The Leaving

Scarlett visits Dr. Sashor. He tells her that her memories might be present, but her brain cannot retrieve them. He also suggests that because of “source errors,” the returned abductees will not be able to help the police find Max—the “memories” coming back to them may come from news or media, not their lived experiences. As if to prove his point, Scarlett mentions the school shooting that happened before her disappearance, then realizes she heard about it after she returned.

Lucas reads The Leaving. Protagonist Frank Mamet runs away with his son before the boy can be sent to The Leaving, where his unhappy memories will be supplanted by happy false memories. Frank joins a commune of like-minded folks, but when he returns home to rescue his wife and daughter, he finds his wife dead. He tries to kill his daughter’s caretaker and is caught and imprisoned. His daughter is sent to The Leaving. Frank hopes his son continues to fight the system.

In his father’s email account, Lucas finds correspondence with the author’s son. The son conceded that there may be a connection to the abduction, maybe a fan of the book, but when Lucas’s father asked for fan addresses, the son never replied. Lucas tries to email the son, but it bounces back. A Wikipedia entry, while sparse, mentions that Daniel Orlean lives in Tarpon Springs, a city up the coast.

At her backyard pool, Avery brainstorms with Emma and Sam about who might have faked the note from Max. When Sam leaves, Avery admits to Emma that she has a crush on Lucas. Later, Avery orders a copy of The Leaving, intent on figuring out how it is connected to the mystery. She imagines her heart flipping when she thinks of Lucas; specifically, she dreams how it rolls “softly into the canal where manatees sometimes came to stay warm” (163).

Scarlett attempts to trim several inches from her hair, then has Tamara help. Lucas arrives and tells Scarlett about the book. Tamara does not recall Detective Chambers or Lucas’s father ever mentioning it. Scarlett agrees to go to Tamara’s friends’ meeting for alien abduction survivors if she allows Scarlett to drive to Tarpon Springs. Lucas asks Scarlett to drive him to buy a camera first.

Lucas looks through the viewfinder of a model camera; the sales clerk calls him a “shutterbug,” saying most novices use the screen instead. He buys the camera just as the clerk recognizes him and tells him no one believes him about not recalling anything. Reporters surround Scarlett in Tamara’s car. Lucas and Scarlett escape.

Avery admits to Emma that she is frustrated, wanting to be more directly involved with finding answers about her brother. She also admits she does not think Max will be found alive. She asks Emma if that is wrong, and Emma says it would be wrong only if Avery did not want him to be found alive; when Avery says nothing, Emma prompts her to say she wants Max back.

At the meeting, Scarlett listens to others’ alien abduction stories; they try to help Scarlett see that she too might have been taken by aliens. Back home, Scarlett asks why she and Tamara would have been likely candidates for an abduction; Tamara claims she and the other mothers and fathers were lousy parents, so they deserved to have their children taken away. When Scarlett uses the bathroom, she finally passes the object that the MRI saw; she uses rubber gloves, soap, and disinfectant to clean it. It is a penny from a stretching machine that reads “Manatee Viewing Center: Anchor Beach” (189).

Lucas uses the camera confidently. When Scarlett picks him up for their trip to Tarpon Springs, she shows him the penny and says they must visit that beach too. In Tarpon Springs, a bartender recognizes the name Daniel Orlean.

Avery goes with Sam to get his suit for his cousin’s wedding. She spends the outing fantasizing about dating and kissing Lucas. Arriving home, she finds another note signed with Max’s name in the mailbox that reads, “Whatever you do, do not trust them!—Max” (203).

Leaving the bar, both Scarlett and Lucas automatically step over the bottom step, then wonder why they might be doing that. They learned from the bartender that Daniel Orlean is in a nursing home nearby, and that the author’s son died of a brain tumor. Scarlett and Lucas hold hands, and when it begins to rain, Scarlett remembers running and panting with Lucas.

In the car, Lucas takes a photo of Scarlett and says handling the camera feels familiar to him. He tells Scarlett about the gun, and they theorize whether they may have been plotting to escape. Lucas wonders if the penny and his self-applied tattoo were intended as clues to prompt their future selves to remember things.

Detective Chambers arrives at Avery’s house to investigate the notes. He suggests that peers might be jealous enough of Avery’s nice house and attractive appearance to hurt her with fabricated messages. He asks if Max was present at the school on the day of the shooting, and Avery’s parents confirm that he was there for the open house.

At the nursing home, Scarlett and Lucas claim to be friends of the Orlean family. When a nurse shows them to Daniel Orlean, they realize he has Alzheimer’s disease and cannot recall anything about the book. Lucas asks him to read it and plans to visit again soon. Orlean mentions people from a lab who are trying to help him remember.

Scarlett meets a woman staying at the home because she cannot keep short-term memories. A nurse tells Scarlett the staff calls the woman “Goldie” because of an old theory that a goldfish has a three-second memory. Scarlett tells the nurse that the name is rude. She becomes very anxious as she reflects on how a person’s identity is made up of memories and leaves quickly.

Lucas and Scarlett arrive at the manatee center, but it is closed because it is spring; manatees only migrate there in winter. They walk out on a narrow pier, and Lucas grows increasingly convinced he loved Scarlett before. On their way back to the parking lot, a guard in a booth near the manatee center gate says, “Haven’t seen you two in a while” (230).

At Sam’s cousin’s wedding, Avery is annoyed by everything, even the bride. She feels upset and must fake her way through polite reactions when Sam’s relatives call them a cute couple.

Scarlett peppers the guard with questions about where she and Lucas walked from in the past and if they were ever with anyone else. The guard does not know, but he tells them that they carved their initials on the pier once and that Scarlett always wore a long, vintage-style quilted coat. She runs to find their initials, but the letters have been stabbed with a sharp tool. On the way home, they pull off into a parking lot and kiss passionately, remembering they were in love. Scarlett believes she can recall sewing the quilted coat.

Lucas drives back to Fort Myers while Scarlett calls Detective Chambers to update him. Chambers makes plans to talk to the guard. Scarlett refuses to promise that they will not continue to investigate on their own. After Scarlett drops him at home, Lucas updates Ryan and Miranda; he is slightly annoyed that “Miranda was always there” (243). He realizes he should also update Avery and asks Ryan where she lives.

Avery sees Lucas approaching as Sam drops her off after the wedding. Lucas tells her that David Orlean cannot recall the book because he has Alzheimer’s disease. He also admits that he thinks he and Scarlett were or are a couple. The news is painful, but Avery is not surprised. She mentions Chambers’s question about Max being present on the day of the school shooting. Lucas says he was there, too.

Scarlett goes into Tamara’s room. Tamara immediately asks her if she passed the “alien probe” yet. Scarlett wants to know why Tamara is so fixated on aliens, and her mother admits she does not want it to be a human who committed the terrible crime. Scarlett keeps the stretched penny a secret and instead asks if Tamara sews; her mother reveals she used to sew and had been teaching Scarlet before she disappeared.