For This Life Only

  I tried to think, to speak. “Can we move to the back—” I began.

  But headlights swept the interior then, and the rumble of a fast-approaching engine broke through our cocoon of isolation.

  Thera pulled away, dropping back into her seat, and swiped at the fogged-over glass of the side window. A battered red pickup truck was pulling up alongside us. In the dim blue light of twilight, I could see the logo for H&G Gravel and Sand painted on the side.

  “Shit,” I said.

  Thera scrambled for the keys in her jacket pocket. “Time to go.”

  “They’re not closed for the day?” I asked.

  “Apparently not today,” she said with a sheepish grin, jabbing the keys in the ignition, starting up the engine, and pulling out onto the road.

  I caught sight of an old guy hurriedly climbing out on the driver’s side, his weathered and wrinkled face a mask of disapproval.

  Twisting in my seat, I watched through the back window. The man took a few running steps toward us, his hand outstretched as if he would rap on the window or try to grab the door handle.

  A spray of gravel flew up from Thera’s rear tires as they finally caught the pavement, and he turned away to protect his face.

  Then his foot seemed to catch on the edge of the road or something and he stumbled, falling down and hitting the ground. Hard.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  * * *

  “THERA.” I TURNED TO face her.

  “Crap.” She bit her lip. “Yeah, I see,” she said, her gaze flicking between the road ahead and her rearview mirror.

  I glanced back. “He’s not getting up.” The old man’s arms moved weakly by his sides, as if he was trying to push himself up, but that was it.

  Thera slowed down and pulled to the side of the road, but she didn’t shut off the car and made no move to get out. “If we go back and he calls the police . . .”

  “Trespassing, yeah, I know,” I said grimly. We’d probably be arrested. My parents would probably burst blood vessels.

  “My mom can’t come get me,” Thera said, her voice barely a murmur above the roar of the heater. Not “won’t” but “can’t.”

  Which meant Thera would have to sit in jail until they decided to release her.

  Not to mention, we’d both have criminal records, which would probably do fuck-all to help our chances with college admissions and scholarship committees next year.

  But Thera didn’t pull away. We sat there for a second, the engine idling loudly.

  My gaze was glued to the man on the edge of the road behind us. I couldn’t help picturing my brother, hanging upside down in the Jeep by the creek on Zach’s family’s property, waiting for someone to find him. It wasn’t the same thing, I knew, and Eli had died almost instantly, or so everyone said. But I couldn’t get that image of him out of my mind.

  “I’ll do it.” The words burst out of me. “My parents are already mad at me anyway.” With a shrug, I forced a laugh and shoved the door open.

  “Jace . . . ,” Thera said.

  But I kept going. By the time I made my way back to the man and his truck, he was rolling into a sitting position on the asphalt with a dazed look. Blood trickled down from a bump on his forehead, and his chin was all scraped up. But he was conscious and didn’t appear to be mortally wounded or anything.

  Something that had been clenched tight in me relaxed slightly. “Take it easy.” I bent down awkwardly next to him, cursing my inability to move the way I used to. “I think maybe we should call an ambulance.”

  “Just got the wind knocked out of me,” he said, glaring at me and dabbing at his forehead. Then he glanced at his fingertips and grimaced at the blood.

  “I used to be a hell of a lot faster,” he muttered. “I used to be a hell of a lot of things.” He wiped his hand down the front of his worn denim shirt. “It’s trespassing. You kids need to stay out of there.” He jabbed a finger at someone or something behind me.

  I glanced back to see Thera approaching warily, a first-aid kit in her hand. Of course she had one, probably kept in her perfectly organized and dust-free glove box.

  “I’ve got it,” I said to her. “You don’t have to—”

  “It’s fine,” she said to me.

  Thera knelt on the other side of him and dug into the first-aid kit, pulling out bandages and a tube of antibacterial cream.

