Nothing But Blue

by Lisa Jahn-Clough

  “Blue?” Snake says.

  “Yeah?”

  “No one can do it all by themselves. People want to help. Let them.”

  The phone goes dead. Maybe Snake and I will see each other again. If we do, I want to be sure I am me.

  I walk down the street, turn left. There is my house at the top of the hill. It’s still pale yellow with green shutters. There’s a car in the driveway. Not my parents’ car. There is an upside-down kiddie pool in the yard—we never had one of those—and a tricycle with pink tassels on the handlebars. I start running, and as I get closer I notice the window curtains are different, too. Something is amiss.

  Is it my house? Did I end up at the wrong place? My pulse quickens.

  I hide behind the maple tree near a freshly raked pile of leaves and stare at the front door. I half expect to see myself come out. But something deep down tells me that I no longer live here, that my life will never be the same.

  I imagine opening the front door and walking up the steps, holding on to the curved railing, entering the first room at the top. My room. Surely there must be something of me still in there. Is the tree mural still on the wall? Is there a candy bar still under the floorboard? If not, then there is nothing of me left anywhere. Having something of me still in this house is the only hope I have of proving that I exist.

  I touch Shadow. I look into his eyes and wait for him to say something. He whimpers and I realize I haven’t heard him speak for a while. “What?” I ask. He barks once. His bark seems to tell me something. He is with me, but I am on my own. “I love you,” I tell him.

  The front door of my house opens and a little girl in a purple tutu and white sneakers flies out. Her braids bounce as she twirls across the yard.

  Before I can stop him, Shadow darts over to her and wags his tail superfast. The girl stops still. Her mouth spreads in a huge, goofy grin, and she starts bouncing up and down on one leg. She puts her hand out for Shadow to sniff, which he does, and then she pat-pats him on the top of his head.

  “Hello,” she says to him. “I was just wishing for a dog. Are you a magic dog? Can you do tricks?”

  Shadow stands on his hind legs. The girl claps. Shadow dances backwards, leading her to the tree. The girl follows him until she stops directly in front of me. She stares up and down.

  “Are you a fairy godmother?” she finally asks with wide eyes.

  I look down at my filthy clothes. My hair is matted and I probably smell like garbage. “I don’t think so,” I say.

  “Are you a witch, then?”

  “No.”

  She stares at me with great seriousness, then breaks into sudden joy and exclaims, “I remember you!” She claps her hands together. “How did you get here? Didn’t you move far away? Did your magic dog bring you here?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer, looking at Shadow. “Maybe he did.”

  “He is magic,” the girl says with assurance. Shadow darts around her.

  “You may be right,” I say.

  “I’m Sophie,” the girl says. “I live here.” From inside my house, her house now, a woman’s face appears in the window. “With my mom and dad, and baby brother.”

  “I used to live here,” I say.

  She nods. “Yes, I know. We met in the bedroom with the trees. I finished painting the little house for the ghosts. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” I say.

  “There are ghosts living in it, I’m sure of it. And they’re friendly ghosts, not scary at all. Where do you live now?” she asks.

  The woman in the window moves away. The front door opens, and she comes toward us. She’s wearing an apron like she’s just been baking. She is smiling but she looks worried, too.

  I step behind the tree. “I don’t live anywhere,” I say. “We moved far away. The new house blew up. My parents are dead. Everything is gone. No one survived. All dead.” This slips out of me as if I’ve known all along. It is my voice, but it sounds different, as though it is coming from somewhere and someone else. But at the same time I know that it is me who is speaking these words.

  Sophie’s eyes open even wider and her jaw drops. “But …” She sniffles. “But … you’re not dead.” Her face crumples and she begins to cry.

  I didn’t mean to upset her. I want to tell her everything is okay, that it doesn’t matter. I finger the robot clock in my pocket. I take it out and give it to Sophie.

  She stops crying and examines it.

  “Someone special gave this to me,” I tell her, “but I want you to take care of it. Can you do that?”

  She nods with her mouth open.

