Where We Belong

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  I wondered what time it was. If it was already afternoon. I wondered how much time we had. If it would ever stop raining. If it would snow. If the whole soaked forest scene would ice over. If the ground would be slick, and the branches would fall under the weight of the icicles.

  I wondered if it was my fault, for telling my mom she had to let Sophie out of the car.

  I wondered if we would ever see my sister again.

  I grabbed my mom’s jewelry box out of the towel bin and ran it next door to the storage tent. I wedged it in the middle of a carton, between some fitted sheets. She wouldn’t remember where she’d packed it. At least, I hoped she wouldn’t. And I didn’t want her to know I’d seen.

  “Leave me around the corner.”

  “Aren’t you tired of being soaked?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want him to see you. If he sees your car outside his new house… it’s too stalker-ish. He’ll freak. It has to just be me.”

  I stepped out into the rain, which had lightened to more of a steady mist.

  I looked around. I couldn’t even see houses. Just mailboxes. And the streets weren’t paved. I mean, in town they were. But out here in the residential part of things, it was just muddy gravel roads, dense stands of trees, and mailboxes.

  I turned the corner in the rain and found the mailbox with the right number on it. It had flowers hand-painted on. I didn’t look much like Paul’s style. I wondered if Rachel had painted the flowers. And if Paul would leave them there. Because Rachel painted them.

  I still couldn’t see his house. Just a very long three flights of stairs straight up the side of a hill, completely surrounded by flowering trees. They covered the staircase like a tunnel. I could see the way they’d been trimmed so they didn’t completely block the path to the front door.

  I was halfway up the third flight of stairs before I saw the house. It was a wooden A-frame, blue with white shutters and trim. It looked like something out of a fairy tale.

  I realized I wasn’t breathing.

  Then I started thinking he wasn’t really there. Somehow, my mom had made a huge mistake. It just didn’t seem real that he could be behind the door of this fairy-tale cottage.

  Rigby knocked me out of that thought. She barked. Twice. She must have heard me, or smelled me, on the stairs.

  So it wasn’t all a mistake or a dream.

  I saw Paul’s face in the window, looking out. Just for a moment, I almost ran away. I was that scared of what he would think. I tried to calm myself. I told myself it didn’t matter what he thought. It did, though. I just wasn’t sure why. Or at least, why so much.

  The door opened. He stood there in the doorway. Just staring.

  “I know,” I said. “This is weird. I know.”

  Rigby leaned out toward me, wagging her whole body. But she was too polite to step out unless Paul did.

  “How did you find me here?”

  “Your sister-in-law told us where you were.”

  “Why did you find me here?”

  “That’s a little harder to explain.”

  “You look upset. Is everything okay?”

  “No. Nothing is okay. Can I come in?”

  A long pause. He must have been considering it. It must have been a temptation to say no. It was weird that we followed him to his new home, barely two days later. Undeniably weird. And it went without saying that my life was more complicated than ever, and I was asking his permission to carry the mess into his living room. Just for a flash of a second, I thought, I wouldn’t blame him one bit for slamming the door.

  “Sure,” he said, and he stepped back out of the doorway.

  I stepped inside.

  It was small, but wonderful. Hardwood floors. Everything wood-paneled. The windows had shutters on the inside, too. Nothing was unpacked yet. It was all sitting in a neatly arranged mountain of boxes in the middle of his new living room floor.

  Rigby was so glad to see me that she actually jumped up. Which was weird, because then her head was higher than mine, and she couldn’t lick my face.

  “Get down, Rig,” he said.

  She did.

  He moved a couple of cartons off the leather couch and indicated that I should sit. I sat down, self-conscious about my clothes being wet. I wondered if that would hurt his nice couch.

  I wondered if we really were friends in some strange kind of way.

  I figured I was about to find out.

  “What’s this all about, then?” he asked, sitting on the other end of the sofa.

  Rigby wiggled up close to me and licked my neck. I put my arms around her huge head. I was so happy to see her, I could have cried. I almost did.

  “I’m not sure where to start. We got kicked out of my aunt’s house right after you left. So now we’re homeless. So my mom had this insane idea to come here. First I told her it was just crazy. Just completely crazy. That you’d freak, and you’d hate us forever. But then I thought, What if they never come near you? What if you never saw either one of them? Only me. What if I just came by once a day and took Rigby for her walk, no charge? You’d never see Sophie. Or hear her. And you’d never have to deal with my mom. Sophie would just see Rigby while we were walking. And then maybe she’d just settle down like she did at Aunt Vi’s, and wait to see her again the next day. And then we’d be saved.”

  “How would you be saved? You’d still be homeless.”

  “No. We wouldn’t. We could live anywhere if Sophie was quiet and good like she was at Aunt Vi’s.”

  I waited. Watched lines wrinkle into his forehead.

  “Your family would be living here. Here. That is weird. I won’t lie to you. That’s very weird that I move hours away, and then here you all are again.”

  “I know. I agree. I’m sorry.”

  Silence.

  I was about to get up and walk out in complete defeat.

  “I’m back to walking her myself now,” he said. “My back is better.”