  “Last year, we had a collapse when someone went climbing around in there,” the old guy said. I was beginning to suspect he was either the H or G in H&G Gravel and Sand. “It’s dangerous, that’s why it’s off-limits.”

  He pointed at Thera, and she stiffened. “You ought to know better,” he said. Then he squinted at me.

  Oh, crap, did he recognize me? It wasn’t impossible. Riverwoods drew people from all over the Chicago suburbs and into Wisconsin.

  “Both of you should know better,” he added, but he didn’t say anything more specific.

  He allowed Thera to put a bandage on his chin, and he took the mini chemical cold-pack for his head, but he shrugged off her attempts to hand him the antibacterial cream.

  “A few scrapes aren’t going to make this mug any uglier.” He pushed himself to his feet with a grunt and gingerly smoothed the stray wispy hairs on the top of his head. “Now, stay out.” He gestured toward the gate and the quarry beyond. “Don’t let me find you here again.”

  “Yes, sir,” I mumbled automatically as I stood, grateful that calling the police seemed to be off the table.

  Thera nodded, her dark hair falling over her face as she got to her feet and zipped up the first-aid kit.

  I felt a pang of guilt that she’d lost one of the few places she seemed to enjoy.

  “Or come back during business hours when someone else is here and can dig you out,” he added grudgingly, eyeing her.

  So he did know her, or at least recognized her.

  “Okay,” she said with a flash of that rare full smile.

  He waved us off and started for his truck.

  Thera nodded at me and we headed toward her car.

  “And find someplace else to steam up the windows,” the old guy shouted after us.

  Thera made a choked sound, her cheeks flushing.

  The absurdity of it all—getting caught fooling around by the side of a road in the middle of nowhere, at the entrance to a fucking quarry, in almost-Wisconsin; along with the now negated fear of getting arrested—suddenly registered with me. It was nothing I could have predicted or expected when I got up this morning. And that was a good feeling.

  I laughed, almost light-headed with relief and something close to happiness.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  * * *

  MY HOUSE LOOKED DARK and empty when Thera pulled to a stop about half a block away. The porch lights weren’t on, and I couldn’t see any sign of life inside.

  I frowned.

  “You’re okay to walk this far?” Thera asked, her worried face illuminated by the yellowish light of the dashboard. “It might be icy now.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m sorry that you can’t pull into the—”

  “No, no.” Thera put her hands up in a protesting motion. “I don’t want to be there any more than they would want me there, trust me.”

  “Thank you for . . . everything,” I said, trying to make it as heartfelt as possible. I didn’t have words for what she’d done for me today, this week.

  A small smile played across her mouth. “You’re welcome.”

  I leaned across the console and she turned to meet me halfway, but my mouth had barely touched hers before she pulled away.

  “Back to reality,” she said, nodding at the houses around us, her hair falling forward to hide her face.

  I wanted to protest, but she had a fair point, unfortunately. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, grabbing my backpack from the floor.

  “Hey,” Thera said as I pushed the door open, letting a rush of cold air inside.

  “Yeah?” I paused.
r />   “If this was just about needing someone to talk to while you figured things out, that’s okay.” Her words came out in a rush.

  I cocked my head to the side.

  She studied the steering wheel, rubbing her thumb along the edge of it. “I mean, you don’t have to see me tomorrow. You don’t have to do anything, it’s not like we’re—”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, grinning.

  “All right.” She ducked her head slightly with a pleased smile. “I’ll send you a pass.”

  Thera’s headlights lit my way on the uneven and slippery sidewalk, and she waited until I made it to our driveway before pulling away from the curb.

  After fumbling for my key in my backpack, I managed to get the front door unlocked and open. As I walked inside and elbowed the door closed behind me, movement from the shadows in the living room made my heart catapult into my throat.

  Sarah walked into the hallway, Patsie under her arm and a snack bowl in her hands.

  “Jeez, Sarah, you scared me. What are you doing down here in the dark?” The lights were on in the kitchen, and blue flickers of the television came from the family room. “Where’s Mom?”

