The Opposite of Hallelujah

by Anna Jarzab

  “Yeah, well, maybe they should,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Reb allowed.

  The truth was that I had never given God much consideration, and I guess when I had, I’d mostly thought about him as some kind of robber bridegroom straight out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales who stole young women away from their homes. My religious upbringing, for all its bells and whistles—the Catholic school education of my childhood, the floofy white dress I’d worn to my First Communion, the five rosaries I’d gotten from my grandmother over the years, all hidden away in the bottom of my jewelry box—wasn’t very deep or particularly insightful. My parents (well, my mother—my father was always curiously evasive of the subject) mostly spoke of God when they were angry with me. “God can hear you,” when my mouth was especially sharp or filthy, or “God says, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ ” when I was being disobedient. And of course there was Christmas, with the blown-glass nativity scene my mother treasured, despite Joseph’s having long since lost one of his hands and our often misplacing the baby Jesus. But other than that, after Hannah left, God stayed up in the attic, like the toys and old clothes I’d outgrown that my mother couldn’t bring herself to part with.

  I crept quietly into the house the same way I’d gone out. It was around four o’clock, and I was sure I’d gotten away with it, but when I turned on the light in my room, my dad was sitting in my tufted armchair, dozing lightly. I yelped when I noticed him. He opened his eyes and lifted his head slowly, a deep frown on his face.

  “Where were you?” he asked. He was weirdly calm, and he looked tired. Was he up because he was waiting for me, or because he couldn’t sleep?

  “Erin’s,” I said. “Like I told you.”

  “Did you forget the part where your mother and I said you couldn’t go? I thought you said you had homework to do.”

  “I worked on it for a while,” I said. It wasn’t untrue; between dinner and saying good night, I’d gotten fifty pages of Beloved read for AP English. “I’m almost done.”

  “I see.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you drunk?”

  I’d sobered up a little on the way home, so I wasn’t totally hammered or anything, but even when I was tipsy, it was hard to stop myself from swaying. “No.”

  “You’re lying.”

  There wasn’t much I could say to that. “I’m sorry,” I told him.

  “No, you’re not,” he said with a sigh.

  I stared at the floor. “Are you going to tell Mom?”

  “Not this time.” He got up and walked over to me. “Look at me, Carolina.”

  I met his eyes and saw the disappointment in them. It never failed to make me feel small. I bet he never looked at Hannah that way. Hannah was perfect. It was a lot to live up to, and I didn’t even want to be perfect; I wanted to be me. But somehow, with St. Hannah always hanging over my head, that didn’t seem like enough.

  “Your mom’s very stressed out about Hannah,” he said. “The last thing I’m going to do is give her an ulcer by telling her about this. But I’m watching you, kid. No more sneaking out, no more talking back to us, no more being mean about Hannah. You’re going to treat everybody in this house with the love and respect they deserve, or so help me, you will regret it.”

  “Fine,” I said, turning away. “Threatening your daughter. Super-great parenting, Dad.” I gave him a very sarcastic thumbs-up.

  “It’s not a threat, Caro,” Dad said. “It’s a promise.”

  3

  Dad knocked on my door early the next morning.

  “Get up,” he commanded, poking his head in.

  I hid under the covers and groaned. It was only eight, on a weekend, in the summer. I refused on principle to rise before ten.

  Dad yanked the covers all the way off. “Get up,” he repeated. “Your mom’s making breakfast.”

  “Hannah’s not even here yet,” I whined, burying my face in a pillow.

  “This is a special day. Mom feels like making breakfast. Remember what I said last night—or were you too drunk?”

  “Fine!” I shouted. “I’ll be out in a second.”

  He came back fifteen minutes later to find me curled up, clutching one of my pillows and snoring lightly.

  “Caro, I swear, if you’re not up and out of that bed in two seconds flat—”

  “Okay!”

  “I’m not leaving until I see you walk out this door,” Dad said, standing aside so that I could pass. I rolled out of bed and got to my feet, glaring at him as I stepped into the hallway and trudged to the kitchen.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Mom said, abnormally chipper.

