by Cat Patrick
We do our shopping and return to the house, then Mason and Cassie are back to work. I meander from room to room aimlessly. Helpless. In the kitchen, I sit at the Salvation Army table and stare at the wall over the stove. After a while, I notice the grease splatters. I look at the floor and realize that it’s a different color under the table than in the high-traffic area.
I stand abruptly, mission accepted. I may not be able to control much else, but I can clean. And what I figure out after four hours is that scrubbing floors, washing windows, and—vomit—cleaning toilets has a way of working the fury out of me. When they happen to cross my path, Mason and Cassie look at me like I’ve completely lost it. But as I start tidying the final room, I am completely clear. Without emotion or concern, I mentally outline what I’m going to say to Mason about Case 22 when the notes arrive.
I plan how to convince him to go after God.
Later that night, Cassie spends an hour “fixing” my computer. I know she’s trying to be helpful, but really, I just want her to leave me alone. Now that I’m not mad anymore, and with a plan firmly planted in my head, there’s nothing left to think of but Matt. I want to contact him, but Bot Girl’s taken over my mainframe.
“What are you doing to it?” I ask, leaning over her shoulder as she types code faster than I can speak.
“Making it so no one can track your footprints,” Cassie says. The quiet cadence of the keys tapping under her fingertips is surprisingly calming.
“So I can use it when you’re done?” I fidget a little, considering what to say to Matt.
“Yes,” Cassie says, not looking at me. I move around her and sit on the edge of the creaky bed. From across the room, the glare of the screen bounces off Cassie’s glasses, making her look like she doesn’t have eyes.
I’m startled when she pushes back from the desk.
“All done,” she says in her sweetest accent.
“Thanks,” I say to her back as she leaves.
After she’s gone, I force myself to write a blog post and check in with Megan before I can write to Matt.
When finally—finally—I do, the words pour out of me like they’ve been waiting to hop onto the blank page.
Matt,
Even though it feels like we’re on different planets now, I think of you constantly. I can only hope our orbits cross soon. I miss you like I never thought I could miss anyone.
Love,
Daisy
I hit send and wait awhile for a reply that doesn’t come. Then I fall asleep in a bed that’s probably infested with bedbugs, thinking that it would be all right if only Matt was here next to me.
thirty-eight
“Who are you talking to?” I ask Mason when I walk into the kitchen the next day. He has his cell pressed to his ear and a coffee mug in his left hand. He scowls at me for the interruption and shakes his head.
“If it’s David, please ask about my backpack,” I whisper. Mason is a killer multitasker: he hears and gives me a thumbs-up. I pop bread in the toaster and wait, then, because there’s no jam, I use a butter-like substance that I hope doesn’t kill me. I sit down and start eating, watching Mason and trying to will him to ask about my backpack with my mind. Right when I think he’s forgotten, he comes through.
“Thanks for the lab inventory,” Mason says. “Can I ask one other small thing?” He pauses to listen. “Great, thanks. Daisy needs her school backpack. It’s red, with a black-and-white patch on the front. I think it’s in her room…. Hang on.”
He looks at me.
“Yes, on the right side of my desk, on the floor,” I say.
Mason repeats the directions and then agrees to hang on while David goes to look for it. “No, the right side.” He pauses again. “Yes, do that,” he says.
I take another bite of toast, waiting for confirmation that the bag is on the way. Instead, Mason looks at me while he speaks to David.
“I can’t believe it,” he says. “Nothing else is missing in the whole house but a teenager’s backpack? Guess that rules out involvement from the program.”
Except that it doesn’t, I think to myself as my stomach sinks. I put down my toast, no longer hungry.
I know it was about Case 22.
And that has everything to do with the program.
In fact, it has everything to do with God himself.
When Mason hangs up, I catch him before he rushes out of the room.
“I need to talk to you,” I say seriously. It gets his attention. “And Cassie, too.”
“Okay,” Mason says, a concerned look on his face. “Is everything okay?”
“Not really,” I say. “Let’s get Cassie, and I’ll tell you what I mean.”
When my guardians are settled at the table across from me, I begin my prepared statement.
“I believe that God killed Nora Fitzgerald,” I say directly, looking Mason, then Cassie, right in the eyes. Mason’s eyebrows scrunch up in confusion; Cassie looks as surprised as she is capable of looking.
“That’s quite an accusation, Daisy,” Mason says. “Why do you think that?”
“Well, a few days after Nora spotted me at the mall, I was on the system and stumbled across a folder for a twenty-second case.” I leave out the part about Matt.
Mason looks at me like I’ve just claimed that the earth is flat.
“But there are only twenty-one cases,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “But this was number twenty-two. I was curious, of course, so I opened it, but the name was confidential. The relocation town was listed as Franklin, Nevada.”
“Okay…” Mason says.
Distracted, Cassie checks her watch and shifts in her seat. I know she’d rather be working.
“I told Megan about it,” I say. Suddenly, Cassie attacks Mason with her eyes, probably annoyed that he’s given me access in the first place.
