Once Was Lost

  “Whatever you want.”

  “If you want to come with me, you can.” Neither of us have said anything else about Mom or Erin, but I feel like he’s trying to prove to me that he’s not going to do anything wrong, anymore, ever again.

  “It’s okay.” I don’t want to be in charge of him, monitor him, any more than I ever wanted to be monitoring Mom.

  When I get to Vanessa’s, Daniel is there, too. We hang out in the basement, watching TV and not talking much.

  “Jeez, Sam, seriously,” Daniel said when he first saw my legs.

  “I’m fine.”

  Vanessa kept her eyes on the TV, where they have remained fixed for an hour now. When she goes upstairs to ask her mom about lunch, Daniel looks at me. “I’m supposed to be the buffer. How am I doing?”

  “Great.”

  “So,” he says, “what’s your version?”

  “Of why Vanessa is mad at me? Or of yesterday?”

  “She’s not mad at you. She just feels like she doesn’t understand you anymore. That’s what she told me, anyway.”

  I don’t understand me anymore, either, I want to say. Or anyone. We all keep saying how different the world is since Jody disappeared, but even if she comes back it will still be different. For us, for her. Maybe she’ll come home and her room will look unfamiliar, her parents will feel like strangers. Maybe she won’t even recognize herself, the way I don’t recognize myself, like I’m a stranger in my life and it’s all going on around me and I don’t know how to be, or who to be in it. I want to know where I am in this different world. Maybe I’m in the same place I always was, but I don’t realize it because I don’t recognize anything.

  All I can tell Daniel is, “Nick didn’t do anything. He gave me a ride to see my mom and that’s all.”

  “And you look like you rolled down a hill of broken glass because…?”

  “That was my fault. The whole thing was my fault.” I pick up the remote and change from the music channel we’ve been watching to a cartoon. “How’s your calling coming along?”

  “I don’t know.” He steals the remote from me and changes to a documentary about the history of pizza. “Now I’m thinking I’ll go into sales,” he jokes.

  “Same thing.”

  Then he looks at me and says, “No, it’s not. Don’t say that. I didn’t know you were so down on pastors and I kind of wish I hadn’t told you.”

  It hurts me to know that. “I’m sorry. It’s just different than you think.”

  “Well, let me find that out. Maybe you’re wrong.”

  I nod. “Maybe.”

  Vanessa calls from the top of the stairs, “Grilled cheese or tuna?”

  “Tuna,” Daniel says, while I say, “Grilled cheese.”

  There’s a pause, then Vanessa comes farther down. “Mom says she’s not a short-order cook and you have to pick one.”

  “You decide,” I tell Daniel, and go into the downstairs bathroom to call Nick.

  It rings four times then goes to voice mail. “Hi,” I say. “It’s Sam. I just wanted to see how you’re doing. So. Bye.” I wait in the bathroom a few minutes in case he calls right back. He doesn’t, and I fight the urge to call him again and leave another message, a longer one, with an apology.

  Vanessa knocks on the door. “Sam? Did you fall in? Lunch is ready.”

  “Coming.” I look in the mirror and study my face, searching for who I was, who I am, and who I might be after all this is over.

  We’re eating tuna sandwiches at the kitchen table—me, Daniel, Vanessa, Robby, and Mrs. Hathaway—when the report from the press conference comes on the radio. Mrs. Hathaway has it tuned to the oldies station because she doesn’t want us obsessing over the news or scaring Robby, but right at the end of a Beatles song the DJ says:

  “It looks like the best leads in the Jody Shaw case have gone nowhere fast. Is it my imagination, or has this case been one giant screwup since day one? Anyway, the hand found on the Ridgeline Trail—definitely not a match for Jody. Also, Jody’s brother Nick passed his second voluntary polygraph and after ‘intense interrogation’ the cops are saying he’s not a suspect anymore. Oops, sorry, Nick! Hope we didn’t permanently ruin your life! Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jody and Nick and the whole Shaw family, and we hope that between the police and the FBI and the Sheriff’s department and the media, somebody can figure this thing out. Meanwhile, if you’re missing a hand, give us a call at the station. If you can find someone to dial the phone for you. Okay, back to the music here at 97.9 rockin’ oldies…”

  “Square one,” Daniel says.

