The Missing Place by Sophie Littlefield

the prime of his life—her mind went to the picture of Paul on her refrigerator at home, her favorite, in which he was holding up a plastic fish in a souvenir shop in Cozumel, pretending he’d caught it.
    She forced the image out of her mind.
    â€œMa’am,” Jennie said quietly. “What you got to understand is some of the families don’t have the money for the hospital bills. And the burial. If the company ain’t going to cover it, it’s a powerful reason for them to make a deal. I’m not saying they’re happy about it. I got this friend from school, her boyfriend got his hand crushed last year, he can’t work now. She told him to sue, but the company lawyers sat him down and laid out how if he took them to court they were going to get this whole team from Minneapolis to fight it, and even if he eventually won they’d make sure it took years. And they got a baby coming. So he took the settlement. And it was a lot of money, almost two hundred thousand dollars. They’re building a house south of town.”
    â€œBut—” Colleen did the calculation—a few hundred thousand dollars was no compensation for the years ahead that the boy wouldn’t be able to earn. She didn’t know what to say. She settled for, “I’m very sorry for your friend’s boyfriend.” It hardly seemed adequate.
    â€œMrs. Mitchell, can I ask you something?”
    â€œYes, of course.”
    Jennie took a breath and looked down. “Did your son have some sort of like . . . problems?”
    Colleen froze. The habit of years, the defensiveness, surged up instantly. He’s just an active boy, just like all the other boys —the old chant, the one she recited in her mind like a mantra since preschool, echoed in her brain. This was it, the thing they spent all the money on, making sure he could pass for just like everyone else. Money and a raft of tutors and coaches were what allowed him to get into the college prep track and then—miracle of miracles—Syracuse. His success was proof it had worked. No teacher had sent home notes with the names of specialists in the last few years; Paul hadn’t returned home despondent over teasing since before puberty. But paradoxically, the more successful the ruse became, the more insistent the voice: Please just make him like all the other kids, don’t let them notice.
    â€œCan you be more specific?” she asked faintly, stalling for time, trying to figure out where the greater betrayal lay—telling his secrets or letting even the tiniest sliver of a clue slip through her fingers.
    â€œI’m sorry, I don’t mean anything by it, but did he like to gamble? Like did he have a gambling problem ?”
    â€œWhat? Oh, Lord, no,” Colleen said, her relief so great she lost her composure. “I mean, he’s never gambled, that I know of. Maybe a few slots in the Las Vegas airport.”
    â€œOh. Because why I ask is, there’s been a few guys that get hooked on the casino up on the reservation. It sounds crazy, but they’ll go up there and run through their whole check and keep going. I just thought, I don’t know. If he’d got in trouble that way. Him or Fly.”
    â€œFly?”
    â€œI mean Taylor. Sorry. It’s these nicknames they give each other.” She smiled sheepishly and shrugged.
    â€œJennie, why did they call my son Whale?”
    â€œWell, because of those shirts,” Jennie said with what seemed like fondness. “With the little whale on them? Nobody had ever seen those before. Especially that one he had? It was yellow and blue, I think.”
    Colleen got it. The shirts she bought at the preppy little shop downtown, the one that the local kids were so crazy about. They were way too expensive, seventy-five dollars for a polo shirt, but Colleen had always felt it was well worth it to buy the trappings that would help Paul fit in. The