Losing Faith (30 page)

“So my text got through? I had to throw the phone.”

“Hey, quiet down,” Malovich reprimands from up front.

Tessa doesn’t exactly take well to directives. “You could have at least told me how to dress,” she murmurs a few seconds later. “I did the best I could to come incognito on short notice.”

Her spiked hair does look a little silly with the preppy clothes, but I wasn’t going to mention it.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “But I’m surprised you called the police. Especially when you had your dad’s car.” I add this part so quietly that even Tessa can barely hear me.

She fiddles with the zipper on her boot. “Dad always goes grocery shopping on Monday nights.”

Changing the subject again. Why am I surprised? I sigh.

She rolls her eyes. “But your cryptic message looked important. So I had to go.” She picks at something on her boot and chuckles. “You’d think I could at least get across town before he reported it stolen.”

“You didn’t bring them on purpose?”

She scoffs. “You’d better be glad they followed me. What the hell would I have been able to do with Reena holding you two over the edge of a cliff?”

“It wasn’t quite like that.” I’d like to tell her that I practically talked Reena out of the whole thing before the cops even got there, but it doesn’t seem like the time to gloat.

“You girls need to keep quiet until we’ve taken your statements,” Malovich says. But there’s a softness to his voice.

I sit there for a few minutes, letting my equilibrium return to normal. “So you were right.” I whisper. “About Alis, I mean. I kissed him.”

Tessa’s head jerks toward me. I don’t give her the satisfaction of looking back, but study my nails instead.

After a few seconds, her shock fades and she asks, “Did you get what you were looking for? About Faith, I mean?”

“Yeah. I guess. I don’t have all the details, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t kill herself.”

“Reena’s fault?”

I nod. “And Nathan’s.”

The cop interrupts us, and this time I can tell he means it. “Really, girls. We’ll be at the station soon.”

Tessa’s face drifts to the far window. But I feel better. Everything’s out now. Even if I haven’t given my official police statement, I’ve talked it out with Tessa, which somehow makes me feel like everything else will be easy.

I reach into my purse and check the contents. My cell phone must still be in Reena’s car, but my wallet seems intact, so I pull out my pad of paper and pen. I’m so tired of thinking, trying to process the last twenty-four hours; I feel like I’d just rather play with some poetry. Glancing beside me, I start with the word
Tessa
.

I’m just coming to the end of a stanza when our squad car pulls into the police station, where Dad and Mr. Lockbaum stand with their arms crossed, waiting for us.

I close my eyes and swallow down my nerves. There is still so much more to face.

chapter
THIRTY-FIVE

e
ven though he’s out of his bathrobe, wearing jeans and a button-down shirt, Mr. Lockbaum’s hair is no better than the last time we met. His brow wrinkles as he races straight for the far side of the cop car to Tessa’s door.

Detective Malovich intercepts Mr. Lockbaum and they talk for a minute. Soon the officer backs away and opens Tessa’s door. She and her dad look at each other but don’t say anything. I wonder how he could possibly process his six-year-old being hauled to a police station.

As much as I want to, I can’t bear to watch anymore. It seems too private. I duck out behind her and walk over to
Dad. He doesn’t move, and I wonder if he’s mad at me. Or just scared to death.

When I’m close enough, he pulls me into a hard hug.

“I’m okay, Dad,” I whisper into him. But it feels good to be held. By my dad. He doesn’t let go for several minutes and I burrow into him, slowly feeling his tension subside around me.

When eventually I pull back, there doesn’t seem much else to say. Things are still uncomfortable because I don’t know if he wants to hear about any of this. When he backs up a step, I take that as a no, and turn back for the cop car to get my purse.

Dad just stares straight ahead as the police begin their questioning. I’m careful to keep quiet about Alis’s absentee dad. I don’t even tell them that Faith and Reena’s meetings were held at their house. Just that the one tonight started there.

“And where were Mr. and Mrs. Monachie?”

