“Who is Celeste?” the man asks.
“She’s an old friend of Jon’s,” Craig says. “She’s just arrived for a visit.”
“And you are?” the man asks Craig. “You don’t look like you come from Unity.”
“I’m Jon’s tutor,” Craig says. “You can let go of his arms.”
The man shifts his grip to the nape of my neck. I shake out my arms and straighten the watch, but then I remember where it came from. It’s too late. I glance at Craig. He’s staring at it, frowning. He looks up, and our eyes lock. I wait for him to bust me, but he doesn’t say anything.
The neighbor gives Abigail one last glare. “Quit harboring these runaways,” he says. He releases my neck and gives my back a hard push. He stomps back to his house.
I look toward Abigail’s house. Two figures are standing in her living room, watching us. Before anyone can say anything, I turn and run down the street.
“I’ve brought you a sandwich.”
I can hear the voice, but it’s coming from far away.
“Come on, Jon. Wake up.” A toe pokes me in the ribs.
Craig. I try to open my eyes, but it is just too bright. I struggle to say go away, but my throat is so dry that only a croak comes out.
I have no idea where I am. Last night is a complete blank. Most of the last week is fuzzy. I’d be better off dead. Maybe one of these mornings I just won’t wake up. That would be a blessing.
Drips of water hit my forehead. I force my eyes open and see Craig holding a water bottle over me. Another drop of water splashes my face. “What the…!” I try to roll over, away from him, but sharp stones stab me in the back. “Go away,” I repeat, clearer this time.
“I have chocolate chip cookies too,” Craig says.
I struggle to sit up. “What do you want?”
“Celeste needs you,” he says, passing me a sub sandwich. It’s fully loaded with meats, cheeses and vegetables.
I grab it and take huge bites. I have no idea when I last ate. My sole objective has been to find booze, which keeps me blissfully unaware of anything else. When the sandwich is gone, Craig hands me the bottle of water. I drink the whole thing without stopping for air.
I lie back down on a tarp that I acquired from who knows where. As I become more alert I also become less numb. The shame returns. I need to find more booze.
“Celeste needs your help,” Craig repeats.
I stare up at him. “What kind of help?”
“Your father keeps calling Abigail’s, insisting Celeste return to Unity.”
“Well, duh. What did she expect?” I squeeze my eyes shut again.
“He also wants to know where you are.”
My eyes pop open. “Did you tell him?”
“No.”
That’s a relief. I really need a drink. I glance around for my backpack. Maybe there’s a bottle in it.
“He hasn’t forced her to return yet,” Craig says. “He claims he’s worried about her safety.”
The food and the water have reached my bloodstream, and I feel sleepy again. I close my eyes. “Why are you telling me?” I murmur.
“We figure that if he knew you were caring for her and Hope, he might consider leaving them alone, letting them stay. He trusts you, and he admits he knew how unhappy Celeste has been.”
I let this sink in. “Well, as you can see, I can’t even take care of myself, let alone her and her baby.”
“Jon, listen to me.” He sounds uncharacteristically irritated.
I push my long, filthy hair away from my face and force myself to sit up again. “I’m listening.”
“There are lots of us who want to help Celeste, but your father doesn’t know us. He says he needs to speak with you. You just have to convince him that she’ll be okay.”
I try to laugh but end up in a coughing fit. “Do you still think he’s going to feel that way after he sees me?”
“Come to my house. We’ll get you cleaned up, back on track.”
“Good luck with that.” I flop down again and roll over so my back is toward Craig. I close my eyes, but my head is pounding hard. Craig doesn’t say anything else, but I feel his presence. I try to wait him out, hoping he’ll just leave, but he doesn’t. What’s the matter with him? Can’t he see that I’m a mess? I can’t help Celeste.
But I remember Craig’s house. The warm shower, the cozy kitchen. The food. Maybe just for a few days….
With a start, I remember the watch. I glance at my wrist, but, of course, I’ve pawned it. I needed booze. Craig hasn’t mentioned it. He knows I stole it, yet he’s still inviting me back. Is he crazy?
Slowly, painfully, I push myself up again. “Did you say you had cookies?”
He takes a container of homemade cookies out of his pack. I help myself to one, then another, and another until they’re all gone. I can’t remember food ever tasting so good.
Fifteen
For twenty-four hours I do nothing but eat and sleep. Craig gives me a stack of his clothes and throws out all the ones I owned. His parents were kind when Craig introduced us. They told me to make myself at home.
I have.
On the second morning I find Craig puttering in the kitchen.
“How are you feeling today?” he asks when I sit at the table. He slides an omelet in front of me.
I tuck right in. “Almost human.”
Craig starts cracking more eggs into a bowl. “That’s good.” He dices peppers and onion, then grates cheese.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?”
He smiles as he beats the eggs. “You’ve forgotten that it’s only in Unity that the kitchen is out-of-bounds for men. I’ve been cooking since I was a little kid.” He pours the egg mixture into a hot pan. “So,” he says. “It’s time for us to talk.”
My mood plunges. I don’t respond but instead concentrate on my food. This may be my last good meal for a while.