  Beyond her I see the woman, her mother, getting closer—I can’t explain this to her; I can’t explain it to anyone. A wave of blackness overtakes me. All that I have said, I realize, is the truth.

  I am the missing girl. My parents are dead.

  I am the one who survived.

  NOW AND BEFORE

  I am aware of Sophie yelling. I am aware of Shadow barking. I am aware of the kind woman telling me to wait. My head is spinning and all sounds fade away as I run, until there is only silence and the wind in my face.

  There is only me.

  I see clearly what happened. I was so mad at my parents. They made me move to that stupid town and that ugly house, as though I were irrelevant. I hated that house and that town and them.

  Yet, I knew I didn’t really hate them. I didn’t wish everything gone. It was a fluke. A random act of destruction. Might I have prevented it, though? Or would I have died along with them? How come I lived and they didn’t? I should have been asleep in my bed. I should be dead. It’s their fault that I am alive.

  That morning I went out to find coffee. I was heading home when there was a loud boom. I thought it was an earthquake. As I got closer I could smell the gas and burning ash. Smoke permeated my nostrils, making me dizzy. I ran faster. As I rounded the corner, I saw commotion at the top of the hill where the house had stood, where my parents had been sleeping in their new bedroom surrounded by boxes filled with everything we owned.

  There was a scene: fire trucks, police cars, an ambulance. There were strangers: screaming, watching, and pointing to the pile of rubble and timber that used to be a house. Some of the houses around were damaged, but this one was gone. The firemen were trying to put out fires that had started. The sky was filled with smoke and the smell of burning ash.

  The police were trying to keep people back. Their faces were covered with masks, and they were handing out masks to the strangers. “It’s not safe,” they said. “The gas will make you sick. Put these on.”

  I crept closer without anyone noticing. I crouched behind a fire truck. The smoke made my eyes sting. The smell made me want to throw up. I saw the door of our refrigerator sticking up from the rubble and a bedspring next to it. The bed my mother had been sleeping on? I thought I saw a part of her. A part of my mother’s body. I couldn’t identify anything else.

  I stood frozen on the edge of chaos. Something in me left—rose up to the sky to mix with the ash and smoke. What stayed on the ground was someone else. This was not my home. It had never been and never would be. Home was far, far away, with the smell of the ocean and the sound of the gulls, and my parents alive and a boy who I believed loved me, at least liked me. Not this smoky, crumpled mess of death.

  I heard a cop talking to one of the firemen. “Could anyone have survived?”

  The fireman answered, “No, no one can survive this kind of explosion. We’ll know for sure when we find all the bodies.”

  I moved away. I heard the neighbors, all strangers to me, talking.

  “What happened?”

  “A gas leak.”

  “It’s a tragedy.”

  “It’s freaky.”

  “Thank God our house is old and solid.”

  “Those new homes went up so fast.”

  “There’s a lawsuit here for sure.”

  “Who’s going to sue? That family just moved in.
They had a daughter.”

  “No one survived. They’re all dead.”

  No one knew me in that town. They thought I was dead. It made no sense. I wasn’t dead. I didn’t live there. So I ran. I left the scene and I went back home.

  Where I am now.

  But now that I am here I see my old house and I know. I know it isn’t mine anymore. I know we moved. I know the new house is gone. I know my parents are gone. I’ve come five hundred miles, and now I know. Everything is gone.

  This time when I run, I am running to the ocean. I will not stop until I have no breath left. There is nothing to save me. I do not want to be a survivor.

  I hear the surf. My heart races. The vast expanse of ocean opens in front of me—it goes on and on, forever and ever, mysterious and inviting, frightening and comforting all at the same time.

  I run to the beach, stop for a second to take off my shoes, and burrow my toes in the pebbly sand.

  I step into the water. It’s freezing.

  I take another step, then another and another. I don’t need to run anymore.

  The water reaches my thighs.

  I keep going.

  The water reaches my waist.

  I keep going.

  Tingles of icy cold water reach my armpits, then my neck and chin. The salty taste creeps into my mouth.

  I keep going.

  This is where I was headed all along—deep in the icy waters of nothingness.

