The Opposite of Hallelujah

by Anna Jarzab

  “Hannah, how was—” he said after her, but I cut him off. Hannah disappeared into the garage and, I assume, out into the neighborhood, though by then dark had already fallen.

  “Not now, Dad.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked Mom, who just shook her head and took off in the other direction, toward the stairs and her bedroom. A moment later we heard a door slam upstairs. Dad turned to me with an expression of utter confusion. “What did I say?”

  “Nothing,” I told him. He sat down at the table across from me and I reached over to pat his hand. He slipped his fingers through mine and squeezed.

  “You know, Caro,” Dad said, “sometimes I think that loving you and your sister is the only thing I’ve ever really known how to do. But there’s always that question—is it enough? I used to think it was, but I’m not so sure anymore.”

  I smiled at him and squeezed his hand back. “I’m going to get a glass of lemonade,” I told him. “You want one?”

  “You bet, kiddo,” he said. “Thanks a million.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  Dad went upstairs to try to talk to Mom, and I waited for Hannah in the family room, but she didn’t come back for a while and I was starting to worry. When she had been gone over an hour, I crept upstairs to see if my parents thought I should take the car and go looking for her. I was about to knock, but the sound of my mother’s sobbing made me freeze.

  “This is our fault, Evan,” she cried. I could hear my father making soft shhh sounds, probably rubbing her back.

  “Don’t say that,” he replied calmly as she hitched in a breath. “We did what we thought was best for Hannah given what we knew at the time. What other choice did we have?”

  “We should have gotten her some real help,” Mom said.

  “We did get her help,” he told her.

  “No. That grief counselor the church sent us to said she was processing everything well, but she wasn’t,” Mom insisted. “We saw it, but we didn’t want to believe it, so we let her just carry on like that for years.”

  “She was already religious before,” Dad reminded Mom. Before what? I thought, then I flashed back to the letters—Sabra. Was that really what all this was about? Mom and Dad seemed to think so. But what had happened to Sabra? And how had my sister been involved? I felt guilty for eavesdropping, especially since I knew without a doubt that if my parents knew I was hearing their conversation, they would not be having it, but I couldn’t tear myself away. Here was my chance to get some real, albeit cryptic, information about Hannah and I wasn’t just going to give that up because of a little moral ambiguity.

  “She might have gone into the convent anyway,” Dad said. Mom’s crying had abated a little; all I was hearing from her now were sniffles. She seemed to have cried herself out. “You don’t know it’s because of Sabra.”

  “I know,” she said. “A mother knows. Look what she did to herself in there. Our baby, Evan. Every time I look at her I just want to burst into tears.”

  “Me too,” he said. “Me too.”

  “And Caro!” I jumped at my name, thinking for a split second that Mom knew, in the way she knew all sorts of things it made no sense for her to know, that I was behind the door. “Caro is so confused. That’s why she’s acting out. She deserves to know the truth. We shouldn’t be keeping secrets from each other.”

  “But Hannah doesn’t want to talk about it,” Dad pointed out. “And it’s Hannah’s decision. You said so yourself. It’s her life.”

  “We’re a family,” Mom said. “We shouldn’t be lying to each other, we should be taking care of each other.”

  “That’s what we’re doing,” Dad told her gently. “It’s just not as easy as it was when they were babies.”

  It was as if someone had put a hook through my chest. I’d had no idea how hard everything was on my parents. I guessed when you were someone’s kid, you liked to believe that they had all the answers to all the problems in the world. To hear them casting about for some sort of absolution, some sort of comfort, in the face of all the obstacles they were dealing with gave me a sense of alarming insecurity.

  I heard the mechanical growl of the garage door as it opened and shut, and the sounds of my parents shuffling around in their room, probably preparing to come out of it. I sprinted down the stairs and threw myself onto the couch, spreading the pages of The Crucible and pretending to read it as Hannah walked into the family room and so did my parents. Mom had cleaned herself up; she and Dad were wearing identical tight smiles. Hannah’s face was all splotchy and red; it was cold at night now, and the wind was blowing madly through the trees.