  “Morning,” I grumbled. “Pancakes?”

  “Or French toast—what would you like?”

  “Um …” I weighed my options carefully. “French toast.”

  Mom slid two slices onto a plate and put it down in front of me. “When does Derek come home?” she asked, like she had any interest in the answer to that question. Sweet of her to try, though.

  “Today,” I said glumly. I didn’t know what I was more apprehensive about—Hannah’s arrival, or Derek’s. I just had this feeling that something was about to go horribly awry, but I couldn’t decide which was the doomed homecoming. The uncertainty sat in my stomach like a brick and refused to move, no matter how much French toast I consumed.

  “Oh, bad timing,” she said. “But you can see him tomorrow.”

  “Thanks for the permission,” I snapped. I could feel my parents’ glares at my back, but I didn’t care. They were used to this. It was how we interacted. They built the walls; I pushed against them; they pushed back. It was our family dynamic. We loved each other, the three of us, and I never said anything that was too bad to be instantaneously forgiven (aside from that one time). But now that Hannah was coming home, they were suddenly sensitive.

  “Don’t talk to your mother like that,” Dad said from the other side of the Trib.

  “Like what?” I slammed my fork down on the table and pushed my plate away. “Like she’s ruining my life?” I knew how melodramatic it sounded, what a ridiculous thing it was to say, but that ugly, gnawing fear was working away at my insides. All this sudden change was giving me emotional whiplash.

  “Are you crazy?” Dad tossed the paper to the side and leaned in at me on his elbows. “Do you hear yourself?”

  I took in a deep, agitated breath. My parents were both staring at me, probably wondering what mouth of hell this demon they called their daughter had risen from. I knew I was being selfish, but I was feeling selfish. I didn’t want to go pick Hannah up in Chicago that afternoon; I wanted to see my boyfriend, who I’d talked to only through pen and paper and a few rushed pay phone calls for three months. At least Derek wrote me. I hadn’t gotten a personal letter from Hannah, like, ever. She wrote one to all three of us every Christmas, and they weren’t very interesting, anyway, just a few paragraphs about how she was full of the Spirit and happy in the Lord. Barf. I wrote her every month for two years, told her about my mean fourth-grade teacher and my first crush and getting my ears pierced, before I stopped bothering.

  “Have it your way. But just because you’re forcing me to go with you doesn’t mean I’m going to be happy to see her, so you can take your complete, perfect family fantasy and shove it.” I got up from the table so fast my chair screeched across the tile, and ran off to my room.

  I flopped onto my bed and began to sob. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks and my head began to throb. It wasn’t fair; it wasn’t right. Why couldn’t she do this two years from now, when I would be in college and wouldn’t have to take orders from anybody?

  Eventually I stopped crying and went to the bathroom to attend to the aftermath. I rinsed my red, splotchy face off with cold water and patted it dry with one of my mother’s soft cotton towels. I took a couple of aspirin for my headache, massaged my temples, brushed my hair. I got dressed and took a few deep, cleansing breaths. Reb was really into yoga, and she was always babbling about how breathing long
and slow, focusing on nothing but emptiness and clarity, released tension and quieted the mind. It didn’t totally work, but it did calm me down a little bit, enough to make me feel that I could go back into the kitchen, face my parents, and submit to my punishment.

  “Are you done?” Mom asked as I wobbled into the room. Dad just lifted his eyebrows expectantly.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Tantrum’s over?” Dad confirmed.

  “Pretty much,” I told him, slumping back in my seat. The kitchen table sat four—six with the extension, which Dad had put in the night before. “Who’s coming to dinner?”

  “Nobody,” Mom said. “I just thought it’d be nice, now that Hannah’s going to be home, if we had a little bit of elbow room.”

  “We’re leaving at one,” Dad said. “Be ready by then. Are you finished with your summer work?” He gazed at me meaningfully.

  “No,” I said, avoiding his eyes.

  “Well, you’d better keep going,” Mom warned, as if I didn’t always complete my schoolwork, in full and on time. As if it wasn’t the only way in which I was perfect. “I thought you were going to have it done last night.”