  She held a finger up to her mouth, her eyes big in the darkness.

  I listened for a second and then I heard it. Voices upstairs, rising and falling, in an argument. My parents fighting, louder this time.

  Tilting my head, I caught a few words.

  “. . . not my fault . . .”

  “. . . have to pay attention to what’s going on around you, Micah! . . . needs help.”

  “. . . other crises at the moment, in case you haven’t noticed . . .”

  Not good.

  Sarah shifted her snack bowl to her other hand, caught my fingers, and then pulled me toward the kitchen.

  “Did something else happen?” I whispered.

  I expected her to shrug or just look at me, but instead she said, “Mrs. Percy showed one of my drawings to Mom, and she took me to the doctor. An emergency.”

  Mrs. Percy was her teacher. “A doctor?”

  “Not the kind that gives you shots,” Sarah added firmly, with the conviction that could only come from being told that exact information, word for word, multiple times. “I talked. And drew some more pictures.”

  A therapist. I couldn’t believe Mom had actually done it.

  “But Daddy’s mad,” she said in a small voice. “He came home early when Mommy told him.”

  Yeah, I bet. “He’s not mad at you,” I said. “He just feels bad that he couldn’t help you.”

  Now that we were in the kitchen, I could see her more clearly, the red puffiness of her eyelids where she’d been crying, and . . .

  I frowned. “Why is your face all orange?” Her mouth and cheeks were smeared with a sticky-looking orange dust and crumbs. “What are you eating?”

  She smiled and held the bowl out. “I invented it. I was hungry.”

  I looked in the bowl to find cheese puffs and . . . Reese’s Pieces? She must have been raiding deep in the cabinets to find my mom’s secret stash of junk food. Which meant she’d been down here alone for a good while.

  A mix of guilt and frustration made my chest pull tight. Sarah was too little to be caught up in all of this.

  “That’s disgusting, Sares,” I said, keeping my tone light. I took a handful of her “invention” and tasted it to confirm, making an exaggerated face. “Yep, really gross.”

  She giggled. “No, it’s not,” she insisted. “It’s good. It matches. See, orange and orange?” She rattled the bowl. “And the peanut butter and the cheese go together.”

  “Super gross,” I said, ruffling her hair. “Good job. Come on, I know where Mom hides the emergency frozen pizzas.”

  “Can we have pepperoni?” she asked, surrendering the bowl to me.

  “Sure, if there’s one left.” I put the bowl down on the island.

  She hopped up on a breakfast stool and rested Patsie on the next one over while I shrugged out of my coat and dropped my backpack on the floor.

  “Can I see what you drew?” I asked, once I had the oven preheating and the pizza on the pan.

  She pointed to the manila folder on the other side of the island. It had her name written on the outside in careful teacher penmanship.

  I flipped it open to find a series of crayon drawings on plain white paper.

  The first one was pretty clear. Even if I hadn’t recognized the red car turned upside down in a blue stream, there was no mistaking the blond-haired figure lying in a pool of blood while a similar-looking person floated upward with a yellow halo over his head.

  I rubbed my face. No wonder her teacher had called Mom.

  The second one was worse, a big angry face with red glowing eyes and sharp teeth. The head was oversized for the much smaller body, which was dressed in a white robe of some kind, with lightning bolts coming from one hand and what appeared to be a list in the other. Sarah’s name was written at the top of the tiny list.

  But in case there was any confusion, she’d labeled that drawing with a caption that read, simply, “God.”

  “Sarah . . . ,” I began, not sure what to say.

  “That’s the one Mrs. Percy didn’t like,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I flipped to the last page. Two tall smiling people held hands with the small blond girl between them, on a bright green lawn in front of a crooked house with black shutters. Our house. Off to one side, a person held what looked like either an oversized sub sandwich or a baseball bat.

  No, it was definitely a baseball bat. Because that was me. Or it was supposed to be.

