“Yeah, except…” I look at Vanessa. “I’m not going back to Amberton Heights.”
“What?” She lets her menu drop.
“Well,” Dad says, “we’re not totally sure about that. Something could change.”
“Dad, nothing’s going to change. It’s okay.”
He gives me a look that’s a mix of surprise and relief, like he thought I was going to totally fall apart if Amberton didn’t work out. But I’m not. I mean it, it will be hard at first but okay.
I say to Vanessa, “Maybe I’ll be back later, but not this year.”
“Thanks for telling me like one week before school starts.”
“Vanessa, honey,” Mrs. Hathaway says.
“Sorry,” Vanessa mutters, picking her menu back up. “I just wish—”
“There’s a moose!” Robby points excitedly to a beige dot coming out of the woods in the distance. Everyone at the table looks.
“I don’t know, bud,” Mr. Hathaway says, squinting. “I think it’s your imagination.”
We go back to our menus and Vanessa’s eyes over the top of hers are apologetic, looking at me. “I just wish everything weren’t changing.”
“I know.”
“What’s the skinny on this assistant pastor deal?” Mr. Hathaway asks my dad. “Got a call from Roger Wilkins about that last night. Kind of out of the blue.”
I look at my dad, curious.
“I can’t work seventy hours a week anymore,” he says. “The church can have me for forty, including Sunday mornings, no more. The money is in the budget. We should use it.”
“Maybe it’s not a moose,” Robby says, “but it’s moving.” His small hands grip the back of his chair as he stares intently out at the meadow. I turn to see what he’s looking at. The beige dot is more distinct now, not so much beige as a mix of colors that had been blending into the dry scrub behind it.
A mix of colors, including orange. An orange T-shirt.
I stand up and walk to the deck railing, my mouth suddenly parched. I wet my lips. “That’s a person.”
Blue shorts.
Red-brown hair. Like Nick’s.
And the person comes closer. Others start to stand up from their tables, napkins dropping on the deck, and I can feel the realization of it ripple through the whole place like a wave, like an earthquake, until someone—a waiter, holding a coffeepot—says, “Is that…?”
No one wants to say it, in case they’re wrong and later on feel dumb and disappointed, like the hikers who’d found the hand. No one has the faith to say her name.
Except me, and I shout it. Shout it as loud as I can, and soon everyone is saying it, calling it out, frantically running down the wooden staircase that leads to the restaurant’s herb garden, which has a gate that opens onto the meadow.
The person stops and looks behind her, as if for a second not sure if she should keep going or return to wherever it is she came from. Then, she breaks into a sort of limping jog toward us, all of us, running to meet her, a lot of us crying and saying things like:
“Slow down, you’ll scare her!”
“Call 911!”
But all I can say is her name, over and over, thinking how I’ll tell Nick about it later, and how he should be here to see.
“Jody!”
“Jody!”
“Jody!”
Day 14
Friday
KPXU
BREAKING NEWS
… To recap what we know so far: Jody Shaw has been found alive and relatively unhurt. In a scene that has the whole country talking, an astonished crowd at the Lodge restaurant just outside of Pineview witnessed the thirteen-year-old emerge from the woods where she’d been held at the cabin of forty-seven-year-old Gerald Ladew, a friend of the family and director of the Pineview Community Church choir, of which Jody was a member. Ladew’s body was found shortly thereafter, dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No note was found.
After being taken to the hospital for examination and observation, Jody was released to her family last night. The family has asked for privacy at this time, but spokesperson Charlie Taylor will be making a statement on their behalf later this afternoon.
Authorities say that Ladew was on a long list of possible suspects and was scheduled to be interviewed this week. We’ll be back after the break to talk with Police Chief Marty Spencer about where the investigation went wrong, and how Ladew managed to slip under the radar for nearly two weeks—a question I’m sure we’ll all be asking for months as the facts come to light.
But for today, an entire community celebrates a happy ending to this story, and the safe return of one of Pine-view’s own.
Day 16
Sunday
There are only a couple of us at youth group.The twins are visiting grandparents and Paul has strep and who knows where everyone else is—maybe sitting at home, glued to the TV. It’s me and Daniel and Vanessa, and Allie. And Erin.
“So,” Erin says, balancing her Bible on her knees after having just read one of the Psalms. “What a week.”
“Um, yeah,” Daniel says.
