The Opposite of Hallelujah

by Anna Jarzab

  But Hannah wasn’t the only one who refused to admit to the past. I’d been pretending I had no memories of her, but that wasn’t true. I remembered one afternoon—I couldn’t have been more than six—when she played an endless succession of games of Candy Land with me, always letting me win. I remembered the Christmas present she gave me when I was five, a delicate blown-glass ornament with my name engraved on it. It sat nestled in our tree every Christmas. I remembered how she begged my parents for a dog, and how she hassled me because I refused to eat carrots. Just tiny, insignificant things, bits and pieces of a shared childhood, but they were there.

  Finally, I asked the question that had been bugging me. “Why didn’t you help her?”

  “We’re trying to help her,” Dad said defensively. “But you know as well as anybody how resistant she’s being.”

  “No, I don’t mean now, I mean back then,” I said. As mad as I was at Hannah for how she had hurt our parents, how she was still hurting them, and, through them, me, I was also growing more and more angry with Mom and Dad. She had been only a kid when Sabra died. What had they done to help her? Couldn’t they have prevented this?

  “We did,” Dad said. “But it’s obvious it wasn’t enough. We wanted to find her a proper therapist. We knew she needed to talk to someone right away but we were afraid that a psychiatrist would push us to put Hannah on medication, so we took her to see a grief counselor we found through the church. Hannah saw her every week for a year. Sometimes we went with her, sometimes she wanted to go alone, but after a while the counselor told us that she had no reason to believe that Hannah was traumatized by what had happened. She said that, in her professional opinion, Hannah was fine. Completely well adjusted.”

  “And you believed her?” I asked. “Hannah could’ve been faking it.”

  “I don’t think that she was trying to fool her,” Dad said. “I think she believed that if she just turned to God, everything would be okay. She started going to church every day; she would make me get up early to drive her to six-thirty Mass. And she was always religious, more than any other child I’ve ever seen, and we just thought … we thought that was her way of processing her grief.”

  “Now what do you think?”

  “That it was really her way of denying her grief,” Dad said. He looked awful, as if all the misery Hannah had suffered over the death of her friend had somehow flooded into him. Maybe that was why the lives of parents always seemed so difficult: because everything their child felt and experienced was carbon copied inside them. “And by deluding ourselves into thinking she was well, we drove her into the convent even though she wasn’t ready.” Dad sighed. “It was all our fault.”

  “No, Dad,” I assured him. “It wasn’t.”

  “I don’t want to put all this on you, Caro,” Dad said. “But I think we’re learning that the less you talk about something, the bigger it gets. You can’t sweep something under the rug forever, can you?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “How did you find out, anyway?”

  “I saw the memorial at St. Robert’s,” I said. “And I found these letters she wrote to St. Catherine. Father Bob helped me put the pieces together.”

  “Father Bob?”

  I told Dad everything. I’d never before mentioned what I liked to think of as my “afternoon sessions” with Father Bob, like he was my therapist or something, which I guess he was. For a while, it didn’t seem worth bringing up, and then it seemed so weird that I hadn’t said something earlier that I didn’t want to bring it up at all. But my conversations with Father Bob were some of my favorite times in the past few months. He didn’t pass judgment on me; all he did was ask me questions and try to get me to think deeper about the universe and my place in it. And he really listened to the answers.

  Dad was a little stunned that I’d gone to see a priest. “You’re the last person I would’ve imagined would seek religious counseling, Caro,” he admitted.

  “I’m not really ‘seeking religious counseling,’ ” I said. “I just wanted to … talk to someone.”

  “About what?”

  “About … stuff,” I said lamely.

  “About … God?” Dad pressed.

  “Not really,” I said. “I still don’t know if I believe in God, you know, in the traditional way. Mostly we talk about science.”

  “You talk to Father Bob about science?” I’d really twisted Dad’s brain with this whole Father Bob thing.

  “And math, sometimes,” I said. “And Escher.”

  “Ah. Paradoxes. Impossible objects. Great metaphors.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s gotten me thinking about a lot of stuff. About Hannah, about how she could’ve gone into a convent without really believing in God.”

  “Hannah believed she believed,” Dad said.

  “She thought being with the Sisters of Grace would fix everything,” I said. “But she never did find the faith she needed.”

  “Still. Your mother might not agree with this—in fact, I’m sure she wouldn’t—but I think Hannah had to go,” Dad admitted. “All of us, including Hannah, are acting like she made this big mistake, like she failed something, or something failed her. But I’m not so sure that’s the case.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For the first time in her life, Hannah has nowhere left to run,” Dad said. “And for the first time in our lives, your mom and I can’t protect her. My hope is that now that everything’s out in the open, we can really start to move forward, as a family. But it all starts with Hannah, and I think she’s almost there. She wouldn’t have reacted the way she did upstairs before if she was still capable of denying it to herself.”

  “Does she know that what happened to Sabra wasn’t her fault?” I asked. “Did you tell her that, back when it happened?”

  “Of course,” he told me. “We told her that a million times. The Griffins told her that; so did her teachers.”