  Mom glanced at the clock. “You’ve been gone for a long time, Hannah. Weren’t you freezing?”

  Hannah shrugged. “It’s not that bad.”

  “How about we order pizza for dinner?” Mom suggested. “I don’t feel like cooking.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. The events of the afternoon had wound me up so much I hadn’t realized until Mom said the word “pizza” that I was starving. My stomach growled to second the motion.

  “Hannah?” Mom said it like a challenge, but Hannah didn’t rise to it. She just shrugged again.

  “That’s fine,” she said, turning to leave. “I’ll be up in my room.”

  “How’s the homework coming along, Caro?” Dad asked, putting a hand on Mom’s shoulder.

  “Good,” I told him. “You don’t have to worry about me, Dad.”

  “Happy to hear it, kiddo,” he said. “Happy to hear it.”

  20

  The cold war between Mom and Hannah continued unabated for days. Hannah wouldn’t agree to go back to the nutritionist, but I casually suggested to Mom that maybe it wasn’t about not wanting to work on her health, but instead about that particular nutritionist (or, I added silently to myself, her other patients, one mean-girl blast from the past in particular), and she agreed to look into other options.

  On Friday right after last period, I heard a familiar voice shout my name from across the crowded hallway. I turned and saw Derek striding toward me.

  “Oh, hey,” I said. We hadn’t talked much since school started; he’d sort of faded into the periphery when Pawel and I started hanging out, and since we didn’t share any classes, it was easy to lose track of him. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” he said, shrugging. “Are you coming to my party tomorrow night?”

  To my relief, Derek’s party, the one I had agonized about going to and then decided not to attend after I found out Pawel was going with Briana, had been canceled because his parents had decided not to go out of town. I figured it was the universe’s way of rewarding me for taking the high road, but apparently it was just the universe’s way of playing a nasty practical joke. I was not amused.

  “I thought you had to call it off,” I said.

  “Nah, my parents decided to go to Wisconsin this weekend instead, so I had to postpone it,” Derek said. “But it’s still on. Saturday, nine o’clock. Will you be there?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I’m sort of … grounded.” Even though it felt like I was approaching probationary period of my incarceration, I was pretty sure my parents were not going to authorize a party, and I was tired of lying to them.

  “Really? What’d you do?” He grinned at me like I was about to confide something hilariously naughty.

  I shook my head. “Nothing. It was stupid. Never mind.”

  “You sure you don’t want to tell me?” He stared hard at me, like he was trying to use Jedi mind tricks to get me to confess my sins. It gave him this intense look of concentration that I used to think was proof that he was deep and mysterious. I squinted back at him. I thought about kissing him, just lunging at him, pressing my stomach against his and clutching the tuft of hair at the nape of his neck and kissing him the way I had two weeks into our relationship, when I’d gotten over my fear of scaring him off. Not because I wanted him. I just wanted something meaningless and phys
ical to make me feel in control.

  Finally, he relented. “I guess not.”

  “Nope,” I said. The urge to kiss him passed, and I knew I had to go, as if on its way out of my head the fantasy would project itself onto the wall and Derek would know I was thinking about it. It meant nothing—I knew that for sure—but it made me sad. “I can’t come.”

  “It’s not like you’ve never snuck out of your house before,” Derek said.

  “Yeah, but …,” I protested, although I didn’t feel one way or the other about it. The thought of waiting until everyone went to bed (including Hannah, who never seemed to sleep at night) and then tiptoeing out of the house and waiting in the freezing cold for Reb to pull up at the corner was exhausting. There wasn’t anything good waiting for me at that party. But I knew I would probably do it anyway, because I felt as though it would mean something if I didn’t go.

  “I’ll think about it,” I told him.

  “For the record,” Reb said as Erin leaned forward with her forehead against the dashboard to let me crawl into the backseat, “I never thought this was going to happen.”

  “What?” I asked as I settled in, clipping my seat belt and pushing my hair out of my face.