The energy in the room, around church, is strange. Everyone’s happy about Jody, obviously, but bewildered about Gerald. Soon they’ll be chattering about my mom and dad, too, making guesses about why the church has to hire an assistant pastor, and why my mom is home but not coming to church. That’s one of the things we talked about in counseling. After everything on Friday we rescheduled for Saturday and it finally happened. Mom doesn’t want to come to church. Not yet. She doesn’t want to be “the pastor’s wife.” And then Dad said, well, maybe I shouldn’t be “the pastor,” and Mom said no, that’s who you are, and Margaret said we should take all of that very slow.
Erin closes her Bible now and drops it on the empty couch cushion next to her. “I have to tell you guys something.” She looks around the room with her earnest face, eyes landing for a second on each of us. “I’m… I got another job. I mean a different job. A really good one at a big church in Colorado. Pastor Charlie wrote me a recommendation and”—she glances at me—“I got it.”
Vanessa cries out, “No! Why?” Daniel and Allie join in the protests.
“I’ll be here a couple more weeks, then I’m going to move and start getting their fall programs in place.” Erin brushes a tear off her face. “God is calling me to this other place and I want to go. It feels right.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Daniel says. “It feels like crap.”
Vanessa looks at me like I should say something but I stay quiet. It’s not like I’m happy. It’s sad. It didn’t have to be this way, or turn out like this, but it did. And I’m the only other one in the room besides Erin who knows it’s for the best.
“I’m sorry, you guys,” Erin says. “I know it seems like I’m leaving you. But it’s more like I’m going to them.” She manages a smile. “Can you do me a favor? Can you guys pray for me?” Her eyes lock on to me. “Even if you kind of hate me right now?”
“We’ll never hate you,” Vanessa says. “I’ll start. Sam can close. Okay, Sam?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
One Week Later
I ride my bike to the hardware store. Big late-summer clouds roll across the sky, but I think I can beat the rain this time.
At the jingling bells, Cal looks up from the pile of coins he’s counting and rolling. “Hi there,” he says.
I don’t know if the police ever talked to him, or if my anonymous tip came too late for that, or if he ever knew anyone called in with his name. All I know is I feel a little bit guilty for suspecting, and I’m glad it wasn’t him.
Also, I need a job. I reach in my pocket and pull out the folded-up piece of paper and hand it to him.
“What’s this?” He unfolds it, and sets his wire-rim glasses on top of his head.
“A job application.”
“Oh. I didn’t know I was hiring.” He smiles at me and looks at the paper. “No experience. Very tempting.”
r /> “I’m trying to help out with the family finances. And it’s pretty dusty around here… I could help you organize and keep things neat. Even a couple hours a week.”
He nods, and refolds the piece of paper. “I’ll run it by my business manager.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
On the way out I pass the rack of seed packets, and, on impulse, grab the one with the most colorful, huge, impossible-looking flowers on it. I turn to Cal. “How much are these?”
He puts his glasses back on and squints at the packet, then says, “How about I just deduct it from your first paycheck.”
I almost ask him if he’s sure, then decide not to overanalyze a good thing and slip the seeds into my shorts pocket. “Thanks.”
The bells jingle behind me, and I pedal home.
One Month Later
Dad pushes the cart. Mom holds the list. Their backs are in front of me, together, their voices saying the most regular things:
“We could grill some chicken later in the week.”
“There’s a good deal on pasta sauce.”
Mom’s been home awhile now and we’re adjusting. She has to keep reminding me and Dad that we don’t have to walk on eggshells around her. And Dad has to keep assuring us that the change he’s made to his work schedule is going to stick, he’s committed. The church hasn’t found an assistant pastor yet but he’s sticking to his forty-hour-a-week schedule and turning off his cell phone for whole evenings at a time.
Mom turns to me now. “Sam, why don’t you pick out some ice cream?”
I go down a few aisles to the frozen foods, stopping in front of the ice cream. The gourmet kind I like is on sale, but the store brand is, too, for less. We are about completely broke. Beans and rice, peanut butter and jelly, stretching our ground beef with oats, washing out every single plastic bag I use for my school lunches… broke. Our one splurge today is a new bag of potting soil for the single container Mom’s been using to teach me xeriscaping. Even she has a goal of looking for a job after she’s been home eight weeks solid. Margaret said not to rush things.
Of the cheap ice cream, two flavors are left: Rocky Road and mint chip. Dad isn’t crazy about mint chip but none of us likes Rocky Road. I shiver from the cold air that wafts out of the freezer and let the door thunk shut.
I turn, moving the mint chip from hand to hand so I don’t freeze my fingers. As I come around the corner where the eggs are displayed, I almost run right into Jody Shaw and her mother.
