Where We Belong

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  When I heard my mom honking, I said to him, “That was fast.”

  “Not really. You got back from walking Rigby almost two hours ago.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  He showed me his watch.

  It was a nice watch.

  “Time flies when you’re spilling your guts,” he said.

  I knew then that my father died for some other reason than a robbery. Because his watch wasn’t a nice watch, like Paul’s. I knew it wasn’t good enough to sell.

  I ran down the steps with Rigby at my side, and when we got down to the gravel road, I heard Sophie squeal with joy. It was a big squeal, too, because my mom was parked a pretty good long way down the road.

  I opened the back door and encouraged Rigby to get in with Sophie. She barely fit. She had to crouch with her head down, right across Sophie’s car seat, which, of course, Sophie loved. I had to move her tail carefully before I closed the door.

  I got in up front beside my mom, who was grinning. It made so little sense that she should be happy that I really didn’t even take it in.

  “I need a pen and paper,” I said, because I remembered I hadn’t written that stuff down yet. About my dad. “Do we have a pen and paper?”

  “I got a job.”

  “You’re kidding. How did you get a job already?”

  “I stopped on the way out of town at this little diner, to get some muffins to go. And guess what I found in the window? A Help Wanted sign! They hired me on the spot. How’s that for luck? I start tomorrow!”

  I couldn’t get my brain to make the sharp turn. I really only wanted a pen and paper. That was all I could think about for the moment. My brain flopped around and landed on neither.

  “Muffins? You had muffins? I’m starving to death. I didn’t get muffins.”

  She grabbed a white paper bag off the floor near my feet and threw it in my lap. “I saved you one.”

  “Oh. Good. Thanks. Do we have a pen and paper?”

  “You don’t sound very excited about my news.”

  “No, it’s good. Really. Tomorrow? What time? What shift?”

  The smile stayed on her mouth, but it faded a little from her eyes and the rest of her face. “I’ll be working a morning shift. Through the lunch rush.”

  Silence. For a minute, I even forgot about the pen.

  Until she said, “There should be a pencil in the glove compartment.”

  I opened the glove compartment. Found the pencil in the amazing mess. I tore a piece of white paper off the bag. Then I decided not to write anything on it until I was all the way back up at Paul’s door. She’d freak if she saw me writing something about my dad.

  I looked right into her face. She shifted her eyes away.

  “So,” I said. “I’m babysitting days now. Have you thought about how I’m supposed to go to school?”

  “Of course I thought about it. I just figured… there’s only a few weeks left in the school year, anyway. It hardly pays to start in a new school now. Better to start in the fall. I’ll find something better by then.”

  “I’ll have an awful lot of catching up to do.”

  “You’re so smart, though.”

  I looked over into the backseat. Rigby was licking Sophie’s eyelids—and most of the rest of her face in the spillover—and Sophie was cooing with happiness. Everybody was happy that day. Except me.

  “If I do well for tips tomorrow, we can get a cheap motel room tomorrow night. This could be our last night outdoors.”

  “Well,” I said. “That would be nice.”

  There was no point in arguing the school thing. I didn’t get a vote. And the election was over, anyway.

  It bothered me that I was supposed to be happy with my mom while I was still not speaking to her. She did that a lot. Always found a way to take away my time to get through what I was feeling. Not that I thought this one was on purpose. But on purpose or not, she always managed.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “How did you even go in for muffins and an interview? You had Sophie. Did you bring her in with you?”

  I knew the answer by the way she cut her eyes away. The more she didn’t answer, the more I knew I was right.

  “You left her in the car.”

  “It was only a few minutes.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “It was locked. And the windows were cracked. And besides, I was parked where I could see her. Look. Kiddo. You want to bust my chops for that when nothing went wrong? Or you want to be happy that I got a job, and we can live under a roof again?”

  I sighed big. “I just want to bring Paul his dog back and then go…” I had no idea how to finish that sentence. There was no home.

  I climbed out and took Rigby out of the backseat. It reminded me of all the tall clowns coming out of the tiny clown car at the circus. Yes, my dad took me to the circus once.

  “You’ll see her again tomorrow, Sophie, I promise.”

  But I needn’t have bothered, from the look of things. She didn’t seem the least bit upset.

  We trotted up the stairs until I got too winded to trot.

  The door was open, so I just rapped on the door frame and walked in. Paul was putting books in the bookcase, on either side of Rachel’s picture.

  “I’m going to write down the stuff about my dad,” I said.

  I sat down and wrote his name, and the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, and that I didn’t know the date exactly, but it was eight years ago, and it was summer.

  When I handed it to him, he said, “Dan. Like my brother.”

  “Who you don’t even like.”

  We both laughed a little at that.

  But I definitely understood more by then. Like why he didn’t like his brother. And why he used to be happy about going over to see him, anyway. Well, I didn’t know, really. Maybe he had lots of other reasons not to like his brother. But even just that one seemed like enough.

  I thought about Cathy. Then I quick stopped thinking about her again.