  “I didn’t get to all of it,” I said, avoiding Dad’s stern gaze.

  “Get cracking,” she said, motioning vaguely in the direction of my room.

  “Can I at least finish my breakfast?”

  Dad reached into the pantry and tossed me a granola bar. “Here. I’ll let you know when it’s time to leave.”

  Three hours later, I was buckled into the backseat of my parents’ Acura. My stomach was wriggling; I was nervous. I’d texted Derek a little while before to see how far away from home he was, and finally got an answer—“Just got reception. Two hours away. Talk to you tonight?” I answered, “Yes! Can’t wait,” and put the phone away after Dad caught me looking at it.

  “No texts today, kiddo,” he said. “No calls. Today is about family.” My parents hated cell phones. They shared one between the two of them, “for emergencies,” and I had to really fight to get my own. My cell phone was the centerpiece of Dad’s Kids Today rant, something he liked to pull out at parties after a beer or two; he had this theory that the more we were connected, the more we separated ourselves from each other. He called it false closeness. Dad was something of an armchair philosopher.

  “I can’t even go out later tonight to see Derek?” I asked. “It’s his first night home from camp!”

  “Tomorrow,” Mom said. “That’s what I told you.”

  “Promise?”

  “No,” she told me. “I’m not promising you that. But probably, if you behave.”

  I buried my back into the seat. “All right. I’ll be good.”

  “Don’t just be good,” Dad said. “Be happy.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Then don’t even think about leaving the house tomorrow,” Mom said.

  “Fine. I’ll be happy.” I pasted a fake smile on my face. “See? Happy.”

  “Better be,” Dad muttered, pulling out of the drive and heading toward the expressway.

  As much as my parents thought they knew what to expect, I don’t think any of us did. There wasn’t a whole lot of parking at the train station, so Dad waited in the pickup lane and Mom dragged me inside to look for Hannah. I wasn’t sure I would recognize her; after all, so many years can change a person. But when we ascended the escalator, there she was, the tiniest of suitcases in hand, looking for all the world like a normal twenty-seven-year-old woman. Well, a normal twenty-seven-year-old woman with severe agoraphobia. In the whirling dervish of noise and people that was the Northwestern train station, Hannah appeared to be totally freaking out.

  It took me a few minutes to realize that she was wearing the same clothes she’d gone into the convent with. They were simple: long black pants, a pressed white shirt, sensible black flats. Nothing flashy, nothing … worldly. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry, not even a cross. Not that I had expected her to wear a cross. After all, she’d left the convent—I assumed she’d left God behind, as well.

  But Hannah’s clothes weren’t the first thing I noticed about her.

  “She’s so thin,” I whispered to Mom, who shushed me. But I couldn’t stop staring at her. I hadn’t seen Hannah in a long time, but I didn’t remember her looking that bony and drawn. And weirdly, her hair seemed to be a different color. In all the pictures, it was so light it was almost platinum; now it was way darker, even darker blond than mine. I’d had no idea that could happen to a person.

  “Don’t say a word,” Mom warned me.

  Hannah relaxed slightly when she saw us. Her expression, terrified in the presence of so many people, changed as we walked toward her. For a minute I thought she’d drop her suitcase and run to us, arms open, but she didn’t. She let us get right up to her, smiled finally, and then said, “It’s so good to see you.”

  If I had been a cat, my back would’ve gone up. She sounded like a TV news anchor greeting her audience. Mom reached out and put her arms around Hannah, but I stopped short. Hannah stepped easily into the hug, and she closed her eyes, still smiling.

  When they finally let go, Hannah stood there, waiting for me to embrace her. I didn’t even try, so she stepped forward and I felt Mom’s hand on the small of my back. I leaned into her hug; it was gentle but not particularly familiar. She smelled foreign, like soap and train. Her shoulder blades were sharp beneath my fingers, and for a second I felt like I was falling. How had this happened? I pulled back and gave her my biggest smile, because I knew I should.

