No one stops me.

I know the driver is going to count heads before he pulls out of the station, so I immediately go to the bathroom and lock myself inside. I stay there until I can feel the wheels rolling, until Boone, NH, is an afterthought. Then I slip into the rear seat of the bus, the one no one ever wants because it smells like the urinal cake, and pretend to be fast asleep.

Let’s talk for just a second about the fact that my grandmother is going to ground me until I’m, oh, sixty. I left her a note, but I’ve purposely turned off my phone because I don’t really want to hear her reaction when she finds it. If she thinks that my Internet searches for my mom are ruining my life, she’s not going to be thrilled to hear that I’m stowing away on a bus, bound for Tennessee, so that I can track her in person.

I’m a little pissed at myself, actually, for not thinking to do this before. Maybe it was my father’s anger—totally out of character for a guy who spends most of his time virtually catatonic—that jogged my memory. Whatever it was, something fell into place so that I would remember Gideon, and how important he was to me and my mother. The way my father had reacted to the pebble necklace was like a jolt of electricity, lighting up neurons that had simmered quietly for years, so that banners waved and neon signs flashed in my mind: Pay attention. It’s true that even if I had remembered Gideon before now, I still wouldn’t have been able to figure out where he had gone ten years ago. But I do know somewhere he stopped along the way.

When my mother disappeared and my father’s business was revealed to be bankrupt, the elephants were sent to The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee. All you have to do is a quick Google search to read about how their board of directors—hearing about the New England sanctuary’s plight—had scrambled to find space to house the homeless animals. Accompanying the elephants was the only employee who’d been left behind: Gideon.

I didn’t know if the sanctuary had hired him to continue caring for our animals or if he had dropped the elephants off and moved on. If he had reunited with my mother. If they still held hands when they thought no one was looking.

See, that’s the other thing about people who think kids are invisible: They forget to be careful around you.

I know it’s stupid, but there was a big part of me that was hoping Gideon was there and had no idea where my mom was, in spite of the fact that this was the reason I was currently wedged on a bus with my sweatshirt hood drawn tight so no one would try to make eye contact with me, just so I could find this out. I couldn’t really handle the thought that my mother had spent the past ten years happy. I didn’t wish her dead and I didn’t wish her life to be miserable. But, I mean, shouldn’t I have been part of that equation?

Anyway, I had run through the possible scenarios in my head:

1. Gideon was working at the sanctuary and was living with my mother, who’d taken on an alias, like Mata Hari or Euphonia Lalique or something equally mysterious, so that she could remain hidden. (Note: I didn’t really want to think about what she would be hiding from. My father, the law, me—none of those were options I felt like exploring.) Gideon would recognize me at first glance, of course, and take me to my mother, who would dissolve in an implosion of joy and beg forgiveness and tell me she’d never stopped thinking of me.

2. Gideon was no longer working at the sanctuary, but given that the elephant community is a pretty small one, there was still some contact information for him in the files. I would show up on his doorstep, and my mother would answer the door, and then you can fill in the rest from scenario 1.

3. I finally found Gideon, wherever he was, but he told me he was sorry—that he had no idea what had happened to my mother. That yes, he had loved her. That yes, she had wanted to run away from my father with him. Maybe even that the death of Nevvie was somehow tied to this star-crossed love affair. But that in the long years I had spent growing up, it simply had not worked out between them, and she had left him the same way she left me.

That, of course, was the worst scenario of all. There was only one that was even more grim; it was so dark that I had let my imagination peek through a crack in its door, only to slam it shut before it spilled into every corner of my mind:

4. Through Gideon, I locate my mother. But there is no joy, no reunion, no wonder. There’s just resignation, as she sighs and says, I wish you hadn’t found me.

Like I said, I’m not even going to think about that possibility, just in case—as Serenity says—the energy sent out into the universe by a random thought can actually bring about an outcome.

I don’t think that it will take Virgil long to figure out where I’ve gone, or to come to the same conclusion I have—that Gideon is the connection to my mother, maybe the reason she ran away, maybe even the link to the accidental death that may not be an accident. And I feel a little bad about not telling Serenity where I’m headed. But then, she reads people for a living; I hope she can figure out that I have every intention of coming back.

Just not alone.

There are connections to be made in Boston, New York, and Cleveland. At each stop, I get off the bus holding my breath, certain that this is the one where I will find a cop waiting to take me home. But that would require my grandmother to report me missing, and let’s face it, she doesn’t have a great track record for that.

I keep my phone turned off because I don’t want her calling, or Virgil, or Serenity. I follow the same pattern at each bus terminal, looking for a family that might not notice me dangling from its fringe. I sleep, on and off, and play games with myself: If I see three consecutive red cars on I-95, it means my mother will be happy to see me. If I see a VW Beetle before I finish counting to 100, it means she ran away because she didn’t have a choice. If I see a hearse, it means she’s dead, and that’s why she never came back to me.