  The ocean covers all of me, enveloping me. It’s not cold anymore. In fact, it’s warm. It’s my mother’s and my father’s arms wrapped around me in a sandwich hug.

  “Welcome home,” my mother says.

  And then my father, “We knew you’d make it.”

  They are under water but their voices are crystal clear.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. My words come out muffled and leave a trail of bubbles.

  They squeeze me tight. “It’s not your fault,” they say. “We’re sorry, too.” Their grip intensifies until it starts to hurt, and it’s hard to breathe.

  From far away I hear the sound of a dog barking. I try to tell my parents to let go, but when I open my mouth it fills with salty water and I cough and swallow more water. I struggle to unwrap their arms but it’s like they are an anchor, holding me down.

  Something breaks the surface above me and I see four submerged paws doggy-paddling. I pull with all my might and manage to get my head out of the water even though my parents keep hold.

  “Let me go!” My voice erupts into the waves. But I only get air for a second before I am sucked under again. I look for my parents, but there is only a mass of seaweed spiraling around my legs and body, gripping me tight, pulling me down.

  I kick frantically, trying to untangle myself. Shadow is near, paddling like crazy. He dives underneath and bites through the seaweed, and I am released.

  The sun hits my face. I hear the whir of a motorboat. A child’s voice shouts: “There she is! Save her!”

  I put my head below the ocean once more. My parents are there again. They are not strangling me. They are floating away from me. This is my last chance.

  “Wait!” I scream, choking the words out. “Can I come with you?”

  They turn. My mother’s sad eyes sparkle in the sea light. She whispers, “Darling. No.”

  My father smiles and shakes his head. “You have to stay.”

  “But how? What do I do?”

  “You live,” my mother says.

  “Be brave. People will help,” my father says.

  “But who?” I plead, using the last reserve of air left in my lungs. I have so much to ask before they go, but I can’t.

  They reach out. I reach out. Our hands touch.

  “You’ll know. You already know,” they say as they slowly drift away. Eventually just the tips of our fingers are connected. Then our fingertips part, and they float into the darkness of the sea and I can’t see them anymore. They are gone.

  Shadow circles around me in the water. My parents are right. I do know. I know Shadow has come to rescue me. I know I have to go on. For some reason, with some random stroke of luck, good or bad, I survived and they did not.

  I grab on to Shadow’s neck and he paddles me to the boat. Arms outstretch and I am hoisted up. Shadow is hoisted up, too. A towel is draped over me, and I huddle, clutching Shadow in my arms.

  Over the wind and the surf I hear my parents’ voices carry through the waters. They are calling my name. First it is the name they gave me, then it changes to “Blue.” Their voices get softer and softer until all I can make out is the chant of one word: “Live. Live. Live.”

  ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

  My thanks to all the good people at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, especially Margaret Wimberger, Susanna Vagt, and my amazing editor, Julia Richardson; to Lisa Bowe, Louise Hawes, Mary Logue, and Pam Richards for friendship, support, and insightful feedback on various drafts; to Julia Ackerman, LCSW, for providing information on acute stress disorder and other accuracy checks; to Kyle and Sophie Richards-Connolly for being the awesome young adults in my life; and Ed Briant for our ongoing conversations about everything under the sun; also to my mother, Elena, and brother, Eric, for the adventurous and creative lives they lead, and to the memory of my father, Garrett.

  A special thanks to the woman I met ten years ago who lost everything and who shared her story with me, and to the travelers I’ve encountered along the way. May you all find your true home.

  And, of course, thanks to Happy and Rico for their divine dogginess and all of our intrepid walks, as well as for their patience and devotion.

  1

  I unlatched the wooden gate of the goat pasture and headed to my favorite sitting rock. Petunia waddled over, chewing her cud.

  “Ready?” I said, stroking her fur and jingling the bell on her collar. “We’re reading a new story today. You’ll like it. It’s about a girl who falls asleep for one hundred years.” I took the worn copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales from under my arm. It was the same copy I’d had all my life, the one Dad used to read to me at bedtime when I was little. Even though I had just finished seventh grade, I still loved old fairy tales. When Petunia gave birth, I planned to read to her kid, too. By the size of her belly, it looked like, once again, she had more than one in there. Last year Petunia had twins, and I gave them English and history lessons so that by the time we sold them they were the smartest goats in Maine.