“Mrs. Monachie died,” I say softly, as if she was someone I knew. “Mr. Monachie was … must have been … out for the evening.” I shrug at Malovich. “Do you know when they’ll bring Alis back?” I ask.

“I’m afraid I can’t say.” Malovich scribbles on his notepad. “But I’m sure it’ll be a long night for those two kids. Now, why don’t
you give me the details about the mountain.”

When I reach the end of my story, Nathan running and talking a confession out of Reena, I look to Dad, but he doesn’t flinch from his dull expression. It almost seems like
he’s
been hypnotized.

And, in fact, our whole car ride home, he doesn’t say a word. Now that it’s sinking in, I wonder if he’s going to start acting like Mom. Or worse, like Mr. Lockbaum.

By the time we get home, it’s almost ten o’clock. Nuisance trails behind me and drops onto the floor at the edge of my bed. Lying back, trying to sleep, all I can think of is my parents. I can’t stop the disappointment from rising up inside me. I figured getting some answers about Faith would somehow make things better for them. But now I wonder. Mom still spends most of her time at home locked in her bedroom. I have my doubts that she actually talks to anyone at work. Plants are probably dying due to lack of oxygen. We’ve had canned ravioli three nights this week.

The paper bag from my new eye shadow still sits on my dresser. It looks like a lunch sack, but a little smaller. It makes me think of the goofy puppets Faith and I used to make when we were kids.

I push myself up off my bed and go pick it up. Because I can’t sleep anyway, I sit at my desk and draw two googly eyes
on the bag. Then a round nose, with two large nostrils, and a long oval tongue.

When I pull it away and take it all in, the face makes me giggle. It’s stupid, but I don’t care. It feels good to laugh.

When we were kids, I invented something called Kid Deliveries. They weren’t special-occasion gifts, just everyday things to tell Mom we loved her. Faith’s were always better because she was older and much craftier with glue and crayons. I think the last one I made her was when I was about eleven. A picture of Mom and me, both the same height in the picture, even though I trailed her by at least six inches in real life. It was little better than a stick drawing, but I still remember the caption.

My Best Friend.

But that was before high school.

I stand with the puppet, ready to head for her room, but stop at my door. One more thing. I have to make it personal.

Pulling a sheet of blank paper from my drawer, I write two lines. The same two I always started with back then.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

I stop and think, but it doesn’t take me long. This is like preschool bad poetry for me.

I miss my sister

But I sure miss you, too.

I fold the paper about a million times, until it’s only a tiny square, and then slide it into the bag puppet. Tiptoeing to her bedroom, I push down the carpet to get it under the door without making a sound.

See, Tessa, I’m not so bad at this covert stuff after all.

I guess I thought the whole process would get something off my chest so I could go to sleep, but no. Eyes wide, forty-five minutes later, I head down to the kitchen and scour Ms. Frostbite for something to eat.

Not even leftover ravioli.

With plenty of cans in the cupboard, I can’t find a single one that looks appetizing. I dig in the back and find a bag of dry linguine. After several minutes of studying it, the earth-shattering idea strikes me.

Why don’t I cook something?

I search the cans for something with “tomato” in the title. Tomato sauce and tomato paste. That should do it. I stack them on the counter. At least I know how to cook pasta. Well, for the most part. I’m not actually sure how much pasta one cooks for a family of three.

The “family of three” thing still feels weird in my head. I move the bag of pasta to the middle of the counter and place a tomato can on either side. Three. It even
looks
weird.

The pot of water on the stove is starting to boil when Mom pads into the kitchen. She’s dressed in yoga pants and a T-shirt—not her usual bathrobe—and her hair looks not only clean, but brushed, too.

I’ve gotten used to not looking her in the eye, so I naturally divert my gaze to the spices. Oregano—that sounds like a pasta spice. She intercepts me on my way across the kitchen and reaches for my arm. The first glance at her face is an awkward one and I turn away. But she doesn’t let me. She pulls at my wrist, at my shoulder, and finally at my head, until I stare straight into her eyes. They’re wet, but for some reason, I think that’s a good thing. Without even feeling the movement of it, soon I’m wrapped up in her arms.

