Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult Page B

unfamiliar car pulls in front of me. Eric leans out the window, still holding the phone to his ear. “Want to hang up now?” he asks, and he smiles.
He gets out of the car, and I fall into his arms, the first place all day that feels familiar. “How's Soph?” he asks.
“Sleeping already.” I follow him as he starts into the trailer to find her. “Did you see him?”
Eric doesn't have to ask who I'm talking about. “I tried. But the Madison Street Jail won't let me in without a Bar card.”
“What's that?”
“A little piece of paper that doesn't exist in New Hampshire, which says I'm in good standing with the state Bar association.” Eric stops dead in the entryway, staring at the pink couch and the cotton candy wallpaper. “Jesus Christ, we're living inside a Hubba Bubba bubble.”
“I was thinking more like the Barbie Winnebago,” I say. “What about me?”
“What about you?”
“Would they let me in to see him?”
On Eric's face, I see a play of responses: his reluctance to let go of me, now that we're both here; his fear of what I might find; his understanding that I need my father, right now, more than I need him. “Yes,” he says. “I think they would.” I don't know why it's called “getting lost.” Even when you turn down the wrong street, when you find yourself at the dead end of a chain-link fence or a road that turns to sand, you are somewhere. It just isn't where you expected to be. Twice, I pass exits on the highway for Downtown Phoenix and have to turn around. Three times, I stop at a gas station to ask for directions. How hard can it be to find a jail?
When I finally arrive, I am surprised by how ordinary it is on the inside: the serviceable tile and banks of plastic chairs. This could be any state agency. I wonder if there are visiting hours I should have called for in advance. But there are other people in the lobby area–lanky black boys wearing baggy pants, Native women with tears still drying on their cheeks, an old man in a wheelchair with a toddler riding on his lap. I follow the lead of everyone else, taking a form from a stack on a table. They are simple questions, or would be for anyone not in my situation: name, address, DOB; relationship to the inmate; inmate's name. I take a pen out of my pocket and start to fill it out. Delia Hopkins, I write, and on second thought, cross it out. Bethany Matthews.
After I finish, I stand in line, trying to pretend it is any other familiar queue: the line at the grocery store; the line of parents waiting in their cars to pick up children after school; the wait to sit on the lap of a mall Santa Claus. When it is my turn, the officer looks at me. “First time?”
I nod. Is it that obvious?
“I need your ID, too.” He does a double-take at my New Hampshire license, but enters the information into his computer. “Well,” he says after a moment of watching the screen, “you're clear.”
“Of what?”
“Outstanding warrants for arrest.” He hands me a visitation pass. “You want to head to that door on the left.”
I am told to pick any free locker behind me and put all my personal belongings inside. Then comes a metal detector and an elevator ride, and when the doors open, I realize where they have been hiding this jail. It is large and gray, intimidating. There are echoes: steel striking steel; a man screaming; an intercom. An inmate holding a washcloth up to his eye walks by in the company of two officers, who step into the elevator we vacate. More officers sit inside a glass booth, monitoring our progress as we are led to the visiting room.
Inside are four booths, each divided by a line of reinforced glass, a telephone intercom on each side. Round metal stools are bolted to the floor, evenly spaced like the spruces at a Christmas tree farm. There are other people waiting here, too: a woman in a burka, a teenager with an angry scar across his cheek, and a Hispanic man whispering a rosary.
My father is the last prisoner to be brought