  “Did you know the kids at school teased her?” I asked. Dad’s eyes widened; this was news to him. “It’s all there in the letters. We ran into one of the girls who used to bully her at the nutritionist’s office. I’m pretty sure that’s why she didn’t want to go back there.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Dad asked. “We need to know things like that, Caro.”

  “I just didn’t think it was my place,” I said. “Like you didn’t think it was your place to tell me about Sabra.”

  “All right, all right, I get your point,” Dad said. “We did know that Sabra’s little brother, Byrne, never spoke to her again. He was only one or two grades behind Sabra and Hannah, and they played a lot together, the three of them. We offered to transfer her to public school, but she refused.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Dad shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but it was the first time she ever threw a tantrum. She fought so hard to stay at St. Robert’s we felt like, after everything that had happened, we couldn’t tell her no. Whatever made her happy, whatever helped her—we wanted to do that. And anyway, the Griffins moved a few months after Sabra’s funeral, so we didn’t think it would be an issue.”

  “She didn’t say why she wanted to stay at the school?”

  “She said she needed to be close to God.”

  “I still think I should’ve known,” I said. “A long time ago.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Caro,” Dad said, gently putting a hand on my shoulder. “But Mom didn’t want to dredge up the past. She didn’t see the point, with Hannah gone, and you being so young.”

  “What about you?”

  Dad gave me a small smile. “You’ll understand when you’re married.”

  “So what now?”

  “I have no idea,” Dad said. “I wish I had the answers. But we all love Hannah—that hasn’t changed. What happens next is up to her. We just have to be there when she’s ready.”

  When Dad was gone, I shed my clothes and put on my pajamas, then crawled under the covers. It wasn’t
even that late—only about seven o’clock—but for some reason I could barely keep my eyes open. The fight with Hannah had completely worn me out. I was so tired that even the incessant whirring of my constantly active brain—a perpetual-motion machine of thought and worry—wasn’t enough to keep me awake longer than five minutes.

  25

  “Are you ready?” I asked Pawel, raising my eyes to meet his. He nodded, jiggling the video camera we’d checked out of the AV lab. “Turn it on.”

  It was weeks after my fight with Hannah and things had not gotten better. If anything, they’d gotten worse. Hannah wasn’t speaking to me, and she wasn’t eating; every night, my mother tried to get her to choke down something, but more often than not, the plate she left outside Hannah’s door was completely untouched the next morning. Even though she was trying not to make a big deal out of it, Mom wasn’t my biggest fan at the moment, either. Only Dad was on my side, but in a silent sort of way. He was just trying to stay as far away from any possible yelling and screaming as he could. As a result, I’d thrown myself into my science project, remembering Father Bob’s advice—create. Do something productive with all that potential. It wasn’t knitting, but my science project—mine and Pawel’s, I kept having to remind myself—was my version of a craft, and it was beginning to take over my life.

  But soon, all that would be at an end. This was D-day for single-bubble sonoluminescence. There was no more research or preparation to be done. The experiment was all set. The transducers were glued to the flask with a quick-drying epoxy, and the flask was affixed to the laboratory stand with a three-finger clamp. I poured in degassed water from an Erlenmeyer flask. I fiddled with the knob on the sine generator until I found the correct frequency, watching the oscilloscope closely as I slowly raised it to the maximum.

  I had to admit, I was pretty proud of myself. I did very well in school and always had, but this was the hardest I had ever worked on a single project by far. Even Mr. Tripp was impressed with the progress we had made, and he was almost never impressed. I was starting to understand why Father Bob had suggested I find something to do with my hands; it was a distraction from the problems in my personal life, yes, but even more than that, it was great to feel a sense of accomplishment after all that failure. I knew it wasn’t going to change the situation with Hannah, or my relationship with Pawel, but I had a feeling that it was on its way to changing me.

  “Now what?” Pawel whispered, as if the mere sound of his voice would ruin the entire experiment.

  “We’re going to create a bubble,” I told him. “Keep the camera steady.” I used a syringe to introduce a drop of water into the flask. A bunch of tiny bubbles appeared on the surface of the water; some disappeared, but some of the others drifted to the center of the flask and united. “Hit the lights.”

  Pawel reached over and switched off the lights. I gradually increased the driving amplitude, and the bubble disappeared.

  “It’s gone,” Pawel said. He sounded pretty bummed about it, which was cute.

  “Don’t break your heart just yet,” I told him, placing another drop of water on the top of the flask. The bubbles came together in the middle just like before, and sure enough, they started to glow, like the tiniest point of light in the night sky.

  “Let there be light,” I said softly. “Zoom in.”

  “Oh my God, Caro,” Pawel cried. “It worked.”

  “You had doubts?”

  “A few.” I could hear the smile in his voice. In the dim light from the hallway, I saw him reach over and felt his hand on my shoulder. “This was really cool. I didn’t expect it to go so well.”

  I straightened up. “I’m glad you had so much faith in me.”

  “I had faith in you,” he protested. “I just thought … it seemed so unlikely it would work.”

  “Well, it did.”

