The Leaving

Lucas is in the local precinct’s jail but expects to be transferred the next day to a larger facility if Ryan cannot collect $100,000 in bail. Chambers takes him to meet with Doctor Sashor. Sashor asks about Scarlett; Lucas indicates they are not together and says he is somewhat relieved.

Sashor explains that he found a sample group of teens who were four years old when they attended the open house at the school along with the abducted children; they all witnessed the shooting and remembered it. Sashor finds it very telling that none of the five returned abductees recall the shooting, though the other witnesses indicate the five saw and experienced “awful stuff.” Lucas realizes that the motive for the abduction may have been to make the six of them forget the shooting.

Avery’s father shuts down the staffed tip line because they found the Everglades house and John Norton’s body. He says the same person keeps calling in with bizarre clues, but it is time they accept that Max will not be found. After her father leaves, Avery bags up everything in the “shrine” of Max’s little boy's bedroom and hides it in the garage.

Scarlett visits Orlean again, but nothing has surfaced in the man’s memory. She discusses the painting Christina’s World with Goldie, whom the staff is now calling by her real name, Margaret. Scarlett thinks about how a painting with her in it would be an empty, framed print. She goes to Anchor Beach and sees the initials stabbed out on the pier and wonders if she did the stabbing or Adam; she decides she is fine without romance for now. Sarah finally texts her sketched images of the house and girl. Scarlett does not recall the house but recognizes that the girl is a young version of Miranda, Ryan’s girlfriend.

Ryan gathers enough bail money from their father’s assets. Lucas insists they will not need lawyer money because they still can figure out who the guilty party is. He shares the theory that Sashor discussed; Miranda says that is “crazy,” but Lucas points out that scientists have had some luck erasing a person’s traumatic memories. When Ryan suggests hypnosis, Lucas says it only helped Kristen recall a wooden owl. He does not want to try it. Ryan gets irritated, and Lucas gets out of the car to walk home. He cannot rest until he knows who did it.

Avery listens to all the tip line recordings on her father’s computer. She can tell that the same person made many of the calls. He claims the Everglades house was not the right place, that “they will pin it” on him if he talks (368), and that the abduction was supposed to take only hours, not years. The voice also states, “They buried him in my backyard” (368). Avery plans to return to the RV.

Scarlett texts the sketch of Miranda to Lucas, but he does not answer. She drives from Anchor Beach to Ryan and Lucas’s house. Lucas is not there, but she tells Ryan about the sketch. They discover that Miranda has moved out and theorize that Miranda targeted Ryan for a fake relationship so that she could watch Lucas after he returned. Lucas left his phone in the car with Ryan and Miranda when he got out, so Scarlett believes Miranda saw her text and knows that they suspect her.

Lucas is at the RV when Avery arrives. He convinces her that he can be trusted and that he did not murder anyone. They watch old news footage and go through his father’s notes. Eventually, they arrive at the clip from the night of the abduction, when Avery, holding Woof-Woof, speaks to the cameras. Lucas tells her they can skip it, but Avery insists. She recognizes a man’s voice in the clip who, when asked for the school’s official statement, says they have high hopes the children will be “returned safely.” It is the school principal and the same voice that she heard on the tipline.

Avery explains the tipline voice to Lucas. They leave the RV to call Chambers, but Chambers arrives, having already been called by Ryan. Scarlett and Ryan explain Miranda’s role to Chambers; Avery is incensed that Ryan did not see through Miranda’s façade months ago. She reveals that the tipline voice is the school principal, and Chambers drives her home for the tipline recordings.

Scarlett studies the photos Chambers left at her house earlier. She asks Tamara why she never mentioned that Scarlett saw the shooting. Tamara tells her she hardly recalls it herself but then explains that she (Tamara) had blood on her, which scared Scarlett. Chambers also left the jacket Scarlett sewed in captivity; she discovers strange stitches in the lining in the shape of rectangles, then realizes they are a map with smokestacks and a pier. There is also a large X marking the location of the house.

Police find the house near Anchor Beach based on Scarlett’s coat map. Lucas and the others gather there. Memories return; Lucas knows the back stairs have a groaning last step to skip; he recalls running down the yard; each one knows which upstairs bedroom was theirs.

Chambers believes the principal is the tipline caller and that he interviewed kindergarten students to identify the best subjects for forgetting the shooting. He shows the group an outbuilding was a lab, but both the house and lab are wiped clean of evidence. Chambers says the group that held them had continually erased their memories and was likely experimenting for military purposes and PTSD treatment. The principal, via the tipline, also alluded to an asthma attack; Chambers theorizes that an asthma attack may have killed Max and been the reason the experiment lasted years instead of hours.

Kristen finds a journal she kept under the floorboards with the image of an owl in the grain. The journal suggests repeated erasures of memory and an escape attempt. Chambers theorizes they were caught and then let go months later when their captors could better control the outcome.

Avery goes to auditions for the school musical but decides against trying out. Her father calls her home; Chambers is there to tell them that the remains they discovered at the principal’s former home appear to be Max’s. Her mother cries, insisting that she will never get over the tragedy; Avery feels grief but also relief that it is finally over. Lucas acknowledges that Avery was the one who solved the mystery and found Max.

Kristen helps Scarlett remove the “little girl” things from her bedroom. Miranda is still missing, but the charges against Lucas have been dropped. Kristen asks rhetorically why she didn’t keep better information in the journal. She says she recalls being in love with Scarlett and angry and hurt that Scarlett liked Lucas and Adam. She has no bad feelings toward Scarlett now.

Lucas attends the school’s memorial for the shooting abductees with Ryan. He wonders whether erasing traumatic memories is a bad thing. As he watches the speakers, Miranda calls him to say they will never find her father, the man responsible. She tells Lucas the experiment had become “messy” when Max died, but her father realized he had the “opportunity to raise [them]…completely without trauma” through memory drugs (403). Miranda says Lucas was always the “fighter” who found ways to start remembering the truth. Lucas claims he will find Miranda and her father, but she says she won’t remember him.

Back in the RV, Lucas studies the photos of their recalled images. He sees a man’s face in the mirror of the carousel he rode, takes a photo of it, and zooms in.

Avery places Woof-Woof on top of the casket at Max’s funeral. Lucas comforts her. Chambers is working to identify their captor based on the image Lucas found. Avery takes Lucas on a pirate boat ride as a better way to memorialize her little brother. Lucas kisses her on the boat.

Chambers calls Scarlett after the funeral. They found the principal; he told the police that he chose the six of them because he had been close to them during the shooting and saw their fear. The principal chose them as test subjects for David Kunkel (an alias), then wanted to read The Leaving because it supposedly inspired Kunkel. The book was on his desk when he interviewed Scarlett, who must have seen the jacket copy and mentioned going “[t]o the leaving” to her mother as a result (412). Back home, Scarlett sees a dolphin in the gulf as she sits companionably with her mother.

Lucas meets Ryan for fish sandwiches on Ryan’s break. Chambers discovered that their captor’s real name was Louis Immerso, a man who claimed in science journals years before that he had successfully erased memories of abuse from his daughter Lola’s (Miranda’s) mind. Chambers intends to try to find a connection between Orlean and Immerso. Lucas and Ryan plan to move the memorial stone into place at Opus 6 and place their father’s ashes there.

Avery’s mother enters a grief management program. Lucas invites Avery to Opus 6 for the scattering of his father’s ashes, and the other abductees attend as well. Lucas gives Avery a photo of Max, Avery, and himself, a copy of the one that she burned. She is happy to be included if still on the fringe of this group. She wants to try to remember the moment and focuses on different visual images around her, knowing that the experience will likely fade.