“You just said he didn’t get fired after all.”
“But you didn’t know that.” She’s quiet for a moment. “And you knew he’d be at school today.” She sighs and then gets up. “Follow me.”
She leads the way down the stairs and toward the cold storage room at the far end of the basement. I glance into my old bedroom and see clothes hanging in the closet and shoes on the floor.
“Who’s got my old room?” I ask, feeling possessive.
“David.”
“David? Jimmy has a new recruit?”
“Not a recruit, Jon. Abigail has given another boy a place to live. His parents kicked him out. Jimmy heard about him and tracked him down. Kind of like what he did for me.”
“Is it David Fischer?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s so young.” I remember that David was already prone to pissing off the Prophet at a young age. “Maybe it’s better to get them early. He’ll have a better chance of catching up.”
Taviana just shrugs.
“I wish him luck,” I say, remembering the words of the truck driver who dropped me off in Springdale. Someone else I’ve failed.
Taviana has flicked on the lights in the cold storage room. There are rows of jars on the built-in shelves. She picks up a cardboard box. “Take as many as you can carry.”
I line the bottom of the box with jars of tomatoes, beans and pickles. I reach for another jar and peer into it.
“Peaches,” she says. “You didn’t grow those, but take them anyway.” She takes another jar off the shelf and puts it in the box. “Salsa. I remember you liked it.”
“You put it on my eggs,” I say. “The night I arrived.” The night that seems like forever ago.
She studies my face for a moment, and her expression softens. “Yeah.” She grabs a second jar and adds it to my box. “Enjoy.”
When the box is full, I struggle under its weight up the stairs.
Taviana opens the front door for me. I squeeze by her and then stop. “I never asked about you. How’s school working out?”
“Come back when you’ve got your act together,” she says. Her face has hardened again. “And I’ll tell you all about it.”
She shuts the door behind me.
Thirteen
I’m aware of brightness. It must be morning. My eyes are glued shut, and my head is pounding. Stones poke into my back. A shiver runs through me, and I burrow into my thin sleeping bag, willing myself to return to that blissful state of unconsciousness where nothing matters.
It doesn’t work. The fear of being discovered has resurfaced, and I have to figure out where I am.
I force open first my right eye, then my left, but shut them tight again. The sunlight is painfully bright. And I’ve registered enough of my surroundings to know I’m not in any immediate danger of being discovered.
My sleeping bag is tightly tangled around me, and I can’t change positions. Memories from last night begin to rise to the surface, images that are mostly identical to other nights. First there was the discovery of some perfectly good bread and cheese thrown into the Dumpster behind The Village Table, the restaurant Selig had worked at. He’d given me the heads-up about all the food that gets wasted there. Best-before dates don’t mean much when you’re hungry.
Then I’d knocked on a few doors, looking for an empty house. It didn’t take long to find one. Garbage cans still sitting at the end of driveways in the late afternoon on garbage pick-up day means the owners aren’t yet home from work. Gaining access in this small town is usually easy. The trick is to get in and out fast. Sometimes I take electronics and jewelry to sell, stuffing whatever I can into a pillowcase taken off a bed, but last night, judging by this headache, I just took booze.
The sound of rushing water grows louder than the blood pounding in my brain. I open my eyes again. I’m on the beach at the river. The tree splayed out high above me is the same huge weeping willow that I sat under on my first day in Springdale, eleven months ago. Only this time the leaves are still just buds. I have no recollection of finding my way back here last night.
For four weeks I’ve been sleeping outside, avoiding the authorities. Being a minor with no fixed address, I have to be careful not to get caught, though I don’t know where they’d put me if I was. My parents wouldn’t take me back, and neither would Abigail. If they put me in foster care, I’d be gone within the day.
