Sean doesn’t say anything. He just takes my hand and gently, puts it back inside the car. He opens the car door and reaches and unbuckles my seat belt and wraps his arms around me. He holds me tightly against him. His skin smells warm. “Oh, Ellie,” he says. He leans back. Takes both of my hands and holds them in his. He raises my right hand to his lips and kisses it. And then does the same thing with my left one. He looks like he’s about to cry. My heart is pounding now. I can feel the adrenaline rushing up and down my spine.
“Ellie,” Sean says. “I have to tell you something.”
I look up at him. “Okay?” A horrible thought flashes into my head—he has a girlfriend. Oh God. Amanda was right. I start to turn away. “Ellie, please look at me,” he says. “Please.” I stare into his eyes.
“My family knows this private investigator, okay? My father hired him for something once, a few years ago, something for his company.” He pauses. Takes a deep breath. “This guy is pretty much the very best there is. He’s an ex-FBI agent and has contacts everywhere. If a person exists on this earth, he can find them.”
“Uh-huh…”
“So when I first met you and found out about Nina, I thought, maybe I was meant to meet you to help you with this, to help you find her. I called him when we stopped at that first rest stop on the way to Nebraska.”
I nod.
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up in case he didn’t find anything, so that’s why I didn’t mention it before.”
I nod again.
“Anyway, yesterday when we were at the show, when you were dancing with that guy, I went outside and called him to check in.” The tears in Sean’s eyes look like they’re about to spill over. “He had some information.”
I feel my heart pounding. It’s pounding so hard and loud that I can barely hear Sean anymore.
“This morning, when I was saying how I thought maybe we should stop looking…I”—Sean’s voice cracks—“it’s because I had talked to him before and the stuff he said did not sound good and…”
“Did he find her?” I hear my voice ask. I sound so quiet, like I’m far, far away from myself. “Did he?”
“Ellie,” Sean says. He looks down. And looks up. He opens his mouth, his lips are moving. But, the weird thing is, I can’t hear anything. It’s like the world has gone mute. He’s motioning with his hands. He’s nodding. But I don’t hear anything, except for the beating of my own heart, like someone pounding on a drum inside me. Pounding over and over and over. And I’m frozen. Sean puts his hands on my shoulders. And shakes them gently. I hear a gurgling, like water rushing past my head. And then suddenly the sound comes back, loud, too loud. Cars honking. People laughing. One of the college kids calling out to her friend something about some onion rings.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” I say to Sean. And I smile. Because it is awfully strange to suddenly go deaf in the middle of a parking lot. So strange it’s funny, really.
“That investigator found out about Nina,” Sean says. “She died.” Sean looks at me again. “She’s dead, Ellie.”
And I nod. Because turns out I guess I did hear him after all. But I can’t think about any of this right this moment because someone is screaming, a high-pitched, bloodcurdling, ragged shriek of a scream. A scream so loud that everyone turns in the direction of the scream. And it makes it hard to think, all that screaming. And then I realize something: It’s not just someone screaming. It’s me.
Thirty-one
I remember one night when I was seven, lying in my bed, scared and confused, listening to my parents fighting. They always fought, but that particular night it was so loud that I could even make out actual words: my father yelling that he was leaving, and my mom screaming that he should stop threatening and just get the hell out already.
I was young enough then that hearing my mother say “hell” shocked me and made tears spring to my eyes.
After hours of turning over and over in my bed, my door creaked open and Nina crept in. It must have been right around midnight. I remember the way she looked, standing there in her pajamas, backlit by my night-light. Without saying anything, she took my hand and led me out into the hallway, then into the bathroom and shut the door behind us. She flipped on the lights. She was wearing her fluffy orange earmuffs, and she was holding my green ones in her hand. She put them over my ears and then she turned on the shower. But my parents’ shouts were so loud that we could still hear them, over all of that, we could still hear them.
So then with her earmuffs on, the water pounding against the bath mat, she turned toward me and began to sing:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOO YOOOOOOOU
It was late September and my birthday was in February, but Nina had always said “Happy Birthday” was the best song in the world because it was the only song everyone would sing just for you. And even if it wasn’t for you, if you were hearing it you’d probably get to eat some cake soon.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR BELLLYYYYYYYYYY…
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOO YOUUUUUU
She grinned at me and then started again.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOO YOUUUUUU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR BELLYYYYYYYYY
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOO YOUUUUUUU
I remember feeling the confusion and sadness lifting.
And then she started a third time.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOO YOOOOOOOUUUU
By the time I joined in, I was smiling, too, and the world was starting to make sense again. So my parents were crazy. So what? It didn’t matter because I had a big sister, a big sister ! And she would take care of everything, just like she always did.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR NIIIIIIINAAAAAAAAAA
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOO YOOUUUUUUU
We sang as loud as we could, for all we were worth, while the bathroom filled up with steam.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOO YOOOOOOOOU
We sang it over and over and over until our voices were hoarse and the fibers on our earmuffs were wet with the steam. Over and over and over and over, smiling at each other the entire time.
