The Ostrich and Other Lost Things

by Beth Hautala

  I knew there was nothing that would make us normal, because “normal” wasn’t even a thing. It was just the color green covering up the real colors underneath. I was crying so hard now I couldn’t speak. But Mom and Dad squeezed me so tight and for so long that it didn’t even matter.

  The thing about telling the truth to the people who love the you underneath your skin, to the people who see your real deep-down colors, is that it doesn’t change the love. That’s what really matters. The love anyway. And I knew that more than anything—more than missing ostriches and more than being “normal” and more than latent autism in siblings—we were a family.

  And we weren’t the same without Jacob.

  * * *

  • • •

  I don’t know how long we sat there in the living room before finally Mom kissed the top of my head and pulled away. She wiped tears off her cheeks and then mine, too.

  “Sweetheart,” she said, “I wish you’d told us about all of this sooner. Don’t worry—we’ll talk about the article. As for Jacob’s ostrich—honey, that toy isn’t lost. It never went missing. Your brother threw it away.”

  “What—?” I felt like I’d tripped and all the wind had been knocked out of me.

  “He played with it so much that one day, it broke. One of the legs just snapped off. I tried to find one to replace it, but Jacob didn’t want a new one. He wanted the old one. I superglued the leg back on, but it wouldn’t stay, and it just kept making him more upset. So, when he said he didn’t want it anymore, I let him get rid of it. I probably should have kept it, because later he missed it very much.”

  “But Jacob loved that ostrich. He should have kept it. Even if it was broken. It helped.”

  “What do you mean?” Dad asked. “Helped with what?”

  “I . . . He was just . . . so much better before . . .” I thought I’d already cried all my tears, but suddenly there were more.

  “Honey,” Dad said, “Jacob was younger. And so were you! You both saw the world and understood things differently. The older Jacob gets, and the more complex life gets, the harder it is for him to process everything. And autism looks different on everyone. It can affect some people more complexly the older they get. It’s not that he’s worse, necessarily, or that he was better before, or that his toy has anything to do with it. It’s just that you are both growing up. And when someone is autistic, growing up can be even harder.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Everything was falling to pieces. If this wasn’t something I could fix, if his toy ostrich had never really been missing, then Jacob had never needed me—never wanted me—to find it. No wonder I couldn’t collect enough clues.

  Then a much-worse thought struck me: What if Jacob himself didn’t want to be found, either?

  33

  Tattoos

  THE NIGHT SEARCH team didn’t find any leads, so the next morning, a public service announcement was sent out about my brother. His description was on the radio, and both that and his picture were shown on TV.

  Meanwhile, we continued to search the whole next day—Mom, Dad, and I, plus more volunteers, search dogs, neighbors, and other people we knew in Prue.

  We walked and walked for miles, calling Jacob’s name. I used every ounce of finding-lost-things talent I had. I took Jacob’s picture from one of the frames in the living room and slipped it into my pocket. I wore his grey hoodie. I’d even slept on the floor in his room last night after Mom and Dad had gone to bed, trying to get as close to my brother as possible. But I knew it wouldn’t help if Jacob didn’t want to be found.

  I’d never seen Mom and Dad like this. One minute they were calm, discussing plans and what to do next, and the next minute Mom was sitting down in the grass, her head in her hands, and Dad was on his knees beside her, rubbing her back and trying not to cry, too. I was trying to be brave for their sakes. But I was exhausted and sad and scared. My head ached and I felt sick to my stomach.

  After a few hours, Mom and Dad sent me home to take a break. One of the officers took me back while they stayed out looking, and Charlie came over so I wouldn’t be alone.

  We sat together on the couch. He was quieter than usual.

  “You warned me,” I said. “I got too mad at him.”

  “I know,” Charlie said.

  “How did you know I might get upset and say something . . . terrible?” I asked.

  There was a washcloth covering my forehead and eyes because I had a terrible headache. Charlie and I couldn’t see each other. It was just our voices, real and truthy.

  “I just know what it’s like to say stuff you regret.”

  I had a hard time imagining Charlie saying anything hurtful to anyone. He was so good at making people feel better.

  “I never really told you how I went blind,” he said.

  “You told me you were in an accident.”

  “I was. My mom was driving. We were coming back from a birthday party. It was raining and the car skidded out of control and hit a guardrail.”

  I took off the cloth so I could look at Charlie while he talked.

  “The doctors said I hit my head—I honestly don’t remember much about it—and it made my brain swell. A lot of pressure built up inside my head. I was in a coma for three days, and the swelling around my optic nerve permanently damaged my vision.”

  “Oh my goodness.”

  “I know. Pretty crazy, right? There was this one time about three years ago,” Charlie continued, “when I was super mad about not being able to see and not being like a normal kid, and I said some things.” Charlie cleared his throat. “To my mom.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “I told her it was her fault,” Charlie said. “That I was blind because of her.” He paused. “It was the meanest thing I could think of to say. And it really hurt my mom to hear. I mean, yeah, it was a car accident and she was driving, but it’s not like she made the road wet. Still, she felt like it was her fault somehow. And I knew that.” He shrugged and his voice had gone very small.