Slowly I wriggle out of my sleeping bag and grab the small pack that I’ve used as a pillow. Everything I own is in it. I rise carefully, knowing that my head may burst with pain if I stand upright too quickly. I creep deeper into the brush that runs along the river. In a small clearing, I wrap the sleeping bag around my shoulders and squat. I can see the rocky beach and river through the scrub. Later, when it gets warmer, I’ll try to wash off in the river, even though the water will be freezing with spring runoff.
The pounding in my head competes with the hunger pangs in my belly, but I close my eyes again and try to sleep off the hangover. There’s a long, empty day ahead of me. Brent and I were evicted from the apartment a month ago, and I’ve been homeless ever since.
When my eyes blink open again, it’s warmer. A movement on the beach catches my eye. A lone figure, kneeling, building something with the stones around him. Craig! I leap up. The explosion in my brain nearly knocks me back down. I head toward him but then stop myself. How can I let him see what has become of me? A bum, sleeping on the beach. When I last saw Craig I was still a squeaky-clean polyg who’d never tasted alcohol and who thought drugs were for losers like Brent and Charlie. Was that really me?
I sit back down and watch as Craig puts one last stone on his rock balance. He stretches, scans the beach and then walks in the direction of the park.
I want to run after him, but I don’t. Instead I stagger over to his rock balance. It’s amazing how he has placed each rock in such a way that the tower doesn’t topple over. It seems to defy gravity. A wave of despair presses down on me. I kick the tower as hard as I can and watch the rocks tumble.
What have I become? Life wasn’t this bad when I lived in Unity. There were stupid rules, lots of them. The Prophet was full of shit, but I was loved and cared for. I had a family. I even had God, whatever that means. Now I have nothing. I am nothing. And there’s no going back.
I find myself in the bushes beside the river each day, hoping to see Craig again, but a whole week passes and he doesn’t return. Maybe he was only in town for a visit. I should have talked to him. Loneliness and hunger battle for my attention.
Day after day I watch for him, and each day the buds on the tree become a little closer to bursting open. A week after I first saw him, I wake from a light nap, and he’s back. This time he’s building an inuksuk. I get up and slowly begin to cross the beach.
Hearing the stones crunch, Craig turns. A grin spreads across his face. “I was hoping that if I built an inuksuk you’d come out of hiding,” he says. “It worked.”
Our eyes meet, and we study each other. He looks clean and fit, and his smile is warm. For a moment I want to flee, but my feet are glued to the ground. Craig steps forward and pulls me in. I stand frozen to the spot, not returning the embrace, but I breathe in the fresh scent of him. I can only imagine how I must smell.
He releases me. “Listen, Jon,” he says gently. “My parents are at work today. Why don’t you come home with me, and I’ll make you something to eat. You can have a shower and use the washing machine if you want.”
It’s so like Craig. No questions asked, just assistance offered. Blinking back tears, I nod and then follow him along the beach and into town.
An hour and a half later I’m at Craig’s parents’ table, eating a stack of pancakes that he has whipped up for me. I’ve taken a long, gloriously hot shower, and I’ve moved my clothes from the washer to the dryer, which purrs in the next room. Craig has given me a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, which he says he doesn’t need back. He hasn’t asked about my lif
e or how things got this way. Instead he tells me stories about living in residence on campus, nasty cafeteria food and a little bit about his classes.
I tilt my head and take a long swallow of milk, remembering, sheepishly, the milk I drank on that last day I worked for Alex.
“How long have you been home?” I ask, finally feeling satisfied. I lean back in the chair and look around at the cluttered kitchen.
“Two weeks now.”
“Will you go back to college in the fall?”
He nods. “That’s the plan.”
“What are you going to do all summer?”
“I lucked out. Mrs. Kennedy has lined me up with a whole list of kids who need some summer tutoring. Right now I’m seeing a few in the afternoons and evenings, until school gets out for the break.”
Lucky kids. Learning with Craig was so different from learning in school. If only I could have completed high school that way.