“The idea was to get you cleaned up, back on track, and help Celeste out, right?” He transfers the omelet onto a plate and joins me at the table. “Step one is complete. We’ve cleaned you up. Now we need to get you back on track.”
I watch him eat. “And how are we going to do that?”
He glances up. “I think you have to figure that part out for yourself. In the meantime, your father is waiting to talk to you.”
“And what do you expect me to say to him?” I can feel the anger bubbling up. “That I live on the street, I steal for a living, and I’m a high-school dropout. But sure, I’ll help Celeste out.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Yeah, right.” I look around at the family pictures hanging on the walls, at the open cupboards stocked with food. Craig’s parents even let him take a gap year to “find himself,” as he put it, after high school. A year to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. It was at the end of that year that he began tutoring me.
I used to have a home too. But I chose to give it up.
“You can get a job,” he says. “You can find a place to live. You can even return to school.”
“No one’s going to hire a homeless high-school dropout. Besides, I burned all my bridges in the construction industry. I have no references.”
“Then get references.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear. Alex fired me. He was my only hope for a reference.”
“I heard,” he says quietly. “And I think you could rebuild those bridges.”
“Easy for you to say.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t say it was going to be easy, but sleeping on the beach didn’t look too…too easy either.”
He’s right. After a couple of nights on a soft bed, the thought of sleeping on the beach again has no appeal. And having a clear head for the last couple of days—for those few hours I’ve been awake anyway—has been kind of nice too.
“What do you suggest I do?”
“Apologize to Alex and Jimmy.” Craig says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
I slide lower in my chair. “It’s way too late for that.”
“It’s never too late. And even if Alex won’t hire you again, it’s the right thing to do.”
“Yeah, but your right thing won’t get me a job.” I get up and put my dishes in the dishwasher. “How’s she doing anyway?”
“Celeste? Well, it’s been an adjustment for her. Not only does she have to get used to living outside Unity, but she’s also learning how to be a mother, and she’s just a girl herself.”
“Lots of sixteen-year-old girls in Unity have babies,” I tell him. “Maybe most of them.” I fill the sink and put the frying pan into the soapy water. As I scrub at the stuck-on omelet I realize he’s trying to tell me that Celeste has it harder than I did. That irritates me.
“I think she expected you to be here for her,” Craig adds, almost under his breath.
My mind returns to that last morning in Unity, when I begged her to come with me. I’d promised her we’d be together, that we’d get an education and make the kind of life for ourselves that we could never have there.
I place the pan on the drainboard and rinse off the knives. Now she’s here, but with a baby. My half sister. And I’ve turned into a bum, all my plans sunk into a deep, dark hole.
“Is Abigail insisting that she finish high school too?”
Craig nods.
“I don’t know how she’ll do that with a child to look after.” I wipe the counters and return to the table. “It might be better if she goes back,” I tell him. I mean it.
“Too late,” he says. “She cut her hair, she’s wearing jeans, and she’s talking about getting a tattoo.”
“Are you kidding me?”
He laughs. “Only about the tattoo.” His face grows serious again. “She deserves a chance, Jon. All you have to do is convince your father that she’s safe, so he can set her free. You know that the rest of us will take care of her.” He shakes his head. “He’s struggling too. The Prophet’s furious that he’s not physically dragging her back to Unity. He’s lost face in the community. At least if he knows that she’ll be safe here, he can stop worrying about that.”
I think about my father. He is a good guy. Fair. Kind. I just couldn’t share his religious beliefs. But I really miss him. I even feel for him, dealing with the Prophet right now. It’s got to be hard.
“And Jon?” he says.
I meet his eyes.
“She’d like to see you. Today, if possible. Will you do that for her?”
I fold my hands in my lap and notice my fingernails. They’re clean. I trimmed them for the first time in months. Same with my toenails. It feels good.
Craig is watching me closely. The thought of seeing Celeste terrifies me, but I’d rather it be now than when I’m back on the street, dirty, hungry and probably drunk or high. I nod.
Craig leads a girl across the park toward the picnic table where I’m waiting. The girl is pushing a baby carriage. At first I wonder who she is. He was supposed to bring Celeste, but then I realize this is her. She’s completely transformed. With her shoulder-length hair, cutoff jeans, T-shirt and sandals, she looks like any other pretty Springdale teenager. I stand as they approach the table.
“Hi, Jon,” Celeste says. Our eyes meet for a brief moment, and then we both look away.
It disturbs me to see her like this, her legs exposed, her hair framing her face. It’s fine for the girls out here, but not for my Celeste. I realize with a start that there’s still some of the polygamist living inside me. But something stirs at the sound of her voice. It is her.
I clear my throat. “I hardly recognized you,” I stammer.
“You look different too,” she says. “You’ve grown taller, and your hair…”
“Oh, yeah, I haven’t cut it for a while.” I give my ponytail a quick yank. “You should have seen it when I dyed it orange.”
“You did?”
“Yup.”
“I’ll let you two get caught up,” Craig says. “I’ll be back in a little while. Is that okay?” He directs the question to Celeste.
She hesitates for a moment, then says, “Yeah, sure. See you in a bit.”