  “Wouldn’t she love two walks a day? Wouldn’t that be twice as good?”

  “Not necessarily. She’s an old girl.”

  “She is? How old is she?”

  “Six and a half.”

  “That’s not old.”

  But I’d always noticed that her muzzle was gray.

  “It is for a Great Dane. They don’t live long. Seven, eight years, usually.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “It’s just how it is.”

  “Why do people even have them, then?”

  “Because they’re great dogs.”

  “But it’s terrible to lose a great dog when they’re only seven.”

  “Or eight. Or maybe nine or ten. Who knows? Look, maybe I could walk her a mile a day, and you could walk her a mile a day. As she gets older, I think two short walks might actually be better for her than one long one.”

  I tried to answer, but I had no idea what to say. Even though I hadn’t really known it, I’d never expected this to work. I’d fully expected him to throw me out on my ass, with a few unkind words to go with the boot down the stairs. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

  “You’re saying yes?”

  “Didn’t you want me to say yes?”

  “Yeah. But I didn’t think you would. In fact, I was sure you wouldn’t.”

  “You want to keep telling me how out of character it is for me? Or you want to tell me when you want to start?”

  “Today. I really, really want to start today. Oh. But is it bad for her to go out in the rain? If it’s cold? And she’s kind of older?”

  “It’s not raining anymore.”

  “It’s not?”

  I followed him to the window. Rigby walked with us. The clouds were parting and blowing around between us and the bluest sky imaginable.

  “So, where are you going to take her? Do you even know the town at all?”

  I was still busy being knocked over by the fact that the rain had stopped in time to save me. I’d thought it was going
to rain forever. If not longer.

  I said, “Remember how you liked when I told you the truth even when I didn’t have to?”

  “The licorice.”

  “Right. I need to drive her back to the campground where we’re staying and take her for a walk there. Sophie ran off, and I think she’ll come out of hiding if Rigby is with me.”

  He looked at me with a curious look on his face. It looked like it meant no.

  “You’re not even old enough to drive.”

  “No, I’m not driving. My mother’s driving.” Then I quickly added, “I made her wait around the corner. So she wouldn’t even be coming near your house.”

  He smiled just a little bit at one corner of his mouth, the way I’d seen him do before. At the old place. That seemed so long ago. Like a different life.

  Then he walked out of the room.

  When he came back, he had Rigby’s leash.

  All the tension and fear melted down in the middle of me, like it was on its way to pool at my feet and then maybe even be gone.

  “One condition,” he said. “That you set a reasonable time limit. Two hours, maybe. If she hasn’t come out after that, then it just isn’t working. And then I’d like my dog back, anyway.”

  I held my hand out to shake, and he shook it.

  “You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

  “Just go. It gets dark fast in the mountains. It’s a cold storm.”

  “I know.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  I felt like there was a whole lot more I should say. And wanted to say. But I couldn’t wrap my head around it yet. Besides, he was right. We didn’t have a lot of time.

  “Sophie? Sophie, guess who I have with me? Rigby. Rigby’s here. Hem! Come see. It’s true, I wouldn’t lie to you. It’s Hem!”

  It was a variation on something I’d called out at least thirty times.

  Still nothing. Then again, she could be a mile out of earshot. I could have gone in the wrong direction entirely.

  I looked down at Rigby.

  “Rigby, do you know where Sophie is?”

  She raised her nose to the wind. I didn’t get the sense that she latched onto any scent right away. But I did get the idea that she understood the question. But maybe that was just me and my hope.

  We slipped and slid up a steep ridge, and I looked out and saw beyond the trees for the first time. I sucked in my breath. We were really in the mountains. I hadn’t gotten much of a sense of my surroundings until just that moment. I looked out over a canyon and saw higher Sierra Nevadas all the way out to the horizon, some with snow on their caps. I saw a little lake and trees growing out of what looked like solid rock. And the sky was a steely blue high overhead, a deeper blue closer to the mountains, with billowy white clouds sliding through.

  Just for a moment, I got that same feeling I’d had standing in front of Paul’s house. Like this was something I’d imagine. Not someplace real.

  “Sophie?” I called out again. “I have Hem!”

  I didn’t hear anything like a reply. But suddenly, Rigby was pulling me down the steep slope, my heels sliding in the loose mud and shifting stones. Rigby never pulled, so I knew she must have heard or smelled something. I slipped a few times and managed to get my balance before I went down. Then I slipped and landed on the heel of my free hand, but she pulled me right back up again, and we kept going.

  The ground leveled off, and she led me up to a tumble of boulders, each about the size of a small car.

  In between them, I saw my kid sister lying in the mud, wet and shivering. She opened her eyes and looked up. Not at me. At the dog. She had mud in her hair.

  “Hem,” she said. But it sounded weak.

  Rigby licked her face and neck. Not so much like kisses. More the way a mother dog cleans her puppies.

  Sophie laughed out loud.

  I squatted down and put my hand on her shoulder. She didn’t shake it off again. I could feel her deep trembling. For the first time, I really let it hit me how bad it would have been if I couldn’t find her by nearly dusk. It was there all along, but I hadn’t let myself think it.