  It was cold in camp that night. I wanted to think at least it was the last night out. But I wasn’t really sure. My mom just said “if.” If the tips were good enough her first day. Besides, last was kind of a relative thing. That was the first time we’d found ourselves homeless. I wasn’t entirely sure it would be the last.

  I didn’t sleep as much as I would have liked.

  “Okay, just wait here,” I told my mom. “I’ll come out with the dog.” I looked over my shoulder at Sophie. “I’ll bring Hem, Sophie. And you can go with us.”

  I ran down the road to his house and all the way up all three flights of stairs.

  Rigby heard me coming and barked, and Paul opened the door before I even got there.

  “So, what did you find out?” I asked him, pretty much out of breath.

  It was nearly four in the afternoon, and it was all I’d been thinking about. All I’d been able to do all day was sit around in the campground with Sophie while my mom worked. And wait. And wonder.

  I could tell by his face that he knew something.

  “It wasn’t a robbery,” he said.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  I heard myself say it, but my lips felt numb. Like whoever was speaking wasn’t really me. And also, whoever was speaking was saying she knew it would turn out like this. When the truth was, I’d really expected him to say he couldn’t find out anything.

  “I bookmarked a couple of articles. Come back into my office.”

  I followed him down the hall like I was on the way to my own public execution. Rigby wagged along beside me, whipping my butt with her lethal tail. I didn’t say ouch, because I was too busy with the inside ouches.

  His office was—so far—just a high wooden table with an open laptop on it, and a neat pyramid of boxes in the middle of the floor.

  The computer was making me nervous, and my brain was starting to tingle, like the way your foot does when it’s falling asleep. So I walked to the back window and looked out. You c
ould see the mountains, with snow on them.

  “Nice view,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  He was clicking around on the laptop, I guess to find again whatever he’d found before.

  “So, you didn’t have much trouble finding stuff about him?”

  “Not at all. I just did a search on his name, and it came right up.”

  “You have a garage.”

  I’d finally pulled my eyes away from the mountains and looked down at the back of his property. I knew it was his garage, because it was blue with white trim, like his house. But it had two levels, like somebody could live or work in the room on top.

  “Does that seem strange?”

  “Yeah, a little. Because you don’t have a driveway. I mean, that I could see. How do you get your car up there?”

  “I have a driveway. It’s just so far from the house, you probably thought it was somebody else’s driveway. It’s a big property. You’re not ready for this, are you?”

  “I might be. Maybe I might be ready to do this in a minute. Can I take a minute?”

  “Of course. Take all the time you need.”

  He came over to the back windows and stood with me, and all three of us looked out at the view together.

  “So what are you going to do with that room over the garage?”

  “No,” he said.

  “No, what? It wasn’t a yes-or-no question.”

  “I was saying no to what you were thinking.”

  “What was I thinking?”

  “Sorry. Maybe I was wrong. I thought you were going to ask me if I was renting it out. But I’m not ready for the full force of the whole family, Angie. I’m sorry. I need more space than that.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I wouldn’t ask that.”

  “That wasn’t what you meant, was it?”

  “No. I hadn’t thought of it.”

  “Sorry.”

  We looked out over the view in silence for a while. Maybe some seconds or some minutes. I’m not sure I was in any kind of mood to tell one from the other.

  “You know,” he said, “I could just delete the bookmarks for those articles and pretend I never found them.”

  I breathed a couple of times, wondering why I could hear myself breathe when I never could before. That I know of.

  “I don’t think I could pretend you never found them.”

  “If it helps any to know, they don’t really say all that much. They don’t say why he was killed, because the police didn’t know. Either that or they thought too many details would compromise the investigation. But nothing was taken. And they’re pretty sure it wasn’t random. They think he knew his assailant. But they didn’t say why they think that.”

  “I bet my mother knows more.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I can’t ask her, though.”

  “I think sooner or later you will.”

  “Is that really all there is to know?”

  A silence I didn’t like.

  “Just that he wasn’t killed with a gun.”

  “My mom said he was.”

  “She also said it was a robbery.”

  All of a sudden, I couldn’t swallow. Like I’d flat-out forgotten how.

  “How was he killed? It was some bad way, wasn’t it?” In my head, I heard Aunt Vi say, “Oh, and such an awful way to go.” “No, never mind. I don’t want to hear that part. Don’t tell me about it.”

  “Okay. I won’t. I’ll never bring it up again.”

  We just kept standing there for a while. I felt like I’d turned into a statue. I was still looking out the window, but I wasn’t even seeing what I was looking at.

  I pulled my eyes back down to his blue-and-white two-story garage.

  “So what are you going to do with that room?”

  “Not sure yet. I could use it as an office. But I have this back bedroom for that. Besides, I’m retired. Why do I even need an office? Just force of habit, I guess. I could rent it out if I needed the money. But I don’t. At least, not right now. It would make a nice guestroom.”

  “Maybe Dan and Rachel will come visit.”

  “I doubt it. They got pretty tired of this place. Or, anyway, Dan did. That’s how I was able to get it away from him.”

  “So… if you don’t have to work, what are you going to do? How will you fill up all the hours in the day?”