  I look at Vanessa. “I told you Nick didn’t do anything.”

  She nods. “You did.”

  Robby holds up one hand, staring at it. “Mom? How do you lose your hand?”

  “Eat your lunch, Robby,” Mrs. Hathaway says, turning off the radio.

  At dinner time, back at home, I consider Erin’s leftover lasagna then decide to make us a salad, which is one thing I know how to do. Dad and I eat in silence other than me saying, “I heard on the press conference Nick isn’t a suspect anymore. I told you.” And him replying, “I’m as happy as you are about that.”

  The phone rings while we’re cleaning up. I answer; it’s Mom. I think it’s the first time she’s called us since going into New Beginnings, and her voice is good, strong, like it was when I saw her yesterday.

  “In case I didn’t say it,” she says, “thanks for coming to see me. It was so good to see your lovely self.”

  “You, too.” I have no idea if she knows anything about what happened after Nick and I left her.

  “Margaret reminded me yesterday that I need to practice saying what I feel… just saying it right out. I haven’t been, and people in my life might be used to being forced to interpret everything and guess. I don’t want you to have to guess whether or not I love you.”

  I nod, because suddenly I can’t talk.

  “Honey?”

  “Yeah,” I manage. “That makes sense.”

  “Oh, good. Sometimes I think Margaret is a nut case, shelling out crazy advice that can’t possibly work. I’m trying to just trust her.” She laughs. It’s the second time in two days I’ve heard her laugh. Then she stops, and says, “I need to speak with Dad, if he’s there.”

  “Okay. I love you, too, Mom.”

  I hold the phone out to Dad. He takes it, looking scared, and I go to my room to wait for him to come deliver the news, whatever it is, but after a long time he’s still talking to her, in a low voice, and I can’t make out the words. All of the possibilities run through my head, everything that could happen to our family. What I said yesterday to Nick, that I wished it was me and not Jody, I don’t feel that now. I don’t even know if I meant it, then, or where that came from. All I can say for sure is that, for a moment, that’s what I truly felt. But something had called me back from that feeling, and it wasn’t just Nick.

  I lie on the bed while I wait for Dad, my mind drifting everywhere, until it lands on a prayer. I’m surprised, and resist it at first, but it keeps coming back. It’s not words, so much, just my mind going blank and thoughts reaching up up up, me wishing I could climb through the ceiling and over the stars until I can find God, really see God, and know once and for all that everything I’ve believed my whole life is true, and real. Or, not even everything. Not even half. Just the part about someone or something bigger than us who doesn’t lose track. I want to believe the stories, that there really is someone who would search the whole mountainside just to find that one lost thing that he loves, and bring it home.

  And then, something happens.

  These words move through me, but don’t come from me. Not a voice. Not a burning bush or a dove from heaven. Just a sense, a hint, of… presence. Of me knowing it’s going to be okay, and that I’m not alone. It fills my heart. And for a second I worry that I’m turning into one of those people who sees the Virgin Mary in a corn chip, or that all this has finally driven me complete
ly crazy and I’m hearing voices. But then, why couldn’t a face on a corn chip be true, anyway? We believe in a lot of unbelievable stuff. How can we pick and choose which miracles make sense and which don’t? By definition, a miracle doesn’t make sense.

  It’s a low hum. Like I’m not alone. It’s comfort, it’s words but not words, it’s a song, it’s warm hands around my heart. And even though Jody is gone and my mom isn’t cured and my dad isn’t here, even when he is… despite all that, I’m not scared. Whatever it is nestles down deep now, in a place where it can’t be dislodged, along with everything that happened between me and Nick yesterday, belonging only to me.