“Daisy, you need to keep what you see in there to yourself from here on out,” Mason says.
“Fine,” I say. “But Megan’s not the point. Anyway, she and I were messing around online and we found an article from Frozen Hills that said that Nora Fitzgerald had been killed in a car accident. But then we found her alive, on Facebook.” Cassie looks confused this time: I wonder if she’s going to call me on what I’m saying. I’m messing up the timeline and leaving out David’s involvement, but basically, it’s right. I speak quickly so she won’t question me.
“Anyway, I’ve been talking to Nora,” I say. Mason’s jaw drops. Cassie inhales sharply.
“You’ve been talking to a girl who thinks you’re dead?” Mason asks, sitting straighter in his seat.
“See?” Cassie says to him. “You give her too much freedom. Now look at what she’s done.”
“You guys are totally missing the point,” I say forcefully. “The point is that Nora was killed—on purpose—then relocated because she knew about me. Except that she wasn’t told anything real. She thinks that her family’s in the witness protection program.”
Cassie rolls her eyes, then stands abruptly.
“I’ve got real work to do,” she says. “I’m going to let you deal with this mess, Mason.”
She leaves the room and Mason stares at me for a long time before speaking again.
“Daisy, I can tell that this is really bothering you,” he says. “So I want to understand. It sounds to me like maybe the agents following Nora because of the sighting took advantage of the situation when she crashed. They made the call to fix the problem by Reviving and relocating her. It stands to reason that they wouldn’t want to divulge program secrets, so they kept it from her. I’m not seeing how God fits in here.”
“I was getting to that,” I say. I take a deep breath and try to explain my hunch to Mason. “When we went to the aquarium when we first moved to Omaha, there was a guy who talked to me in the big ocean exhibit. He was there, asking questions, and then he disappeared. I couldn’t remember a thing about him other than that he had a lisp.”
I take a gulp of a
ir.
“Anyway, when Nora told me about the crash, she said that the Good Samaritan who saved her sounded like Daffy Duck. Like he had a lisp. And when she described the situation, it sounded really weird. Like the guy didn’t move or react quickly, and he called a ‘friend’ instead of nine-one-one. It got me thinking.
“I wondered if it was the same guy. At first, I thought he was an agent, but in that case, why didn’t he identify himself to me that day at the aquarium? The only person I can think of who might talk to me anonymously, then kill Nora, is—”
“God,” Mason says pensively.
“Right,” I say.
There’s a flash of something in Mason’s eyes.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. The lisp thing just reminded me of… Nothing,” he says. Then he shakes his head. “Why would God be in Omaha? He has no connection to Omaha other than me and Cassie, and he never meets with agents in person. There’s no reason for him to be there.”
“Who knows where God goes or what he does?” I ask.
“Well, he doesn’t kill people,” Mason says in a way that makes me feel like he’s trying to convince himself.
“He didn’t used to,” I say. “But you’ve said yourself that there are upsetting changes happening to the program. Like the new lab, like God wanting you to Revive new people—”
“I did say that,” Mason interrupts. “But this is over the top. We’re testing a drug that gives people life—we don’t take it away. There’s no way Nora’s accident was at God’s hands.”
“Then how do you explain that the one thing stolen from our house was my book bag, which contained a file detailing all of this and more?”
Mason looks away and smiles a little, then says, “Maybe you left it at school?”
“I didn’t,” I say flatly.
Mason’s phone rings again. He answers and talks for so long that I think of going upstairs and giving up. But I’ve come this far. When he hangs up, I try again.
“Mason, what did the lisp remind you of?” I ask.
He sighs. “It reminded me of the bus crash,” he says. “The local news interviewed an employee at a gas station a half mile from the bridge. Police were looking for the worn red truck that eyewitnesses said ran the bus into the lake. The gas station worker claimed to have seen the truck ten minutes before the incident. He said the driver stopped in to buy a lottery ticket. Apparently, the driver said, ‘I think it’s my lucky day.’ ”
Mason pauses; I look at him expectantly.
“The guy couldn’t describe the man other than to say that he had a lisp,” Mason says. He jumps when I inhale.
“Are you serious?” I say loudly.
“Daisy, calm down.”
“It’s not a coincidence,” I say. “What if God caused the bus crash, too?”
“Stop,” he says, startling me. “If that’s true, then the work I’ve done for eleven years is all for nothing. God would never—could never—purposely kill twenty-one people. Twenty children. It didn’t happen.”
“Fine,” I say. “But will you at least do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Ask David to look for the file on Case Twenty-two,” I say. “If it exists, he’ll find it. And if he finds it…”
I let the words hang in the air.
“Promise you’ll let it go if David doesn’t find anything,” he says.
“Only if you promise to do something about it if he does.”
Mason calls David and I make my way upstairs. Once there, feeling edgy, I pull out Audrey’s letter. Something about the smooth handwriting calms me: I’ve started reading it every time I feel upset.
Daisy—
Promise you’ll do two things for me.