  “You’re so tall,” Hannah said.

  “I know,” I said. “I … grew.”

  “It’s been a long time.” Hannah brushed a thick strand of hair out of my eyes and looked into them. She seemed to be searching for something, but I couldn’t guess at what. I stared back, struck by this sudden thought: Our eyes are the same color. I knew that already, of course. I’d seen pictures. But it was different in the flesh.

  “Okay,” Mom said, a little too loudly. “Let’s get going, Dad’s waiting with the car.” She picked up Hannah’s bag and charged into the crowd. I shrugged at Hannah, who looked a little lost without her sole possession, and marched after Mom, Hannah trailing behind me.

  Back in the car, Dad wore a toothy grin. “Hey there, Goosie,” he said, reaching past his headrest to grasp Hannah’s hand. She let him, grinning back. They had the same smile. I’d never noticed that before. I’d also never known Dad to call Hannah “Goosie”; I guessed it was a nickname from a long time ago, maybe even a time before me.

  “Hello, Dad,” she said. She was sitting upright and stiff; when Dad let go of her hand, she let it drop softly to her lap. “How long have you been waiting?”

  “Oh, not very,” he told her. “Everybody buckled up?” We nodded. “Then let’s get out of here.”

  I looked out the window as we sped through the city. The expressway flung us out into the suburbs, where brick buildings gave way to identical houses, and trees as green as jewels lined the quiet streets. I kept checking my phone for a text or a missed call from Derek, but there was never anything. Maybe he hadn’t gotten home yet, I reasoned. Maybe he was tired and took a nap. At least I wasn’t going to have to make excuses or tell him about Hannah. The thought of explaining the situation to anyone was exhausting, and I planned to put it off as long as possible.

  “Are you waiting for a call?” Hannah asked, gesturing at my cell phone, which I was gripping so tightly my knuckles were whitening.

  Dad glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “What did I tell you about that phone, Caro?”

  I shrugged, letting go of it; it fell into my lap. “My boyfriend gets home from camp today. He said he’d call.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.” She sounded surprised, although I couldn’t tell if it was because I had a boyfriend or because nobody had told her. For the first time it occurred to me that I didn’t know exactly how much, or what, my parents chose to
share about me in letters, or during their annual visits with Hannah. Maybe I wasn’t the only one going in blind. Maybe I was just as big a mystery to Hannah as she was to me.

  “Yeah, I do,” I said.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Derek,” I told her. “We’ve been going out for about four months.”

  “How long has he been at camp?”

  “About two of those,” I answered. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, and now I probably won’t get a chance until tomorrow.”

  I didn’t even mean it like she was the reason, though of course she was, but Hannah stared down at her hands and I felt guilty, then silly for feeling guilty. Mom turned around in her seat and eyeballed me dangerously, which didn’t help.

  “You’ll live,” she said, a note of warning in her voice.

  “That reminds me. Mom, can I borrow the car tomorrow? Reb invited me over to use the pool.” I didn’t really have any plans with Reb, but I was laying the groundwork for a quick escape in case I needed one.

  “I was going to take Hannah shopping,” Mom said, shaking her head. Hannah looked up shyly at her name. “I’ll drop you off, though.”

  “That’s almost the same thing,” I grumbled.

  “Caro,” Dad said.

  “That’s fine,” I told Mom. She raised her eyebrows but nodded and turned back around, so that was the end of it.

  “When does school start?” Hannah asked.

  “Monday,” I told her, staring at the back of my dad’s headrest and flipping my cell phone over and over in my hands, willing it to ring but knowing it wouldn’t.

  “Are you excited?”

  “For junior year? Not really,” I said. “It’s the hardest year. It counts the most for getting into college. At least, that’s what my teachers keep saying. And the academic Nazis up there.” I jerked a thumb at the front seat.

  Hannah laughed, a soft, staccato sound, like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond. Erin once told me my laugh sounded like a flock of geese honking, but I was pretty sure she was just trying to be funny. “Yes, I remember junior year,” Hannah said. “Vaguely.”