    All of us are picking up the slack for Eli White.
    And it’s not fair.
    The table has gotten quiet.
    â€œYou texted before,” Randy finally says. “You wanted to talk to us about something?”
    Caleb glances at me, and I try to tell him telepathically what I now realize we need to do. Luckily, he seems to be thinking the same thing. “It’s nothing,” he says. “We were going to ask you guys what you thought about the record label stuff . . . but it doesn’t matter right now with all this going on.”
    â€œAre you still thinking Candy Shell?” Randy asks. “Didn’t they want an answer today?”
    â€œWe were,” I say. “And they do, but . . . we’re not sure if we can do it without Val.” That might not be the whole truth, but it is some small part of it. “We’ll ask them for an extension.”
    I can feel the secret of Eli nearly bursting out of us, but we hold it in. We can’t tell them, especially not now.
    We have a short, hollow conversation about the record label options. The Candy Shell versus Jet City Recordsdebate was the biggest thing in Dangerheart’s world not much more than a week ago, but that now feels like something distant and barely visible.
    Caleb says he’s going to drive me home. We walk out, and I try to smile as I say good-bye, to fight the feeling that walls are closing in tighter all around us, that there’s barely any room left to breathe.
    3:42 p.m.
    We are silent until we’re in the car and around the corner.
    â€œDid we do the