Time compresses. In one moment, I remember those thirteen days that changed me: what it felt like when I first heard she was missing, the heat on the day of the search, Nick’s hand on mine in the truck. I remember standing on her porch with Erin and looking at the piles of flowers, wondering if the blue ribbons would ever come down. I think about the letter on my desk at home, the one I’m writing to Nick in response to his first letter to me, which came last week.
“Sam?” Mrs. Shaw is saying my name.
But I can’t take my eyes off Jody. The Shaws haven’t been back to church and Jody is doing home school for a while, so I haven’t really gotten a good look. Jody’s cut her hair into a little bob, no more braids. She seems taller, prettier. And there’s something else. “You got your braces off,” I blurt, as if that was the most remarkable thing that had happened to her all summer.
She smiles, showing straight and perfect teeth. She looks so much like Nick.
Mrs. Shaw starts moving their cart forward. “Tell your folks we say hello.”
I step out of the way. My fingers are getting numb from the ice cream. Jody lifts her hand to wave good-bye. “See you, Sam.”
I watch them round the corner out of my sight. I want to follow them through the whole store and watch them shop, watch them stand in line. I want to look at Jody again and study her. Her looking so different isn’t just because she’s growing up, or the haircut, or the braces. I don’t know how to say it other than there were shadows there, in her face, in her mom’s face. It makes me think of Lazarus. He must have had those shadows, too, after his miracle. You don’t spend time in the tomb without it changing you, and everyone who was waiting for you to come out.
But I leave them alone, instead speeding up to find my parents, looking up and down every aisle until I find them. Dad is setting two cans of turkey chili into the cart while Mom studies the list.
“Here I am,” I say.
They both look up at once. They both smile.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Fred Burmester and Mark Miller for answering technical inquiries early on. Extreme gratitude to Tara Altebrando and Ann Cannon for reading drafts. Kisses to Lauren, Sarah F., Sarah M., Tara, Alan, John, Emily, Maggie, and Maryrose for always being there on the other end of the e-mail. Life without regular writing dates with Anne Bowen, James Dashner, and Emily Wing Smith would be dull indeed. Hugs to Sarah Wick—I miss you already. I love all you guys and gals.
Love and thanks also to Michael Bourret, for regularly keeping me from going off the deep end, and for being a great friend and first-rate partner.
Many thanks to the LBYR family: T. S. Ferguson, Amanda Hong, Alison Impey, Zoe Luderitz, Ames O’Neill, Victoria Stapleton, and everyone who helps them. And thanks most of all to my editor, Jennifer Hunt, who is nearly almost always right.
As always, bonus thanks to my husband, Gordon Hultberg, for being here day in and day out in all of the unglamorous reality.
I’m thankful for Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine for their generosity with beauty, and for their song “Idea #21 (Not Too Late),” which helped me understand the questions I ask along with Sam. I owe a debt of gratitude to them and to all my other personal patron saints—the artists, musicians, writers, poets, and thinkers who articulate pain without losing hope, and whose boldness in doubt continues to show me the way.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Day 1: Saturday, early August.
Day 2: Sunday
Day 3: Monday
Day 4: Tuesday
Day 5: Wednesday
Day Six: Thursday
Day 7: Friday
Day 8: Saturday
Day 9: Sunday
Day 10: Monday
Day 11: Tuesday
Day 12: Wednesday
Day 13: Thursday
Day 14: Friday
Day 16: Sunday
One Week Later
One Month Later
Acknowledgments
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day Six
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 16
Table of Contents
Copyright
Day 1: Saturday, early August.
Day 2: Sunday
Day 3: Monday
Day 4: Tuesday
Day 5: Wednesday
Day Six: Thursday
Day 7: Friday
Day 8: Saturday
Day 9: Sunday
Day 10: Monday
Day 11: Tuesday
Day 12: Wednesday
Day 13: Thursday
Day 14: Friday
Day 16: Sunday
One Week Later
One Month Later
Acknowledgments
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day Six
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 16
Table of Contents
Copyright
Day 1: Saturday, early August.
Day 2: Sunday
Day 3: Monday
Day 4: Tuesday
Day 5: Wednesday
Day Six: Thursday
Day 7: Friday
Day 8: Saturday
Day 9: Sunday
Day 10: Monday
Day 11: Tuesday
Day 12: Wednesday
Day 13: Thursday
Day 14: Friday
Day 16: Sunday
One Week Later
One Month Later
Acknowledgments
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day Six
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 16
Sara Zarr, Once Was Lost
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