  “Well, let’s see,” he said. “First Rig and I will get up in the morning and walk into town and buy a newspaper. And a double espresso. And a muffin or a scone, unless I start gaining too much weight. And then I’ll read the paper for half the morning. And then sometimes I’ll go fishing in a cold stream, or one of those mountain lakes. Catch some fresh trout for dinner. And I’ll read the rest of the books in my library. The ones I’ve had for twenty years and never read. And maybe I’ll put my woodshop back together and make bookcases and tables, like in the old days. And if I get bored, Rig and I can go for a hike on one of the mountain trails. There are only about a billion that start within a five-mile radius of here.”

  “That sounds like heaven,” I said.

  “Doesn’t it? And I only had to work at a job I hated for forty-five solid years to make it happen.”

  I think I was supposed to laugh. But somehow, it didn’t feel funny. It felt like something that wasn’t right about life the way it was.

  So I said nothing at all.

  “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “Um. Yeah. I guess. I feel like I’m asleep. But I’m okay. Sort of. I think I need to sit down before I go for a walk. My legs are kind of shaky.” That’s when it hit me. “Oh, crap. I can’t sit down. My mom is waiting in the car with Sophie, so she can go on the walk with us. I forgot all about her. She must be getting pretty impatient. I better just put the leash on Rigby and go.”

  The story of my life in two sentences:

  I need time to sort all this out.

  I’m not going to get it.

  It was one of those patterns that just kept cropping up. Every time it showed its ugly face, it won. I never had any more power over it than I’d had the time before.

  My mom took Sophie to the public restrooms at the campground when we went back to get our stuff.

  I didn’t get my big idea right away. At first, I just stood there, leaning on our car. Like I had time to kill, and I didn’t even know what to do with it.

  I wasn’t thinking much, but I remember being glad we really could afford a motel for the night. I’d never been particularly grateful for stuff as simple as a bed and a roof, but I swore to myself in that moment that I always would be again. Then I wondered if that was really possible, or if I’d just get used to it right away and forget.

  Next thing I knew, I was rushing for the storage tent. And I knew what I was after, too. But I swear, I didn’t form it as a series of thoughts in my head first. It just sort of created itself.

  I ducked inside and found the box with the sheets.

  My heart thrummed as I stuck my hand around and under different sheets, and then I bumped the jewelry box. I closed my eyes and breathed for a second. But only a second. I got worried about how long my mom would be gone, and if she’d come looking for me and catch me doing this.

  I was going to take the whole box, but then I decided against it. Because, if I did, she would just think she’d lost it in the packing. She’d just wait forever for it to turn up. But if she found the box, and it was empty…

  I stuck my hand into the wooden box, blind. I grabbed the wallet and the watch and the ring all in one hand, all on one grab. I pulled them out and stuck them in my jacket pocket.

  I leaned out of the storage tent and looked for my mom, but they weren’t on their way back yet.

  So I finished the job.

  I stashed my dad’s things away in my trunk.

  I looked in one more time before I locked it up. Counted all the things I wasn’t ready to deal with. The note from Nellie. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The truth about my dad. I took the hundred-dol
lar bill out of my jeans pocket. My mom had a job, so she could take care of us. I could keep my little nest egg.

  I threw the money into the trunk and slammed the lid and locked it.

  I wasn’t stealing my dad’s stuff. Just to be clear. Those things rightfully belonged to my mom. And I would give them back to her. Just as soon as she noticed they were gone. Just as soon as she looked me in the eye and told me she knew I had them, because nobody else would or could have taken them.

  Then she could tell me why they were there. She’d have to. I wouldn’t even need to ask. The very fact of my knowing we had them was a question all in itself.

  Yeah, I know it’s not as good as being able to just open your damn mouth. But I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I set the question up to ask itself. Pathetic, in hindsight. But that’s how I played it at the time.

  The weeks we lived in the motel were quiet and sort of a blur. I guess because every day during that part of my life was just like every other one. There’s only one time that stood out. And even it wasn’t much of anything. I’m not telling it because it’s a big deal. Just because I remember it.

  One day, I was hanging out at Paul’s, and I saw a deck of cards lying out on the coffee table. Hard to imagine why, because there was nobody around for him to play cards with. Solitaire was the only answer that made any sense.

  He was off in the kitchen making us each a sandwich.

  The bad thing about the motel was that it used up just about every cent my mom made. So she brought home food from the restaurant, enough for one meal a day. And I usually ate another meal at Paul’s and saved some for my sister. The good news was that it was less than a mile from Paul’s house. So I could walk over anytime, so long as my mom was home to take care of Sophie. I didn’t always have her waiting for me out in the car.

  I walked over to Paul’s a lot. It was a small motel room. Even for one person. For three, it was torture.

  I hadn’t seen a pack of cards for a really long time.

  It was weird to see them there, and a hard feeling to describe. Like an old friend you had a fight with and don’t see anymore. And then suddenly, there she is, and you think, “What’s she doing here?” Like being mad but kind of hurt, too. And maybe not wanting to admit it.