I asked Stone as I leaned against the hood of my car in his driveway. The morning sun shone brightly from its perch just above the mountains, and I shielded my eyes as I awaited his answer. Normally, he would’ve picked me up on his motorcycle on a day like this, but school was letting out early. We had plans to go back to Oakley and continue the search for my mom. “You know I do,” he said sardonically, “but we won’t get back until late tonight. What little time I’ll have left, I need to spend studying for my finals. In fact, my dad felt the need to remind me of that right before I walked out the door.” “He just wants to make sure you graduate.” “Well, it feels a helluva lot more like he wants to control my life.” “He’ll ease up after graduation.” Stone laughed. “Yeah, just in time to start on me for college.” “Maybe we should just forget about searching for my mother. We’ve got a lot going on with final exams and graduation. We need to review Frankenstein for the May newsletter and the debut of Luke’s Book Club.”