It takes me a long time to breathe but when I finally do, I’m not breathing air. I’m breathing saline. I nearly choke on my tears while Mom strokes my hair. It’s been so long and I didn’t realize until now how much I need this.

“I love you,” she says. “I’m so sorry, Brie. So sorry to have left you.” She backs away and looks at me again. “And I missed you, too.”

“I love you, Mom.” I know I need to say it as much as she needs to hear it. She cuddles me close again, and I wonder, wrapped up in the cocoon of my mother, how much Dad told her, or if they even talk at all anymore. Should I say
something about Reena? Tell her the whole story? But I can’t think of anything that will make it any easier for her. The only picture that keeps repeating in my mind is of her wrapping her hand over the face of the Jesus statue.

“Do you hate God?” I ask into her hair.

She doesn’t answer for a long time, and her arms go limp around me. She pulls away slightly, but then renews eye contact. “No, Brie, I don’t. I don’t always understand things that happen, but I don’t hate God for them.”

I’m not sure why this makes me feel so much better, but it does. “Do you hate … Dad?” I venture.

She shakes her head. This question seems easier for her and that relieves me even more. “He’ll come around. In his own way.” She ruffles my hair. “He will, Brie.”

I smile, but Mom doesn’t smile back. Her eyes divert past my shoulder.

“It’s boiling over,” she says, and rushes past me to turn down the heat. When she faces me again, she asks, “What are we making?”

The next day I stay home from school and sleep. When I dial Alis’s phone number, I get a message saying the number has been disconnected. Since I still don’t have my cell phone, I wonder if Alis will take the chance to call our house, or if he’ll
avoid me forever now that he knows the truth about what happened to Faith.

Wednesday morning at school, I suspect someone’s breaking into Tessa’s locker. But then I recognize the pink turtleneck under the mop of light brown hair.

“Wow, what happened to all the black? Why the new look?” I ask.

“I guess the mourning is finally over,” she says. I watch her pile several books into her arms, like she’s actually planning on going to a few classes in a row.

“What’s up?” I say. “Suddenly trying to get into college?”

She looks at me, but doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Maybe.” Now that she wears her hair loose and parted on the side, it falls in her face. She scoops it out of the way. “Dad and I had … an encounter or something.”

“Really? What happened?”

She shakes it off. “Nothing, really. I guess.” She turns to dig for something in her locker, but I can tell it’s an act. A diversion. “First, at the police station, he treated me different. Then this.” She holds up a folded piece of notepaper. It has a blue border, and looks like it came from the pad in my purse. “I got dressed for school today like this, I don’t even know why. Anyway, Dad saw me and he put his hands on my shoulders for a long time. He just stared at me.” Tessa’s eyes
are as clear and dry as always, but she blinks as though she’s blinking away tears.

“What’s that?” I ask, pointing at the folded-up piece of paper.

She opens it and places it on the top of her stack of books. When she reads the title, I know exactly what it is. The poem I wrote in the police car.

“‘Terrible Tessa,’” she reads.

My face grows warm. I expect she’ll leave it at that, since we both know the rest, but she reads on.

“A terrible thing about Tessa

Is how she grew up too fast

Shoes too big and too small all at once.

A terrible thing about Tessa

Guilt, a weighty stone around her neck

Undeniably amiss for six.

A terrible thing about Tessa

The force she had to use, and still,

It took someone so long to know her

To really see her.

There are many terrible things about Tessa

But she

Is not one of them.”

After her last words, Tessa just stares at the paper. And I’m glad, because it’s better than her looking at me. I don’t know what to say. The flutter in my stomach won’t calm down, and suddenly I realize it’s not from nerves. It’s more than that. I’ve never heard anyone read one of my poems, out loud no less, and it actually … it feels good. It sounded like a real poem. It sounded like me.

“Thanks,” she says, with her eyes still down.