The food and warm shower have made me sleepy, but before I can ask if there’s a bed to nap on, he says, “I’ve seen Celeste, Jon. Her baby is a month old already.”
That wakes me up.
“It’s a little girl. Her name is Hope.”
I cover my face with my hands. I don’t want to know this.
“You okay?”
I don’t respond. I just let the news sink in.
“She’s planning on leaving Unity. She wants my help. And yours.”
My hands drop to my lap. “Now she plans to leave?” I croak. “Now?” I can’t help myself. “Why the hell didn’t she leave a year ago, before she had to get married and have a friggin’ baby?”
Craig doesn’t answer immediately. I push back my chair and begin to pace the room.
“I asked her much the same thing,” Craig says. “I asked her why she changed her mind. And she said that when she first laid her eyes on her baby girl, she knew she wanted more for her daughter than she’d had for herself. More choices.”
I collapse back into the chair. “Where will she go?”
“Abigail has agreed to take them both. Taviana will help out.”
The unjustness of this hits me hard. She’s going to Abigail’s now that I’m gone. “My father will never allow her to leave.”
“She’s a little worried about how that’s all going to go down.”
“She should be.”
“Jimmy and I are driving out there tomorrow when everyone’s in church,” he tells me. “She’s going to come up with a reason not to attend the service. We’re going to pick her up near the beach. Do you want to come with us?”
Yes! I want to scream. Yes! Yes! Yes! For all these months, seeing Celeste was all that I wanted. But now? Everything has changed. I shake my head, staring at my feet.
“She wants to see you,” Craig says softly.
“She wants to see the old Jon. Not this one. Besides, when she sees how badly I’ve failed…it will scare her. She might not leave.”
Craig doesn’t say anything. He must agree.
The dryer shuts off. “I’ll get my things and get on my way.”
I pull everything I own out of the dryer and cram it all into my pack—one pair of jeans, a couple pairs of socks with holes in the heels, two pairs of boxer shorts and three T-shirts. Ironically, it’s more than I arrived in town with.
Craig isn’t in the kitchen when I return. I look around. There are stacks of books on every surface. He must have inherited his love of books from his parents. On a small desk a laptop sits closed, and there are even books stacked on top of it. I pull open the top drawer of the desk. Pens, notepads, paper clips, scissors and a stapler are jumbled together. There is also a heavy gold watch. I glance around the kitchen again, making sure I’m alone. I slide the watch into the pocket of the sweatpants he’s given me. Then I pick up my pack and leave through the back door.
Fourteen
I watch a mother and her toddler leave their table in the mall food court, and I quickly sink into the vacated chair before a cleaner clears away the leftover food. I finish the half-eaten hot dog and French fries left on the tray.
I sense the lady at the next table watching me.
I narrow my eyes at her. “What?”
She quickly looks away and begins to gather up her packages, but as she stands to leave, she picks up her own tray and slides it onto my table. Her burger has been carefully cut in two, and one half, untouched, remains on the paper plate. When I look back up, the woman is winding her way out of the food court. I gobble down the burger and sit back, satisfied. The Prophet is so wrong about gentiles. Their kindness always surprises me. He’d brainwashed us, trying to gain our fear and loyalty by making us believe gentiles are evil.
I look for a water fountain on my way out.
The watch on my wrist shows eleven thirty. Craig and Jimmy will be in Unity now. How long before my father discovers that his youngest wife and their daughter have disappeared?
I rub my thumb over the watch’s smooth face. It took a while before I figured out that to set the time you have to pull the little button on the side and then wind it to make the watch run. I take it off my wrist and study the engraving on the back again. I can make out the words With Love in the center, but the names above and below that have worn off. It must have been a gift from a woman to a man. Craig’s mom to his dad? His grandmother to his grandfather? It could even have been a gift between his great-grandparents, judging by how old it looks. To toss a watch like this into a drawer full of pens and paper, well, no one must want it anymore. I’m doing them a favor by finding it a new home.