The first is easy: Take my clothes. ALL OF THEM. Even if you throw them away, get them out of our house (but I have pretty good taste—haha!—so you should just keep them).
You’ve seen those people who can’t let go. They sob over old T-shirts that aren’t worth anything. My mom is a pack rat; she’ll obsess. My ugliest pajamas will break her heart. Take them, Daisy. Do it for me (and for your wardrobe D).
The second thing: Take care of my brother.
He tries to be this strong, tough guy, because I think that’s what he believes is expected of him. But he and I are so close…. This is going to wreck his world. I know he cares about you; I want you to be there for him.
There are so many other things to say, but I have to go to the hospital now. I hope you’ll never read this, but just in case, I want you to know that you are unique and beautiful and funny and I’m glad to have called you my friend. My best friend.
Love,
Audrey
Beyond the clothes thing, I can’t help but think that I’m not doing too well with Audrey’s other request. I text Matt and when, after thirty minutes, nothing comes through, I wonder if I’ve waited too long to reach out to him. I wonder whether he’s already gone.
Not six hours later, Mason knocks at my bedroom door and tells me that he’s flying to Washington, D.C., tomorrow. Cassie will stay here with me while Mason goes to the top about God’s recent exploits.
When I turn out the light, I picture Matt lying next to me, and the idea of him makes me a little less restless. Still, with bus crashes and faceless men in my mind, it takes me forever to fall asleep, which is why I sleep until eleven o’clock in the morning.
By the time I wake up, the house is quiet.
Everyone’s gone.
thirty-nine
As I crunch through a bowl of old-people cereal, I grow increasingly anxious about Mason’s trip to Washington. I drum my fingers on the table as I consider the possible outcomes.
Worst case, God will be found guilty of heinous crimes, no one will want to step in to run a dysfunctional program already in progress, and the world as I know it will crumble. The God Project will die; Revive will be the basis for a study with new, willing participants. Disgruntled bus kids will speak out; newspapers will accuse the government of hiding a superdrug; the government will lie about the drug’s existence. Revive will become nothing but a myth; no one will have access.
Not even me.
And with no program to keep us together, what will become of me and Megan? Or of me and Mason, for that matter? Where will I live?
Shaking off thoughts of homelessness, I consider the more positive scenario.
Best case, God’s actions will be easily explained and the program will continue as it has been. The rest of the bus kids and I will remain in the God Project for another nineteen years, after which point—assuming there have been no major issues—the FDA will approve Revive and make it available on a very small, controlled scale, probably first to the military. Carefully and quietly, it will trickle out to the public, and new lives will be saved.
Except I can’t shake the feeling that the best case isn’t that great. The past few months have been eye-opening for me; knowing what I do now about the program, will it ever really be the same? When I look through the files of those who didn’t respond to Revive, will I dwell on the fact that they weren’t given other lifesaving measures? When I visit Gavin in New York, will I be able to love his parents as much knowing that they took him from his birth mother? When I think of Audrey, will I always feel that I kept something monumental from her?
When I look into Matt’s eyes, will I ever feel like he’s safe?
With no right answer to comfort me, I shiver in my sleep shirt despite it being hot here in Hell, Texas. I get up, rinse my bowl in the sink, and decide to try not to think about Mason’s trip. He’s not even on the plane yet; his meeting’s not until tomorrow. There’s plenty of time to worry about him later.
For now, I choose to focus on Matt.
I check to confirm that he hasn’t responded to my email or text. Then, I dial.
“Hi,” he says, as if he was expecting me.
“Uh, hi,” I say, surprised. I thought my call would go to voice mail; I glan
ce at the clock and realize it’s the beginning of lunch period at school.
We’re both quiet for a minute. I wonder whether he’s thinking of the last time we saw each other, because that’s what I’m thinking about.
“Where are you?” I ask. It’s too quiet in the background.
“In my kitchen,” he says. “Where are you? You haven’t been in school.”
“Texas,” I say.
“What? Why?”
“Long story,” I say. “Something’s going on with the program. I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay?”
“Fine with me.”
Pause.
“Matt, I wanted…” I stop talking because I’m not sure what I wanted. Instead, I ask, “Did you get my email?”
“Yes,” he says quietly. “Text, too.” And then, just when I think he’s going to make an excuse for not writing back, he simply says, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thanks for doing that thing for Aud, too,” Matt says. “The lyrics.”
“I didn’t really mean to start a trend,” I say. “I wanted to give her something.”
“I know,” Matt says. “I know what you mean.”
“I miss her,” I say quietly. He doesn’t reply. His mom says something to him in the background.
“Listen, I’ve got to go,” he says. “Can I call you back?”
“Sure,” I say, my voice blatantly disappointed.
“Okay, I will. Bye.”
Matt hangs up before I have the chance to say goodbye.
forty
I check the time on my phone: Mason’s flight is taking off in a few minutes. At least Cassie will be back from the airport soon to rescue me from loneliness. Then again, having her around doesn’t necessarily feel like company.