Craig glances into the buggy, adjusts the baby’s blanket and then heads back the way he came.
“Why don’t we sit down?” I suggest.
We sink onto the wooden bench. Celeste keeps her hand on the carriage’s handle, gently bouncing the baby. I notice the polish on her fingernails. That’s new too.
The last time I was with Celeste was the day in the hospital waiting room, when her mom was sick and we fell into each other’s arms and kissed as if our lives depended on it. For almost a year now, I’ve fantasized about another meeting like that, but clearly that’s not going to happen today.
“So how is my dad and, well, everyone else?”
“Everyone’s fine. They weren’t allowed to talk about it, but I know the kids really missed you. And your mom, she…” She pauses, choosing her words carefully. “She always seemed sad, and she never really warmed to me.”
I brace myself against a wave of homesickness as I think about my mom and all my brothers and sisters. “I’m sure she loves you, but it’s just—”
“Yeah. I know.”
There’s no point in stating the obvious—that if we hadn’t been secretly meeting, I might not have had to leave so soon, and Celeste certainly wouldn’t have been married to my father.
The baby begins to fuss in the carriage, and Celeste rocks it a little harder, but the baby becomes even more agitated. She reaches in and lifts her out. The baby stops fussing immediately, and her blue eyes focus on me. I’m shocked at the family resemblance. She could be any one of my other little sisters.
“Meet Hope,” Celeste says, handing the infant to me.
Hope stares at me, wide-eyed. It dawns on me that this may be the only sister I will ever see again. A surge of emotion threatens to unglue me, so I quickly hand her back.
The baby starts to fuss again. “Do you mind if I feed her?” Celeste asks shyly.
“Of course not. Go ahead.”
Celeste reaches into the buggy for a light blanket, and I look away as she settles the baby at her breast with the blanket draped over her shoulder for modesty.
“A lot has changed in the last year,” she says.
“That’s for sure.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you at Abigail’s.”
“Nothing has really worked out for me.”
I can feel her glance at me, but she doesn’t respond. We sit quietly for a moment, watching small children playing on the playground and a dog chasing a ball. Spring has arrived, and everyone has headed outdoors to enjoy the warm sunshine.
“Do you regret leaving Unity?” Celeste asks.
I ponder her question. “I have days,” I tell her. “I really miss my family. And I really missed you.” We exchange a quick glance. “But I was really unhappy there too. I have a better chance of finding my way here.”
Listen to me, giving her this fake pep talk. I give my head a little shake.
“I hope it works out for me,” she says. She pulls the baby out from under the blanket. “I have Hope to think about too.”
I take my little sister, put her on my shoulder and begin to pat her. It comes back to me easily. I enjoy the warmth of her little body as she nestles into my neck. I’ve had lots of experience with babies.
“You know,” I say, watching Craig walk across the park toward us, “I think you’re going to be just fine.”
It’s almost exactly a year since I first arrived in Springdale and tasted salsa for the first time in Abigail’s living room. I’m in the living room again, only this time I’m waiting for my father to arrive. Abigail is in her armchair, Craig is waiting at the window, and Celeste and I sit beside each other on the couch. Hope is sleeping in Celeste’s arms. We thought of including Taviana but decided my father might not see her as a good role model.
We’ve agreed to stick to the
truth as much as possible. Abigail won’t tolerate lies. But we’ve also agreed to spare my father the details of my life that he wouldn’t want to hear.
Celeste thought things might go better if I cut my hair, so Craig took me to a local barber. I can always grow it out again. She’s not wearing the dress she arrived in, but she is fully covered in long pants and a sweater buttoned to the neck.
Craig has tried to keep a patter of small talk going while we wait, but we’re all distracted. Now we just stare at the sleeping baby. Abigail knits. My left foot keeps twitching. If I don’t convince my father to leave Celeste here, they’ll all be disappointed in me. I’ll lose this second chance I’ve been given to be with Celeste. I feel like I might explode from the pressure. Just seeing my dad again, after all this time…
I could use a drink. Something strong.
Eventually a truck pulls up outside Abigail’s house. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I sense Celeste stiffening. She’s pale. There are dark circles under her eyes. She looks at me, frightened. I just nod and try to look more confident than I feel. I have to do this for her. Craig’s right. She deserves a chance. Just because I failed doesn’t mean she will too.
My father steps out of the truck and glances toward the house. He looks older than I remember and a little stooped. This meeting is probably as hard for him as it is for me.
Abigail gets up and opens the front door. The sound of his voice as he greets her spins me back to my childhood, when that same voice caused a pack of small children to run across the house toward him when he returned home at the end of each day. He was the fun parent, unlike the tired, overworked moms.
I stand and step toward the door. When my father sees me, his eyes well up with tears. “Jon.”
“Hi, Dad.”
We stare at each other for a moment. A million unspoken thoughts hang in the air between us. Then he steps toward me and folds me in a warm embrace. “I’ve missed you, son,” he says. His words take me by surprise. According to the laws of his religion, I am no longer his son. In fact, I don’t even exist.
I swallow the boulder-sized lump in my throat. “I’ve missed you too.”
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