  “That you would come to this party,” she said. Erin handed me a water bottle full of Gatorade and vodka. I took a big swig and gave it back, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “Yeah, well, I just felt like it, I guess,” I told her. The vodka warmed me immediately, creating a crackling heat that skimmed my skin. It was nice; the ever-increasing tension at casa de Mitchell was wearing on me, and it was good to be free of it, if only for a couple of hours.

  “Aren’t you worried about seeing Pawel?” Erin asked, and I couldn’t shake the sense that she was rooting for drama to unfold. Erin liked a good soapy incident, sometimes going so far as to court them, but her life, like mine and Reb’s, was pretty bland most of the time. She sounded excited. “Or Derek? I saw you talking to him yesterday in the hallway.”

  “That’s impossible, your last class is in the other building,” I said. “Who told you Derek and I were talking?”

  “I saw,” Erin said. “I see all.” She was already very drunk.

  “What did Derek want?” Reb asked, jabbing Erin in the side with her elbow. Erin shrieked and clutched her side, then laughed.

  “Hey! That hurt,” she said.

  “Leave Caro alone,” Reb said, then asked me again, “What did Derek want?”

  “To invite me to the party,” I said, turning up my hands in confusion. “God knows why.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll find out.” Reb turned down his street and parked as close as she could to his driveway, which was already overrun with cars. When we stepped out of ours, we could hear the pounding bass and loud murmur of people on the porch, smoking and drinking beer out of party cups and talking at each other. Just looking at them made me cold, but they didn’t seem to care.

  We strolled into the party arm in arm, mostly to prop up Erin, who was a little wobbly getting out of the car. We made our way through the throng of people in the living room to the kitchen, where Derek had generously provided a keg of cheap light beer. It could’ve been Reb’s party a month or so earlier; they all seemed the same to me these days. Cup in hand, I gazed around the room. Everyone looked unfamiliar to me, and even though Reb and Erin were right behind me, I felt alone.

  Just as I was finishing my beer, I lowered my cup to see Pawel gently shove his way past a crowd of identically dressed bleach-blond girls in almost impossibly high heels. For a second I thought he was alone and my whole body relaxed, but then I noticed Briana behind him and my vision contracted, bending at the edges so that Pawel and Briana were enormous, like I was seeing them through a telescope.

  Briana waved at me and I cringed. “Hey, girls!” she called out, causing Reb and Erin to turn. Erin bumped me lightly in the small of my back with her fist and I heard Reb whisper, “Mayday.”

  “Hey,” I said, then gulped. Erin, trying to help but hitting hopelessly far from the mark, started filling my cup back up with beer. “What’s up, guys?”

  Pawel had a strange look on his face, a melting pot of surprise, confusion, and discomfort. “Caro. Cool, I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I said, bristling. This was my school, these were my friends, Derek was my ex. If anyone’s presence should have come as a surprise, it was his.

  He shook his head and feigned innocence. “No reason. Can I get past you?”

  I was blocking the keg. “Oh,” I said, stepping aside and draining half my cup for something to do. Reb gave me a tight smile and glanced at Erin, who was about to open her mouth.

  “I’m going to take drunky here to the den,” she said quietly. “You come find us when you’re done.”

  “I’m done,” I said, but Briana had grabbed hold of my elbow.

  “Caro, Pawel told me about your science fair project, and I have to tell you—you are totally insane!” She laughed. “I mean, you take ass kissing to an entirely new level! Single-bubble sontonomolescing? Are you nuts?”

  “Are you drunk?” I asked, catching a whiff of malt liquor on her breath.

  “Of course!” she cried.

  “Great.” I turned to Pawel. He shook his head and tossed me a nervous little grin. I felt like a glass of champagne, all liquid, bubbles rising through my arms and shoulders up to my head. He was wearing a green polo shirt, slightly wrinkled, and without closing my eyes I could picture lying down with him on a couch and burying my face into his chest, breathing in the smell of laundry and cotton fibers.

  Get a hold of yourself, I commanded, wrenching my eyes away from him and focusing on Briana. “Single-bubble sonoluminescence,” I said, correcting her.