  “Why did you run from us?” I asked her. Even though I knew she wouldn’t answer. Even though I wasn’t sure she’d even know.

  I hauled her up onto my shoulder, and she let her face fall into the crook of my neck. She felt as limp as a sack of wet clothes.

  I looked around.

  “Oh, shit,” I said out loud.

  I didn’t know where we were anymore. I didn’t know which direction to go to get back to camp. I looked around three hundred sixty-five degrees, it could have been any one of those directions.

  “Rigby,” I said. “Let’s go back.”

  She started off, and I followed her. We climbed back up to the top of the ridge, climbed down its spine, then crossed a muddy ravine and started up another hill. It was hard carrying all the extra weight uphill, but I didn’t have any choice.

  But if we were going the wrong way and had to wander out here for hours…

  I puffed my way to the top of the second ridge. Just following Rigby. There was the campground spread out below us.

  All the air rushed out of me at once.

  “Good dog!” I said.

  “So… I’m starting to think your dog is magic.”

  I was standing just inside the door, in his living room. I knew my mom was waiting around the corner, but I figured the least she could do was wait.

  “She’s a great dog,” he said. “Nobody’s a bigger fan of Rigby than I am. But she’s not magic. She just has hearing that’s ten times better than ours and a sense of smell that’s dozens of times better. She can just do things you can’t.”

  “But when I said let’s go back…”

  “I do that with her all the time. When we’ve gone as far away from home as we’re going, I say to her, ‘Let’s go back now.’ And we retrace our steps.”

  “Oh. Well, okay. She’s not magic. But she’s a hero. We should get her on the local news or something.”

  “No!” he said, too loud, and I wasn’t sure if he was half joking or genuinely yelling at me. “I don’t want news crews at my door.”

  “You just want to be left alone.”

  “Right.”

  I turned to go. “What time tomorrow?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Any time. Doesn’t matter.” Then he said, “Maybe not completely alone. It’s different here. No working with people whether I like it or not. I haven’t even seen the new neighbors. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not so bad to think about one person coming by every day. I mean, if it’s someone I can deal with.” He didn’t say, “Like you.” But I knew that’s what he meant. “So maybe that’s why I didn’t take it too hard when I saw you.”

  I almost said, “So we are friends.” I was thinking it.

  But then my eyes drifted to his new bookcase. It was completely empty except for that picture of Rachel. It must have been the first thing he unpacked.

  He saw me see it.

  “Then again,” he said, “when you let people in, they start to know things about you. That’s not my favorite part of the whole people business.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Next time I see you, I’ll tell you something about me, too. Something I’d just as soon nobody else knew. Then we’ll be even.”

  I didn’t know what it would be yet. But that gave me time to think. I knew Paul wouldn’t tell anybody, whatever it was, because he never talked to anybody, anyway. Except Rigby.

  And now me.

  I trotted down all three flights of stairs feeling weirdly happy. My sister was back. And at least I had one sort-of friend.

  You have to have gotten down pretty low before something as small as that starts to look like happy to you.

  6. Truth

  When I woke up in the tent, the three of us were all huddled together. My mom was in the middle, on her back, with her arms around both of us. Sh
e was stroking my hair.

  I think we were all mostly trying to stay warm.

  I lifted my head and looked over my mom at Sophie.

  Sophie was awake, but not making a sound. Just playing in the air with her own hands. She looked perfectly relaxed. Which could only mean one thing. She already trusted she’d see Hem again. I’d told her so the night before, and she must have believed me.

  Which put us back in a bubble of peace.

  She had a scrape on her cheek, and her hair was still packed with dried mud. But I was so happy to see her, it just filled me up. I was so happy she wasn’t gone forever that I almost felt good. Like it didn’t matter that the ground was hard, and we had no way to pad it. It didn’t matter that I had no idea how we were supposed to get clean. Or that we’d gone to bed without dinner in all the confusion.

  We were all still here. That was the only thing that felt like it mattered.

  “So, you’re awake,” my mom said.

  I didn’t answer. Because the minute I heard her voice, something started scratching at the back of my mind. I couldn’t quite pin down what it was yet, but it was not a good or happy something. I could feel the nuisance of it, like a tag that irritates the back of your neck, or a little burr in your sock.

  “Well?” she said. Like I was supposed to talk.

  Then I remembered.

  I let it sit inside me for a minute, feeling the size and weight of it. Feeling it like a bruise you purposely poke to see how sore it is. God knows I’d had enough experience with bruises.

  Then it came up, all on its own. I couldn’t have held it down if I’d tried. Also, I didn’t try.

  “Did they ever catch the guy who killed Dad?”

  She sat up so fast that I fell off her shoulder and hit my head on the hard ground. The bottom of the tent was hardly a cushion.

  Sophie let out a little noise of surprise.

  “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  “It’s just a question. Don’t get all freaked out.”

  “How can I not get freaked out? I wake up in the morning, and you start asking about a thing like that. How am I supposed to feel? What made you even think about that?”