Afterward (35 page)
Authors: Jennifer Mathieu
Mom is still frozen inside of her bedroom, hardly eating and barely talking. The shut bedroom door stares at me blankly each time I walk past it, as empty of expression as my mother's face. And each time I creep inside her bedroom to check on her throughout the day, I half expect to find that she's disappeared somehow, totally eaten up by sadness.
She doesn't go to church the Sunday after I have to destroy
A Wrinkle in Time,
which makes two Sundays in a row. I'm not sure what she says to Dad or what Dad says to her because this time their bedroom door is firmly closed before we leave for services.
“Children,” my dad says as he walks into the family room where Ruth and I are struggling to get shoes on the little ones, “your mother needs to rest a little this morning. She still isn't feeling well and won't be coming with us.”
“Does she have a fever?” Gabriel asks. A fever is the only kind of sick that keeps you home from Calvary Christian.
“Not exactly,” Dad answers. “But we need to pray very hard for her to get well.”
At services, Faith walks up to me and asks why Mom hasn't come back to church.
“Dad said she still wasn't feeling well, and we need to pray for her,” I answer.
Faith nods and says, “âThe prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.'”
“Yes, I know,” I answer.
“You mean, âamen',” Faith responds.
“Yes, amen,” I answer, turning my attention to baby Caleb.
That night, after Ruth and I put the little ones to bed, I head toward my parents' bedroom door to check on Mom again, if only to watch her breathing or to see if she'll at least have a glass of milk. But Dad stops me and insists she needs her rest.
“Better to leave her alone right now,” he says, and my heart breaks a bit because I so want to see my mother.
Instead, I sit down at the computer to balance the books and do a little more work on the Walker Family Landscaping and Tree Trimming website. I frown as I work through this month's latest expenses. Business has been slow, and even though Dad always reminds us we should owe no one anything but love, we still haven't received all of Mom's medical bills, and I have no idea how we'll figure out how to pay them.
Dad is in the bedroom with Momâthe two are talking in low tones, and I can't make out what they're saying. Ruth is in the kitchen writing out a list of groceries for the next week. One of my older brothers is showering upstairs, and I can hear the hot water chugging through the pipes like a train. My brothers don't help with bedtime for the little ones, and their lack of evening chores affords them the luxury of a long shower at the end of the day.
My fingers flutter over the keyboard like hummingbird wings, and as I work, I try to ignore the little itch that's been building in the back of my brain for days now.
An itch that began when I spoke to Lauren's mother at church last Sunday. That intensified when I had to throw away my book.
Suddenly I see the words
Lauren Sullivan Texas Calvary Christian
sitting in the search box, looking me right in the eye. My heart pounds so hard it aches.
I hit Enter.
Pressing that key feels like a release. Like when I water the plants in the front yard and push my thumb against the garden hose for a minute, letting the water pressure build up and tickle me before I move it just a little and let the water explode all around me, the spray kissing my bare feet.
Maybe nothing will happen, I think, but in a millisecond my eyes focus on the very first link.
Â
BUTTERFLY GIRLâAbout MeâLinksâMy Very Favorite ThingsâThe Great Escape
Â
Hi! Thanks for finding me on the Interwebs. My name's Lauren, and when I was a teenager, I escaped from a scary situation that involved abuse and â¦
Â
That's all I can read unless I click on the link. What are the Interwebs? I'm not even sure this is Lauren Sullivan, but the word
abuse
stands out. Lauren didn't like what happened at Calvary Christian, I know that. But it wasn't abuse. Abuse is hard smacks and kicks, not the kinds of swats my parents have given all of us since we were little. Abuse is someone touching you inappropriately in your private areas. Mom was careful to explain that to us when we were little, and I know she took it seriously from the way she almost always got tears in her eyes when she talked to us about others imposing their sexual immorality on innocent children. Touching in the wrong way is abuse. What happened to Lauren made her run away, but how can she call it abuse? Weren't we just trying to bring her closer to Jesus?
My eyes shift down and there are links to results from track meets and spelling bees at other schools and districts with names involving Lauren or Sullivan or Calvary or Christian, but none of the other links that pop up seem to be even close to belonging to the mysterious, redheaded Lauren Sullivan from years ago.
I take a deep breath and listen some more. The shower upstairs has stopped running. If I strain, I can still hear Mom and Dad's muffled voices. Even though I don't know what they're saying, something about the sound pricks at my heart.
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed,
I think, remembering the book of James. I tug hard at the ends of my long hair in an effort to wake myself out of this daze I've sunk into. I pull so hard I wince, and the skin on my scalp fights my pulling. A sharp sting travels over my skull. I yank hard one more time for good measure. To make sure I don't click on that first link.
Quickly, I clear my history and double-check to make sure there's no trace of my searches.
“What are you doing?”
I turn around wearing a face that has to give me away, I'm sure of it. It's Ruth, the memory of
A Wrinkle in Time
and my promise to never read it again no doubt burned in her brain. She's holding a piece of paper in her hand.
“Nothing,” I answer. “I'm just finishing up work for Dad.”
“Okay,” she answers, a long, wary pause sitting awkwardly between the word's two syllables.
Oh-kay.
“I thought if you had a chance you could go over the grocery list with me, just to see if I've missed anything,” she continues.
“Sure,” I say, burying the realization that despite all of my promises about how I won't read certain things and how I will listen to our father, I'm now lying to Ruth for real.
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A
LSO
BY
J
ENNIFER
M
ATHIEU
Â
Jennifer Mathieu
started writing stories when she was in kindergarten and now teaches English to high school students. She won the Teen Choice Debut Author Award at the Children's Choice Book Awards for her first novel,
The Truth About Alice
. She is also the author of
Devoted
and
Afterward
. She lives in Texas with her husband, son, dog, and cat. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
    
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CONTENTS
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Text copyright © 2016 by Jennifer Mathieu
Published by Roaring Brook Press
Roaring Brook Press is a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
All rights reserved
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Mathieu, Jennifer, author.
Title: Afterward: a novel / Jennifer Mathieu.
Description: First edition. | New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2016. | Summary: When eleven-year-old Dylan Anderson is kidnapped, his subsequent rescue leads to the discovery of Ethan Jorgensen, who had disappeared four years earlier, and now Dylan's sister Caroline befriends Ethan and wants to learn the truth about her autistic brother's captivity.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016004764 | ISBN 9781626722385 (hardback)
Subjects: | CYAC: KidnappingâFiction. | Missing childrenâFiction. | FriendshipâFiction. | Brothers and sistersâFiction. | AutismâFiction. | MemoryâFiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.M4274 Af 2016 | DDC [Fic]âdc23
LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016004764
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