After what felt like the millionth verse, we finally stopped to catch our breath. We could no longer hear any screaming. Nina opened the bathroom door a crack just to make sure. The cool air rushed in and steam escaped out into the dark silent hallway.
But Nina just looked at me then and grinned and closed the door. And we just kept on singing.
Thirty-two
I am outside of my body now, watching as Ellie, who has just found out her sister is not alive anymore, sits back up and wipes the vomit off her chin.
This is how Ellie reacts when she finds out her sister is dead: She screams for a while and then she barfs on the pavement.
Ellie wants to ask questions, but it is hard at this particular moment for her to remember what words are and how to form them with her mouth. She closes her eyes until eventually a word drips down from her brain and pops out her mouth.
“How?” Is this the word she meant?
Sean reaches out and puts his hands on Ellie’s shoulders. She can’t even feel it. “Are you sure you want to hear this right now?”
Ellie says, “Yes.”
“She was killed,” Sean says. And then he winces, as though wincing for Ellie who is just sitting there perfectly still. “She was living in Las Vegas and working in a club as—” Sean looks hesitant “—as a stripper. She started dating a guy who was a big poker player. He was known for making really insane bets. Sometimes he’d win a couple hundred thousand dollars in a night. And other times he’d lose it. He had a losing streak once, a serious one. And he borrowed money from some really bad people and then he couldn’t pay it back. And one night the guy he borrowed money from started beating him up, really badly, out in the parking lot of the club where Nina worked. He’d come to pick her up and the guys he owed money to found him there. Nina was upset. She got involved. There were guns
. And…” Sean pauses again, as though he’s scared to tell the end of the story, as though if he just doesn’t say it, it won’t have really happened. He takes a deep breath. “…She got shot and then that was it.”
Sean looks down, and then back up. His mouth twists itself into a grimace of pain. He probably feels worse than Ellie does, because, truthfully, she doesn’t feel much of anything at all. To her it sounds like she is hearing about characters in a story, a story that has nothing whatsoever to do with her. She knows she is supposed to feel something now, or supposed to do something now, but for the life of her she cannot remember what that is.
“Oh,” she says. And she sits there, unsure whether she is frozen in one moment or if time is still passing. “When?” Ellie asks. “How long ago?”
“Just over a year ago,” says Sean.
And Ellie nods as though, well, yes, of course that’s when it would have happened.
“I need to talk to the investigator,” Ellie says calmly. “Can you call him back please?”
Sean nods. Ellie waits as he dials. After a moment or two Sean shakes his head. “Voice mail,” Sean says. “He told me he’s on assignment when I just talked to him, so he’s probably not able to answer his phone.” And then back into the phone he says, “Hey, Doug, it’s Sean Lerner calling again. We just spoke a minute ago, but we need to ask you some more questions, please give me a call back.” And then he closes the phone and looks at Ellie. “We’ll try him again later, if he doesn’t call back in a couple of hours.”
Ellie nods, as though she understands. But here’s the most perplexing part. For an entire year Ellie has been living on a planet that her sister is not a part of, for an entire year, and somehow Ellie didn’t even know. Ellie stares out the window at the people in the parking lot, walking places, holding things, talking to one another, eating. All those people have managed to survive all the many different things in the world that could kill a person, all the different times they were in danger, all the different times they could have died, they didn’t.
And Nina did.
I pop back into my body then, to share this thought with myself: The world doesn’t make any sense at all. People tell you it does, try and pretend it does. But I know now what kind of place this is, what kind of world we live in. And my breath catches in my throat, and my heart rips apart not just for me, not just for Nina, but for all of us.
Thirty-three
It doesn’t take long for me to remember how to cry. I lean over in the front seat, my arm against the dashboard, my head against my arm, the sobs coming out of me as though all the holes in my face lead to an endless supply of tears. The images cycle through my brain like a photo slide show with my crying as the soundtrack:
Nina blowing up a hundred balloons and filling my room for my ninth birthday. Nina drawing a little cartoon about my socks and leaving it in my sock drawer as though my socks drew it themselves. Nina driving us to 7-Eleven the day after she got her license, flirting with a guy in the parking lot until he bought me a Slurpee and her a six-pack of Amstel. Nina coming back home at five in the morning after having snuck out five hours earlier, a mischievous smile on her face, putting her finger to her lips and winking as she slipped back into her room.
But then the other images come, invading my brain, without warning or permission. Nina running out into the parking lot of some strip club, a jacket on over high heels and fishnets. Her boyfriend lying on the ground, a large hulk of a man over him, kicking him. Nina taking a leap, flying through the air onto his back. The large man stumbling forward, then backward. Shaking her off him. Her falling to the ground. And then what? I squeeze my eyes shut and wince. I do not want to think about these things. I can’t stop myself. Does she see the gun? Is she scared? Does he hold it over her and pause, make her apologize before he shoots? Or is it a surprise, a single bullet in the back of her head, the hot pain searing through her with no warning, her dying thought a question: What the hell was that?
I can’t believe this is real. It is too much. It is just too much. The tears come harder now.
