The Lost & Found by Katrina Leno Page A

“So—what’s your plan? If you decided to go, I mean.”
    I thought for a minute and then said, “‘Hi. My mom says you’re my father. Will you agree to a paternity test?’”
    â€œYour approach could use a little work. But I’m in if you’re in.”
    Arrow stood up. She reached for my hand and helped me to my feet.
    â€œThanks,” I said.
    â€œIt’s not like we have anything else to do,” Arrow said. She was right. Our plans for the summer included binge-watching old television shows and learning how to sew.
    â€œI’m thinking about it.”
    â€œWhere’d the handkerchief go?”
    I’d been holding it in my hand.
    I
just
had it.
    But the handkerchief was gone.
    Everything I touched was disappearing.

TEN
Louis
    I got Nib’s next message sitting in Sally’s parking lot, working up the courage to leave the air-conditioned car for the hot walk to the entrance.
    Bucky, I know I’ve told you before that I lose things, but I’m worried it’s getting worse. I lost the letters my mother wrote to me and a picture of her I took from my aunt’s photo album. I lost a handkerchief from a boy named Hank Whitney who runs track with my cousin. And maybe that’s part of the reason I want to go to Austin? I mean, I haven’t decided. But what if Wallace Green is myfather? Then maybe I would have found something pretty big. —Nib
    It was getting worse for me too. It had been getting worse since I was eight years old.
    It was little things, mostly. Like my parents would ask me to make a delivery, and they would load up the back of my car with swatches of fabric or reams of lace or buckets of buttons. They would count everything and I would count everything because at least two people had to count everything to make sure it was right. That was my mom’s policy. And then they would put it in my car and I would drive it to the client’s office, and when I got there, inevitably, something was missing.
    My mother had accused me once of selling it on the side for drugs. I couldn’t even properly defend myself against her allegations because I was laughing too hard imagining me bringing a yard of tulle to the corner and exchanging it for an ounce of weed. Apparently the drug dealers in her imagination moonlighted as seamstresses.
    I wasn’t selling it, of course. I had no idea what happened to it. It was there and then it wasn’t.
    It wasn’t just fabric. Last school year, I lost my history textbook three times. After that, Mr. Steinbeck would only let me use his spare book in class. I had to borrow Willa’s to do any homework (she didn’t mind because, like I said, she put her textbooks in a pile in her room at the beginning ofthe school year and there they stayed, untouched, till June).
    Socks. Pens. Tennis balls. T-shirts.
    It had been happening since I was a little kid.
    Packs of gum. Sunglasses. My wallet. My car keys. Cups of coffee.
    Two days after Willa got her new legs, I went to Sally’s by myself to pick up grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Willa was at the store, my father was in Dubai, and my mother was at a client meeting in Marina del Rey. I wasn’t supposed to leave Willa in the store by herself because it was a big store and if we got a rush, she wouldn’t be able to help everyone. (This had nothing to do with her legs and everything to do with how needy our customers could be.) But it had been slow all day and we were starving. Mom was supposed to bring back pizza, but her meeting was running hours over because some wedding shop wanted a ridiculous amount of lace, I don’t know. She sent me a text full of dollar-sign emojis and then a pizza and then a broken heart and then a little yellow face, crying. My mom was surprisingly well versed in emoji speak. I went to Sally’s to get food. Willa had called ahead so it would be ready when I got there.
    Benson was manning