  “Whatever! Dana and I are doing insulation,” she said, grabbing Pawel’s hand and squeezing it.

  “Spicy,” I mumbled. “Okay, well, this has been fun, but I’ve got to go. See you kids later.”

  My face was fever-hot as I bolted from the kitchen, pissed at myself for not getting another glass of beer for the road. I had to either leave right away or get good and drunk so that nothing could upset me, but due to my extremely good luck, I ended up running into Derek instead.

  “Caro,” he said, pulling me in for a tight hug. “I didn’t think you’d make it.”

  “Yeah, well … I did,” I said, attempting to sound upbeat. I tried to wriggle out of the hug, but his grip was inescapable. “Are your arms made of titanium or what?”

  He laughed. “You’re funny, Caro.”

  “Funny-looking, right?” Oh, God, I was cracking bad jokes at my own expense. I could feel the night slipping from my control. My brain buzzed. Derek’s skin had a warm glow in the lamplight. I surrendered and let him keep his arm around me. He ran his hand over my left shoulder and I closed my eyes. Soon he would get distracted and let me go, and I had a plan for that eventuality: I was going to run like hell.

  “It’s loud in here,” he announced, though nobody but me was listening. “Let’s go find a quiet place to talk.”

  There was a change in him. All the careful distance he and I had created between us had vanished with time and beer, and I knew that once we were alone he would try to kiss me. I followed him to his bedroom anyway, hoping that by the time it happened I would want it, that I wouldn’t wish it was Pawel who’d corralled me into a private place and put his lips on mine.

  We didn’t make it to his bedroom. The upstairs hallway was almost deserted, and Derek pulled me into a dark corner near the stairs and pressed me up against the wall with his entire body. He raked his right hand through my hair, lifted my head, and kissed me, lightly at first, and then with more pressure. He wrapped his left arm around my waist, and I let him. I let him kiss me, too, closed my eyes and remembered a time when all I wanted was to kiss him. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant; Derek was a good kisser, something my crush on Pawel had entirely erased from my brain, and the part o
f me that still liked him lit up like a candle in a dark room, sending a column of warmth shooting up my body from my feet to my forehead.

  With my lips and hips thus occupied, my mind wandered into the future. What if this was the moment when my life changed? Maybe Derek and I would rekindle things; maybe I’d even go so far as to fall in love with him; maybe I’d forget about Pawel, and Derek would be the boy I wanted. Maybe we’d make a pledge to each other on graduation night, to stay together through college and emerge four years later with a rock-solid relationship. We could move to the city and live together in an apartment in Lakeview, spend a few years making money and raising hell, and then settle down, get married, and have kids. It was crazy, the thought of it, but I let my mind race on with the fantasy anyway.

  Suddenly, and without any reason, Hannah glided over the horizon of my thoughts like a hot-air balloon. I wondered again if she’d ever done this, kissed a boy she liked, or could like, in a dark hallway with a party raging below.

  “Oh, God, excuse me, sorry.” I opened my eyes to see who had stumbled upon us, and when my gaze met Pawel’s, I felt like I was going to throw up.

  “Hey, dude, what’s up?” Derek said. His words were casual, but his tone wasn’t. He had to have heard about Pawel and me. His fingers closed around my arm possessively.

  “N-nothing,” Pawel stammered, embarrassed. For the first time, I noticed that Derek’s hand had found its way up my shirt, and I pushed down on his wrist to dislodge it. “I was just using the bathroom.” He gestured at the door behind him with his thumb.

  “You having fun?” Derek asked. I stared at Pawel, trying to discern something besides discomfort in his face.

  “Uh, yeah, tons,” he said. “I’ll leave now.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I’ll, uh, go downstairs with you.”

  “What?” Derek asked as I extracted myself from his grip.

  “I need more beer,” I said, shrugging apologetically. “Be right back.”

  Pawel took off down the stairs without waiting for me, but I caught up quickly when he was slowed moving through the crowd in the foyer. I put a hand on his shoulder and he turned around.