We are driving again. It’s later. I’m not sure what time it is. Or where we are exactly. But what does it matter? No matter where I go, this will be the truth. No matter what time it is, this will be the truth. I cannot escape from it. I will never be able to.
I cry for a while more and then I pass into a weird place of calm, an empty bubble of blank space in between all these tears, and lift my head up. In front of us is the highway. This is what the highway looks like to me after I know my sister is dead. This is what it feels like to sit in the car after I know my sister is dead. This is what it feels like to breathe after I know my sister is dead.
I turn toward Sean, he’s chewing his bottom lip, like he wants to say something but isn’t sure he should. “Go on,” I say.
Sean takes a breath. “Do you wish I hadn’t told you? I thought about not…I thought maybe if I convinced you to give up looking…” Sean pauses. “Would it be better if you didn’t know?”
But now that I know, it’s hard to even imagine what it was like when I didn’t. I feel like I have aged a hundred years since this morning, since an hour ago. I feel sorry for that poor innocent Ellie of earlier today, who so naively believed that everything was going to be fine. I shake my head. “The only way it would be better is if it hadn’t happened,” I say. And hearing myself say these words, the crying starts again.
Sean reaches out and squeezes my knee. “I’ve been through this,” Sean says. “I will go through this with you, Ellie. You won’t be alone. I promise you won’t be alone.”
And I nod, grateful at least for that.
Thirty-four
We’re at a motel now, the Grand Canyon Cactus Lodge, a group of wood buildings surrounding a parking lot. It’s nothing like the fancy places we were at before, it’s not even touristy, it’s the type of place people go to sink into anonymity, the type of place people go to hide.
I am sitting on a bed, my bare legs against a faded scratchy Aztec-print comforter, leaning against a chipped plywood headboard. I am having another one of those strange blank moments. My head feels like it’s stuffed with thick cotton that somehow cushions my brain from all my thoughts.
“Are you hungry?” Sean asks. He is next to me, holding my limp hand, looking at me with such concern. I am grateful to him for being here, for expecting nothing from me. But I don’t have the energy to express this right now.
I shake my head.
“If I get you something, will you eat it? I think I saw a pizza place near here. I could call information and find out the number.” He pats his pockets like he’s looking for his cell phone. He makes a slightly confused face. “Or we could eat brownies out of the vending machine.”
And then I start crying again. Nina loved vending machines.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I say.
“You don’t need to think about that,” Sean says. “I’ll do all the thinking for both of us. You cry it out. And I will take care of you.”
And I lean back against the pillow. I am holding my phone limply in my hand.
“My battery died,” I say. And I feel the tears slipping down my cheeks now. “I can’t call anyone, because I don’t even know anyone’s number.”
“You don’t need to call anyone,” Sean says. “You don’t need to tell anyone.”
And I want to believe him. I try to believe him, but I know that no matter how long I wait, at some point I will have to be the one to call my mother and tell her her daughter is dead. And Amanda, I will have to tell her. And Brad. And…I am crying harder now. How can I exist in a world that I know Nina is not in? And do I even want to?
Sean puts his arms around me and pulls me toward him, pressing my face against his chest.
“We don’t have to go back,” Sean whispers. “We don’t have to ever go back.”
All I can do is nod. I can feel the tears spreading out, soaking through his shirt, until my entire face is wet
with them.
Thirty-five
Sean is in bed asleep, his cheeks flushed, his hands curled into fists around the edges of the scratchy brown blanket. He is smiling, just slightly. And I am awake watching him.
I do not think I will ever sleep again. The limp wet sadness of earlier is gone, having been replaced by a hard nugget lodged in my center, its sharp jagged edges piercing my insides, filling me with a thousand questions. Who was the man that killed her? And where is he now? Is he alive? Is he in jail? And what about this boyfriend, this boyfriend she died for? Where is he? And who is he? And what about Nina? Did someone have to go identify her at the hospital? And why didn’t anyone ever call my mom? And where is her body buried? Her body. Her body that she is no longer in. Her body that is just meat now.
The fact that I’ve just had this thought fills me with such horror I gasp. I bring my hand up to my mouth. I take my hand away. The faint outline of a monster face remains on the inside of my wrist—the stamp from the Monster Hands show. The album. It’s in the car. Nina’s drawing. I have to get out of here, get out of this room. I can’t breathe. I get up and walk across the beige, water-stained carpet. Sean’s jeans are neatly folded and lying on top of the dresser. I reach into his pocket and get his keys. I wrap my fist around them to keep them from jingling. I glance at Sean one last time, and slip out.
I walk through the parking lot toward Sean’s car. Stop, stare in the window. The album is sitting on the cupholder between the two front seats. My heart is pounding hard. I unlock Sean’s car door and climb in, sit down, reach for the album. I remove the plastic shrink-wrap and take out the record—dark gray grooved plastic with large, even darker gray fingers printed on the side, as though a giant gray hand is trying to grab it. Something flutters to the floor. The lyrics printed on a delicate sheet of rice paper in dark gray ink. I read the first song.