  Crayola Jace was smiling.

  At the top, the blond figure with the halo from the earlier drawing stood on a cloud, beaming out at me. Light, as depicted by sharp yellow lines, radiated from his halo.

  Eli.

  I cleared my throat. “What’s this one?” The picture looked normal compared to the others.

  “The doctor who doesn’t give shots”—clearly this was a big thing for Sarah—“told me to draw what I wished were true instead. I can’t make Eli come back, though, so he had to stay in heaven.”

  “It’s nice,” I managed. She’d tried to give baseball back to me and our parents back to her. Everything about this drawing made me want to cry.

  The oven beeped, and I turned away to open the door and slide the pizza in, keeping my back to Sarah until I got my shit together.

  “She said it was okay,” Sarah said. “She said it was okay that I was glad you’re alive. She said Eli would understand, that he wouldn’t be mad.”

  She didn’t phrase it as a question, but I could hear her asking, nonetheless. And I didn’t know what to say, at first.

  Then I thought about everything Thera and I had been talking about the last couple of days. I didn’t know what had happened to Eli, whether he was around or not, but I knew my brother. And I knew that if he were here, he wouldn’t have wanted Sarah torturing herself this way.

  So I made a choice.

  “Yeah,” I said. I turned to look at her so she’d see I meant it. “Eli would be all right with that. He wouldn’t want you to be sad or hurting if you didn’t have to be.” I hesitated, then added, “You know he might have been upset about the toothbrush thing, if he’d found out, but he loved you, Sares. That’s why he was hard on you sometimes, I think. He didn’t mean to be, but he was trying to help.”

  I waited, expecting her to have more questions. But she was busy studying her orange fingers.

  That was fine. It was better than before. She’d obviously been a little volcano about to burst from angst and despair. It had only taken the right prodding from someone outside the family to get her started on speaking up.

  I handed her a napkin to wipe her fingers. If she’d gotten that crap on the white living room sofa, my mom was going to flip out.

  “Is the pizza ready yet?” Sarah asked, scrubbing her hands.

  A door slammed dis
tantly upstairs.

  Sarah and I eyed each other uneasily.

  “Not a microwave,” I reminded Sarah, trying to shift the conversation back. “The oven takes longer.”

  She heaved a sigh like I’d informed her she’d be eating asparagus and broccoli for dinner instead.

  But it was so Sarah, so how Sarah used to be, that I had to smile. “Yeah, I know, life is tough. Come on, we’ll go watch TV while we wait.”

  “My Little Pony?” she asked.

  I groaned, but decided that in the name of distraction, I’d make the sacrifice. “One, that’s it.”

  “Is your homework done?” she asked in a perfect imitation of my mom as she slid off the stool.

  “Who’s asking?” I demanded in mock seriousness.

  “Me,” she said.

  “Then yes, absolutely.”

  “Mommy will check,” Sarah warned, before scampering off for the family room sofa.

  I looked up toward the ceiling and the heavy silence that seemed more ominous than the controlled shouting that had gone on before.

  Yeah, I was pretty sure I was off the hook for a homework check tonight, no matter how much TV we watched.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, MY pass from Thera arrived almost as soon as the bell rang for the start of Exempt. And I was ready, moving toward the front of the room before Mr. Sloane even called my name.

  My palms were sweaty, but the rest of me felt light with anticipation and eagerness. I wanted yesterday all over again. I wanted that feeling of being less alone, but more specifically, I wanted that feeling of being connected to her.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment in the car, her skin soft under my fingers and her breath in my ear.

  When I walked into the library, Thera was reshelving books not far from the entrance. But I saw her before she saw me, so I had a moment just to look. She was scowling as she wrestled a stubborn book into place. Her dark hair was tucked in the back of her hoodie to keep it out of her way. But I knew what it looked like when it was loose and wild around her face. I knew what she looked like just before a kiss, her expression soft, her eyes half closed, her cheeks flushed with color. I needed that again.