  Every year we take Petunia to a farm in the next town to breed her with a buck. I used to go along and watch them prance around in what Dad calls their mating ritual. The buck lunges after Petunia, who always skitters away, until finally she lets him climb on her back. The last time I went I felt sorry for Petunia. It didn’t look as though she was having much fun. If that’s all there is to sex, it’s never going to be for me. It’s probably unfair to compare goats to humans, but after all, we’re animals, too.

  This spring I told my father I didn’t want to go anymore. He was disappointed. He thinks it’s good for my brother, Phil, and me to be educated about nature. But I wanted to give Petunia some privacy. It seemed like the more I knew about that sort of stuff the less I wanted to think about it. Kids in school had already started dating and doing things I didn’t want anything to do with. Not to mention that they didn’t want anything to do with me, either.

  I cleared my throat and began reading. “Sleeping Beauty. By the Brothers Grimm. Read by Phoebe Sharp.” I glanced at Petunia. She continued chewing. “Once upon a time, in a far-off land, there lived a couple who longed for a child.” I managed to finish half the story before Petunia tried eating the pages.

  “Hey! None of that. Don’t you like it?” I held the book out of reach. “That’s it for today, anyway. It’s supper-time.” I led Petunia into the barn and scooped some grain into her bin. She ate eagerly and ignored me when I tried to give her a hug.

  “See you tomorrow for morning milking,” I said.

  I took out my camera, a crappy Instamatic I got
at a yard sale last year, and clicked the end of my roll on Petunia. I was marking the progress of her pregnancy. Someday I would have a real camera. A 35 mm with a zoom lens. How could I be a professional without a zoom lens? While I was at it, I would have my own darkroom, too. Instead of piling up rolls and rolls of film waiting to be developed, I could print my own and make artistic changes in light and focus. Watch the image emerge right before my eyes in a deep red glow. The problem was money. Dad works but there’s not much extra. I’m pretty good at saving my baby-sitting money, but photo equipment costs a lot, and in our tiny town there’s limited baby-sitting to be found.

  Most of my photos were of the animals and the farm and always in black and white. I should have lived in the era when photography was new because I love all that old equipment, the old box cameras, which had a black cloth that you hid under in order to take a picture. But for now I had to be satisfied with photography books from the library and my own Instamatic.

  On my way down the path I stopped by the stone wall and took a deep breath. Our black lab, Bear, ran up to join me. We stood there, both breathing in with our noses held high. The air smelled of new leaves. I wrapped my arms around myself and watched the misty pink sun begin to drop over the hills. The days were getting longer, and it was lighter later. It was still a little chilly in the evenings, but it was feeling almost like summer. I loved this time of year. It was fresh and untouched, as if anything could happen. It was romantic, like a fairy tale. I sighed and then headed inside with Bear jumping and barking at my heels.

  As soon as I walked into the kitchen, Dad hung up the phone. He let out a big sigh. “Well,” he said.

  “Well, what?” I asked.

  “We’ll discuss it after dinner. Now help your brother set the table.”

  My dad. He tries his best, but I don’t think he’s ever recovered from my mother’s death, almost eleven years ago. He’s not bad looking, especially if he shaved off his beard, but he’s hardly ever dated in my entire lifetime. About five years ago, he went out with the school librarian for a couple of dinners. He put on a tie and hired Michael to watch us, but then all of a sudden he stopped calling her. When I asked him about it, all he said was that she wasn’t for him and that was that. You’d think he’d want to find someone to keep him company, but the way he’s so quiet and stern would probably drive any woman away. I wonder if he was like this when my mom was alive, or if he developed this stiffness after. Before my mom died he was going to go back to school to get his degree in biology, but now he works for our neighbors who run an organic seed farm. It gives him enough time for our farm and allows him to keep an eye on Phil and me, though it’s mostly me he’s strict with. Phil gets away with murder, probably because he’s older and a boy.