  Day 13

  Thursday

  Nick called me back last night, while I was waiting in my room for Dad to come in and talk to me after talking to Mom—he never did.

  “Hey,” Nick said, sounding tired.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine. I mean, you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a very long and very awkward silence and it occurred to me that Nick might worry that I think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend now or something.

  “Sam,” he said, but I cut him off before he could say more.

  “It’s okay, I know. It was a crazy day.”

  “I’m leaving for school.” I figured he was trying to let me down gently, the unsaid “Therefore, there is no point in us really hanging out or anything” playing in my mind. Though that was sort of okay, too, after the moment I had, the prayer.

  “Oh. That’s good. Right?”

  “My parents told me last night that I have to, basically. They don’t want me to delay. Because if… if Jody never comes back then we’ll regret it. That’s what they said. Anyway,” Nick continued, “I thought we could get together. So I can say good-bye. Maybe tomorrow? If your dad will let you out, and let you see me.”

  Nick, wanting to see me. And even though it’s for good-bye, that means everything. “He will,” I said. Maybe not willingly, but he won’t really have a choice.

  “I can come get you, like, eleven?”

  “See you then.”

  So, this morning, by the time my dad gets up, I’m already at the breakfast counter having cereal, ready to build my case for getting to see Nick. He says good morning when he comes in, but nothing else, and makes his coffee then stands there with his coffee cup, staring out at the yard. After I rinse my bowl and put it in the dishwasher, I say, “Dad?”

  “Hm?” He turns around, looking sad and distracted.

  “I’m going to go out for coffee with Nick. He’s picking me up at eleven.”

  “Sammy…”

  “We’re just going over to Main Street Coffee. He wants to say good-bye.”

  He looks at me for a long time. “Okay. Just be back by late afternoon. We’re taking the Hathaways out to the Lodge for an early dinner, to thank them for having you.”

  “I will.”

  “Then we’ll go up to see Mom.” I can tell he’s trying to sound upbeat, hopeful. “She invited us for a family counseling session.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “We have a few things to sort out before she comes home next week.”

  My heart speeds up. “She’s coming home?”

  He nods.

  “Then what?” I step closer to him and see that his expression isn’t just sad and distracted, but afraid.

  “Then… we’ll see.”

  On one of the inside walls of Main Street Coffee there’s a mural of Pineview, painted by a community center art class a few years ago. I’ve been staring at it, over Nick’s shoulder, because so far we haven’t done a very good job of talking. It’s me, not him. All I can think about is my mom coming home, and the “we’ll see” part of whatever is about to happen. It’s not worry that I’m feeling. I just wonder.

  And maybe it’s a little bit Nick, too. Ever since I got in the truck and he saw my legs and my elbow and the scratches still on my face, he’s been acting a little rattled. He said, “Holy crap,” under his breath, then, “I’m so sorry.” I told him it was okay, I’m fine, but I think it’s hard for him to see me right here in front of him like this.

  Finally, I focus my eyes on Nick’s face and say again, to make sure he understands, “It’s okay.”

  He nods and looks at his iced coffee. I change the subject: “Are you all packed and everything?”

  “Sort of. I think I need different stuff than I thought. It turned out my parents can’t really afford the dorm double, so now I’m in a triple with different people… gotta work that out. One of them is from back east and a philosophy major. I forget where the other guy is from but I think he’s studying psychology, like me.”

  “That’ll be good.”

  He picks up a sugar packet from the ceramic bowl on the table, shakes it, then puts it back. “You know how I said yesterday that my parents want me to go so I’m not putting my life on hold, waiting for Jody? Well, also I think they want me gone.” He looks at me, his coppery hair curling onto his forehead in a way that makes me want to reach over and touch it, push it back a little, the way a mother would.

  “I doubt it.”