  What I didn’t tell him was that I’d spent several afternoons in the lab in the preceding weeks practicing the experiment—failing, trying again, failing again. It wasn’t till the other day that I’d gotten it to work, and even though it had happened only once, I was heartened by the possibility. I should’ve invited Pawel along, but I didn’t want him to be there for the close calls and the near misses. I wanted to prove to him that we could do it. I needed him to believe.

  “Hey, Caro?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Before you turn the lights on, can we talk about Derek’s party?” The question came out rushed and mumbled, like he’d rehearsed it but was afraid he wouldn’t have the guts to say it if he didn’t say it quickly.

  “Okay. What about it?” The party was long in the past and I thought we’d reached a mutual silent decision not to discuss it. I’d been drinking; we both had been. It seemed undignified to rehash what obviously had been a mistaken conversation.

  “I didn’t go with Briana just to make you feel uncomfortable,” he said. “I went with her because she asked me to, and because I thought it’d be fun. I’m still pretty new. I wanted to meet people.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

  “I was just afraid maybe you thought I was angry with you and that I wanted to find a way to punish you, I guess. But I didn’t. I don’t.”

  “I understand,” I said. I wished he would let it go. If I couldn’t be with Pawel, all I wanted was to avoid any awkwardness between us so that we had a shot of becoming real friends one day, and he was ruining it with all this forced explanatory chitchat.

  “Really?”

  I took a deep breath. “Really. And I appreciate you clarifying that for me. Now, what I think we should do is … we should transfer the digital file onto a DVD and then bring a portable player into the fair, so that we can show the experiment to the judges.”

  “Caro.”

  “And I’m going to go home and start working on the display board with pictures of the setup—I took those before you got here, so I’ll have them printed at the drugstore and everything—and a write-up. We can work on that together, or separately, or split the work, or whatever you want to do. The fair is in two weeks, but I’d like to get it done before then, just in case. Okay?”

  He turned the lights back on. We both squinted in the glare, and I shielded my eyes with my hand.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said, turning away from him to pack up my bag.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “I’ll help you with the board,” he offered. “I mean, I think we should do it together. You can come over to my house after school tomorrow.”

  I hesitated. It was probably a bad idea to go over to his house and sit on his floor in proximity to him while we glued photographs to a piece of poster board. I wasn’t sure my heart could take it. But I couldn’t help feeling warmed by the offer, and excited at the idea of spending more time alone with him. I genuinely liked his company, and I missed it, badly.

  “Yeah, that sounds good,” I said. “I’ll bring the pictures.”

  “Cool.” He looked at me. “Good work, Caro.”

  “Ditto.”

  The next afternoon, I pulled my parents’ car into Pawel’s driveway. I’d gotten special permission to take it, since my punishment was still in full effect. That morning, I’d rapped on Hannah’s door, feeling for some reason that I wanted to speak to her. She didn’t answer, but I went into the room anyway and found her in bed still sleeping.

  “Hannah?” Not a peep. “Hannah. Are you awake?”

  “No,” she mumbled. “Go away.”

  “Are you okay? You’re usually up by now,” I said.

  “Leave me alone, I don’t feel good.” Her voice was raw. I looked at the armchair where I often found her reading, and wished she was sitting in it right then, being her quiet, solemn self.

  “Please get up,” I said. “I want to talk to you.”

  “I’m tired, Caro. I’m so tired, please go away.” I thought I could hear tears, but I couldn’t be sure. I
felt everything drain out of me, all the bitterness and anger. It ran off my skin like water. She wasn’t just tired. She was sad, and though it’d been there since she’d gotten off that train, and for years and years before that, I’d never really seen it. Not like I was seeing it now. And the worst part was I’d just sat idly by and watched her drown.

  “Okay,” I said. “If you need anything today, you should just call me. I’ll be at school, but I’ll come home, I promise.” I waited for an answer, but none came. I left the room feeling anxious. I wanted to put it aside, but I couldn’t. I wanted to talk to Father Bob, but I couldn’t. I had to go to Pawel’s after school. It was the weirdest thing, feeling as though you’d rather spend your afternoon with a priest than your crush. But Father Bob could give me something Pawel couldn’t—answers. Or clarity. Or something. Something more than a pat on the hand. Which wasn’t going to happen anyway, since I wasn’t planning on telling Pawel anything about what had gone on at home. It’d just be one more piece of evidence that I was an insensitive lunatic who hated her sister.

  I walked up to Pawel’s house that afternoon with no little trepidation. I rang the doorbell and listened to the rustling inside. A few seconds later, Pawel opened the door.

  “I have to warn you,” he said. “My sisters are back from school, and Jake’s had about three sodas in an hour, so it’s mayhem in the Sobczak homestead. Prepare yourself.”

  I laughed, grateful for the imminent chaos; hopefully it would mask the things that I couldn’t. “No problem.”

  As I crossed the threshold, a loud crash came from somewhere in the back of the house.

  “Can you cage the creature, please? We have company,” Pawel called into the void. He smiled at me. “Jake. If he’s not sleeping, he’s breaking something.”

  “I hope you have a permit for him,” I said. “The fines for keeping a wild animal without a license are astronomical.”