I was going to take it directly to the pawnshop before stopping at the mall, but I like the way it feels on my wrist. It’s so heavy, you can’t forget you’re wearing it. The person who wore it before me must have had the exact same wrist size. The leather strap is worn thin around the hole where the gold pin pokes through. The numbers on the face are large and black. I’ve never worn any kind of jewelry. Adornments are discouraged by the Prophet. I might wait a day or two before I make that stop at the pawnshop. That will also give the dealer a little more time to sell the other pieces I’ve dropped off.
My thoughts return to Celeste. I try to imagine her arrival at Abigail’s this afternoon. The ache to see her intensifies. I could find a place to hide, watch her arrive. She wouldn’t have to see me…
I check the watch again. I should have just enough time to get to Abigail’s neighborhood and find a secure hiding place.
I squat behind a low hedge in a yard across the street from Abigail’s. My legs are cramping up, and I know I’m in full view if anyone’s home in the house behind me, but it’s the best place I could find to hide.
The minutes tick slowly past. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. They should have arrived by now. Did they get caught? Did Celeste change her mind? So many things could have gone wrong.
Finally I hear Jimmy’s pickup coming down the narrow road. I part the hedge’s thick branches to watch as he parks at the curb. Immediately Abigail’s front door bursts open, and both Abigail and Taviana rush into the yard. Matthew and David appear in the doorway behind them.
Jimmy jumps out of the truck and leans into the cab for something. A moment later he’s cradling a baby in his arms. My baby sister.
Craig climbs out of the passenger side and then she’s there, standing beside him, her ankle-length skirt and long-sleeved, chin-high blouse so familiar yet so out of place at the same time. It takes all the willpower I have to remain in my hiding place and not run over to her.
“Celeste!” Taviana shrieks. She rushes around the front of the truck to embrace her old friend. They hold each other for a long moment, and I can tell from the way Celeste’s shoulders shake that she’s crying.
Jimmy has passed the baby to Abigail and is helping Craig lift shopping bags out of the bed of the pickup. They must have stopped to pick up baby supplies. Celeste wouldn’t have been able to pack anything.
There’s a wail from the baby. Celeste pull
s herself away from Taviana to take her from Abigail. As she bounces the baby, introductions are made, and then everyone begins to move toward the house.
Suddenly hands clamp onto my shoulders. I lurch to my feet. I struggle to run, but I’m overpowered by someone taller and heavier than me. “What do you think you’re doing?” the big man asks, his voice booming.
I look up. Abigail, Jimmy and Craig have heard the man’s voice and are watching what’s happening. Celeste has already gone into the house with Taviana.
“Jon?” Abigail asks. She walks across the street. Craig and Jimmy trail her. I twist to release myself from the man’s grip, but he’s got my arms pinned behind me now. Abigail asks, “What are you doing here?” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, a look of understanding crosses her face. “Oh. You knew Celeste was arriving.”
I don’t meet her eyes or acknowledge her words.
“You know this punk?” the man asks. “He’s been hiding behind my hedge, behaving suspiciously. Don’t tell me this is one of your Lost Boys, Abigail.”
“Yes, he is,” she says uncertainly.
“I told you not to run a halfway house in our neighborhood,” the man says, gripping my arms even tighter. I wince in pain. “You go around acting like Mother Teresa while these damaged polygs turn into hooligans. And worse. I’ve said it before: I want your little operation shut down. I’m going back to city council about this.”
No one says anything for a moment.
“So why were you hiding behind the hedge anyway?” the man asks, still holding my arms.
“I was just…just waiting for them to get home.”
“Waiting for whom to get home?”
I cock my head toward Jimmy and Craig, who stand quietly beside Abigail.
“Then why didn’t you wait over there?”
My mouth opens, but I can’t come up with an answer.
“Did you want to surprise Celeste?” Craig asks.
All heads turn to look at him. I can only nod, but I’m intensely grateful.
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