  “It’ll take a long time for people to forget that for a couple of hours there I was the number one suspect in my own sister’s… I mean, I think my folks think out of sight, out of mind is better for everyone.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, because he’s probably right in at least some small way. If this is good-bye, I don’t want to say anything stupid and ruin forever the last time we talk. When I’ve let myself imagine us as a real couple—sitting together in church and holding hands and having dinner with each other’s families and visiting him in college—I argue myself back out of it, trying to be realistic. I want to tell him not to worry that I have expectations. “Nick,” I start, but he’s already talking.

  “You know it was just a week ago last night that you brought the brownies?” He shakes his head. “And now I feel, I don’t know, closer to you than to anyone.”

  Then again, maybe I’m wrong about what’s realistic.

  “Me, too.”

  The guy from behind the coffee counter comes over to straighten the newspapers on a nearby table, and asks us if we want anything else, a scone or sandwich or piece of cake. “No,” Nick says. “Thanks.”

  The employee leaves to help someone at one of the outside tables.

  “I never really thought it was you,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “You should have. I mean, after the interrogation I got yesterday, I started to think for a minute it could be me. They laid out a good case. It messes with your head.” He bumps his foot against mine, on purpose. “But thank you.”

  I bump back. “I’m sorry, though, for getting you in trouble.”

  “Don’t be. When you called to ask me to come give you a ride to your mom’s, I was so glad to have somewhere to go, and glad you asked me, and glad I got to see you.”

  I try, mentally and emotionally, to keep up with where this is going. To allow the growing feeling that mine and Nick’s stories are not going to diverge, after all.

  He smiles a little, and gets suddenly shy, staring intently at his coffee. “When I’m at school, could I write to you once in a while? Would you write back?”

  My face is warm. I put my hands on my glass. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if my dad is ever going to let me have my own e-mail address, but you can write me regular letters. You can call, too.”

  And then he looks up, and right at me, and the smile settles in his eyes that are reflecting me back to myself in a way I’ve never been seen before. I feel lightheaded when Nick says, “Maybe we should get cake after all.”

  I smile back, hoping my eyes are showing him who he is, too. “Okay.”

  Later, in the truck on the ride home, Nick gives me a refresher course on the gear shifting, and this time he doesn’t let go of my hand until we pull up to my house. “Well,” he says, sounding reluctant to be letting me go. “I’ll se
e you soon.”

  “See you soon.”

  And he gives me a long hug and a short kiss and I manage not to cry until I see his truck disappear around the corner.

  On our way to the Lodge, I roll down the window to let the air on my face. Pine trees whip by and a hawk soars and it feels good to be alive. With my head still half-hanging out the window, I ask my dad, “Does God ever talk to you?”

  He doesn’t answer, and at first I think he hasn’t heard. I bring my head fully into the car. “Dad? Does God ever talk to you?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  I roll up the window partway to cut down on the noise, and wait.

  Finally, he says in his pastory voice, “I believe God talks to everyone, through the Bible and through—”

  “No. I know all that. I’m asking does God ever talk to you. To you. Do you hear God’s voice? Not in your ear, but inside you, somewhere?”

  “I don’t know, Sam. Sometimes I think so. But honestly, I don’t know for sure.” He half laughs, half sighs. “Right now is probably not a good time to ask, since I’m questioning every decision I’ve ever made since and including going into seminary.”

  I look at him to see if he’s serious. “You can quit. Or take a break.”

  “And do what? I’m probably not employable in the real world.” We pull into the parking lot of the Lodge. “Speaking of which, order something under ten dollars, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The hostess takes us to where Vanessa and her family are already waiting on the deck, and tells us if we keep our eyes peeled we might catch sight of some young moose that have been grazing the meadow between the Lodge and the foothills at dawn and dusk lately.

  I sit by Vanessa. “Hey.”

  “Hi.”

  “Keep your eye out for critters, Robby,” Mr. Hathaway says. “You’ll be our official watchman.”

  Dad and Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway make small talk about work, and church, and a little bit about the Shaws, and how fast the summer has gone by. There’s a feeling in the conversation like already we’re putting this summer in the past, it’s time to look forward. Mr. Hathaway asks me, “Ready for school to start up?”