  I let out a breath.

  “She said she felt like she had failed at being a mom because she didn’t protect me.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I—I’m so sorry.”

  “Things were hard for a while after that.”

  I nodded. I could imagine.

  “Look, people who are hurting say and do hurtful things,” he went on. “It was awful. But that whole thing taught me that when you hurt someone you love, either by accident or on purpose, you can always go back and work on the broken places. They might not look exactly like they did before, but they can be even better in the end. Stronger. That’s why my mom has all those tattoos.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “To remind us both that the things we do and say matter, and that it’s important not to forget what we learn.”

  I tried to remember her tattoos, to picture them exactly. I remembered a birdcage with an open door. A lighthouse standing on a rock with waves rolling in around it. A pine tree tipped over on its side, roots pulling out of the ground. They were stories, I guess. Freedom and responsibility and a reminder that even strong trees fall. It was all written on her arms, where she could always see and remember.

  Sometime during his talk, my tears had started up again. I sniffled and Charlie squeezed my hand.

  “It’s okay, Olivia,” he said. “They’ll find Jacob.”

  I squeezed his hand back. If only I could be so sure.

  34

  Through the Window

  AFTER CHARLIE LEFT, I lay on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. I forced myself to imagine what life would be like if Jacob never returned. I didn’t like what I saw.

  Mom and Dad came back from searching around dinnertime with nothing new to report. They were quiet. The silence in the house that night was so heavy it felt like it was alive, pushing aga
inst the three of us like an invisible hand. I felt too sad and sick to eat, so I went to bed early.

  * * *

  • • •

  Hours later, I sat up in bed, the slightest breath of a breeze pulling and pushing my curtains through my open window.

  I could feel Ethel out in the yard even before I looked.

  But this time there was no ostrich.

  Instead, my brother was standing on the ground outside my window. I held my breath until I could hear my heart beating in my eardrums.

  Jacob looked like a wild creature. He was covered in dirt, and there were twigs stuck to his clothes and bits of branches in his hair. In the moonlight, I could see scratches on his face and arms. His shirt was torn, and the wind pulled at the frayed edge. He was just standing there, perfectly still. Not looking in, exactly, but not looking anywhere else, either. He was waiting. Waiting to be let inside. Waiting for someone to tell him it was okay.

  I crept out of bed very slowly. Carefully. My whole body was shaking. I wanted to call for Mom and Dad, but I was worried he would run away if I yelled.

  “Jacob,” I whispered. His name got lodged in my chest. “Jacob.” I tried again, and this time his name came out, and I could tell he heard me.

  He turned toward the window and met my eyes, just for a moment. And then he looked over my shoulder—the way he always did.

  “Jacob, it’s okay. You can come in.” I whispered the words. I was so afraid of startling him. It was like he was a bird or wild creature, and I didn’t want him to fly away. “Come in,” I said again. “You can come in.” I knelt by my open window.

  Jacob just stood there. My lost and found brother. Wherever he’d been, he’d been hiding so well I bet no one ever would have found him. My stomach lurched and I reached out my window to him with both arms.

  He shook his head. “I ruin everything,” he said.

  And a sob I didn’t know I was holding fell out of me. My words. My horrible words sounded so much worse when Jacob said them back to me.

  “I ruin everything. You hate me.” He looked at me. “I hate me, too. Sometimes.”

  My heart felt like it was breaking apart. Tears made my vision swim.

  “I’m sorry,” I choked. “I’m so sorry, Jacob. It’s not true. You don’t ruin everything. I was upset and mean and wrong, and I’m sorry. But I’m not upset anymore and I’m not angry. Please come inside.”

  I was terrified he was going to run away and we’d never see him again. So, I stood up carefully and crawled over the windowsill, down into the grass. Jacob was even dirtier up close. And he was crying now, tears making tracks through the grime on his face.

  Before I could stop myself, I hugged him. Gently at first, because Jacob didn’t like to be touched. His body got tight and uncomfortable in my arms. But he didn’t move, so I hugged him a little harder.

  He didn’t pull away.

  I let my tears fall.

  I cried because Jacob had come back all on his own, because he hadn’t needed me to find him. I cried because suddenly, I felt like the lost one. I cried because I was sorry and because things were still broken and lost. I cried because of latent autism and neverdos and missing ostriches that had been broken and thrown away. I cried because Peter Pan had never known how much he was loved, and I’d almost missed the chance to tell my brother the same thing. I cried because Charlie would never see again, because I couldn’t keep everything or everyone together no matter how hard I tried.

  “Come on, Olivia,” Jacob said finally. He pulled away from me, but he took my hand. And this time, I was the little sister for real. “I will take you home now,” he said. And we both crawled back through my bedroom window.

  * * *

  • • •

  After we went inside, and after I woke Mom and Dad, there was a lot more crying and hugging. Dad was crying and I was crying and Jacob was crying and moaning and starting to flail around because he didn’t know what to do, and because everyone around him was upset. Mom was shaking and trying to hold on to my brother, who didn’t want to be touched anymore that night.

  Finally, we all took some deep breaths and tried to be calm for Jacob’s sake.

  Mom ran Jacob a bath, and Dad made hot chocolate and sandwiches (without the tops on them so that Jacob could put his sandwich together on his own), and my brother ate three of them after he got out of the tub.

  Dad called the police who’d been working on Jacob’s missing-persons case to let them know he had come home. It was very early in the morning, but they came anyway and tried to talk to my brother. They didn’t get very far, of course. So, then they talked to me, and I just told them about waking up and finding Jacob standing there in the backyard, like a Lost Boy flown home from Neverland. It sounded silly, but I didn’t care, because that’s exactly how it felt.

  The police talked to Mom and Dad about having the paramedics come to check out Jacob and make sure he was okay. Even though no one really wanted to make Jacob any more upset than he already was, it seemed like a good idea. So, the ambulance came, and the paramedics came, and there were more police cars in front of our house.

  Slowly, lights starting coming on in our neighbors’ windows, and a few people came over in their pajamas and slippers. Mrs. Mackenelli came with her hair in rollers, and when everyone found out what was going on—that Jacob had come home—there was more celebrating and crying.

  It was the perfect picture of what being found looks like. Of celebrating what was lost, and wasn’t lost anymore. And I realized something: Being loved is bigger, stronger, and more important than being lost. Being loved is what makes you valuable. It makes you worth searching for—no matter what. It’s what makes it possible to be found. And Jacob, just like me, was worth finding.

  35

  Changes

  AFTER JACOB CAME home, Mom and Dad came up with a new plan. Ryan, Jacob’s aide, would come to help with Jacob every weekday. He would arrive first thing in the morning and leave just before dinner.

  He helped Jacob with a lot of things, and that helped Mom and Dad. It helped me, too. We all liked Ryan. He was funny, and he knew how to make Jacob relax. When Jacob couldn’t be calmed down and started flailing and hitting and throwing things, Ryan was strong and calm, and he could help hold Jacob until he could be calm on his own. Ryan was like Jacob’s bodyguard and teacher and mentor and big brother all rolled into one person. It was weird having him there so often at first, but it got less weird over time, and it was much better than giving Jacob a change in environment.

  Dr. Kathy Martin came to evaluate Jacob more frequently, too. And she worked with the whole family to help us understand one another a little better—through games, questions, and even puzzles that were more about finding the picture than putting pieces together. Mom was super smart and had done lots of research on her own, but no one can do everything alone, and Dr. Kathy helped. She helped us talk about things in ways that Jacob could understand. And she gave us exercises to try so that when our family went places together, if Jacob started melting down over things like the color of the carpet or the number of chairs at a table, we didn’t have to just leave. We could play a game about the things that made him uncomfortable, or distract him with something else, or take a walk.

  Dr. Kathy also talked about us getting a dog for Jacob—and for us. A dog that would help him process his emotions in a way that he otherwise couldn’t. A kind of special helper and friend—not just a pet. So, Mom and Dad were thinking about that.

  Things were different between me and Mom and Dad, too. In some ways it seemed like they were just waking up. They were paying attention to me more and listening better. They understood it was important to me that I do my own things, too, so they were going to let me audition for another play. Plus, Mom was more open about her own stuff, too. She’d talk to me about things she’d just kept to herself before. About things that scared her
, or things that made her excited. Sometimes they were things that scared or made me excited, too. And we started doing things together—shopping, going to the library or the zoo, or sometimes seeing a play in the city—just the two of us. Like she finally saw me.

  * * *

  • • •

  I had finished my Responsibility Hours a few weeks earlier. I was glad to be finished, but sad, too, so I went back to the zoo one afternoon to see the animals and to visit Charlie. Just as I was getting ready to leave, I saw Mom standing at the entrance, waving at me.

  “I thought it might be nice if we walked home together,” Mom said. “And I got you a treat!” She handed me a package of Starburst. But I knew she was there for more than that, because her face was thoughtful and she was quieter than usual.

  We weren’t too far down the road when she stopped and pulled something out of her pocket.

  “I wanted you to see this,” she said. “From me.”

  She handed me a piece of paper, and I felt my stomach sink as I unfolded it. It was that article I’d found on her desk: “Recurrence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Siblings.”

  “I’ve already seen it,” I said. I held it out for her to take back. I didn’t want to read it. I never wanted to see it again. It was like a secret truth.

  “I know,” she said. “And I wish I could take that back, because I know it’s caused you pain.” Mom’s voice was tight. “I wanted to make sure I had more information before I talked to you about it. And then things got a little crazy.”