Once Was Lost (13 page)

After taking a deep breath, I say, “I guess I’ll see you at the vigil?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there. Come find me after, okay?”

“Okay.”

When I hang up, all of Nick’s words are running through my head. Until now, I’ve been convincing myself that Mom would have a good reason for not calling me, but there isn’t one. There just isn’t one. Like Nick said, I’m her daughter. And my dad is her husband. And he’s with someone else right now. Maybe. Suddenly, I have to know for sure.

Panicked, I come out of the bathroom and run into Mr. Hathaway in the hall. “Um,” I say, and he stops. “I’m really sorry but I left something at my house that I need.”

“I can run you by in the morning to get anything you need,” he says, smiling helpfully.

“I kind of need it tonight.”

“Oh, well.” He checks his watch. “You sure it’s not something Vanessa or her mom can… supply you with for tonight? Did you check under the sink?” He thinks it’s female products.

“It’s not.”

He feels bad for me for everything that’s going on, I can tell, and doesn’t press further. “Sure. Okay. Grab Vanessa and I’ll take you.”

In the Hathaways’ minivan I try to stay calm and think about what I’ll do if Erin’s car is parked at our house. This was stupid. Because now if it’s there, Vanessa and her dad will know, too. I think of what I could say. Like that they have a meeting about the prayer vigil or youth stuff. I’ll pretend it’s normal, I’ll pretend not to notice it.

Before we left, Vanessa asked what we’re getting. “Just something I need,” I told her. She looked at me funny but didn’t ask for more. Now we’re sitting in the back of the van and her dad has the AC up to the point I wish I had a sweater. It’s not quite dark out yet, but getting there.

We turn the corner to my block. I crane my neck to see past Mr. Hathaway’s head and get a glimpse of the house. There are no cars out front, not even my dad’s, and I know there can’t be any in the garage other than my mom’s, which has been parked there since her accident and arrest. The driveway lights are on but otherwise the house looks empty. I blow breath out.

“You have your key?” Mr. Hathaway asks as he pulls into the drive.

“Yeah.” I open the sliding door and climb out, then realize Mr. Hathaway and Vanessa are getting out, too. “Oh, I’ll just be a second; you don’t have to come in.”

“No, no. Dad duty. I’m not sending you into a dark house alone.”

“And I’m not sitting here by myself,” Vanessa adds.

They follow me to the door. I hesitate, wondering where my dad is, anyway, if he’s not here. Maybe they’re at her house. Or maybe I’m just crazy for thinking anything could possibly be going on. Jody’s family needs my dad right now, and they need Erin, too. They need anyone who can help and of course Dad and Erin are going to be there at the same time, helping. He’s just not home yet, that’s all. Maybe he went out for coffee with Erin, to talk. It’s not a crime.

I push open the door and a blast of heat hits us. “Sorry it’s so stuffy,” I say over my shoulder to Vanessa and her dad. “I’ll be fast.” Ralph runs to the door. I flip on the living room light and pet him, then turn to Vanessa. “Will you check his food bowl?” Mostly that’s to keep her from following me to my room, where I’m supposed to be getting this so-called item that I absolutely had to have tonight.

In my room, I take my school backpack out of the closet and look around for stuff to put in it: the gardening book I bought from the hardware store on Saturday—a lifetime ago. An extra pair of shorts. The rooster clock stares at me from my desk and suddenly I know just what to do with it. I put that in the backpack, too, which now looks nice and full. On the way out, I stop to pick up the picture of my mom and me that I keep on my dresser. It’s from two years ago at my eighth-grade graduation. She’s looking out from under her perfect ash-blond bob, her arm around me, smiling like crazy. She’s beautiful. I got a citizenship award and a soccer award, and she was so proud of me, but it’s Dad who’s behind the camera, and really that smile is for him.

I take the picture. Instead of putting it in my backpack, I go into my parents’ room and place it on my dad’s nightstand, right in the spot where he usually sets his cell phone to charge while he sleeps.

Back out in the living room, I lift my backpack and say to Mr. Hathaway and Vanessa, “Got it.”

Around three in the morning I wake up with the urge to pee. Quiet as I can, I slip the rooster clock out of my backpack, and on the way to the bathroom, I creep to Robby’s door. It’s open, spilling a faint yellow pool from his plug-in night light. I go in and set the clock, carefully, on his race car–shaped bureau.

Day 7

Friday

We leave for the prayer vigil at six thirty.

“You girls look lovely,” Mrs. Hathaway says, smiling in a kind of sad way at us when we come out of Vanessa’s room, ready to go. I borrowed a grass-green linen sheath dress from Vanessa, and twisted my hair up into a bun to keep it off my neck. Vanessa has on a blue and white flowered sundress; her short dark hair slicked back. We’re dressed up like it’s Easter Sunday or something, and I don’t know if that’s right, but we want to show respect.

“So do you, Mom,” Vanessa says, and puts her arms around her mom. Her mom hugs her back, and in profile they look a lot alike with their short noses and short chins. I watch them and try not to think about how another whole day has passed without my own mom. Dad, at least, called me today. He wanted to check in and see how it was going, and I said fine, and he didn’t ask if Mom called me back about brunch, and since he didn’t ask I didn’t say anything.

We go out to the driveway to get in the minivan, which Mr. Hathaway has cleaned out and kept running so that the interior is nice and cool. Vanessa and I take the second-row bucket seats; Robby is all the way on the back bench. I heard the rooster go off in his room this morning and he came running out in the hallway, and I went out there and teased him for a while about where it could have come from and how maybe it crawled in through his window and he should check to see if it laid eggs, then I told him it was from me. “Why?” he asked.

“Just because,” I said, bending low so that I could look him in the eye. “You’re almost eight. I got it when I was eight. An eight-year-old needs an alarm clock.”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “It does.”

Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway are in now and we’re all buckled up and ready to go. Mr. Hathaway looks back at us for a couple of seconds. “Everyone okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, Dad,” Vanessa says.

Mrs. Hathaway doesn’t turn. It’s hard to tell for sure but she might be crying. The van pulls out and we drive the short distance in silence until Mr. Hathaway says, “Oh, sweet molly, look at all these cars.”

The church parking lot already overflows into the street. There aren’t any spots along the curb in front of or across from the church, either. A white KPXU van is double-parked, and so are two vans from the big network affiliates up in Dillon’s Bluff.

“Drop us off here,” Mrs. Hathaway says. “We’ll save you a seat while you look for parking.”

We pile out and head for the church, passing TV vans and camera setups that are taking footage of people going in. It’s stinking hot, still. We’ve been inside all day; it was too hot even to go to Daniel’s house for the pool. I have no idea how all these people are going to pack into our church and not die of suffocation.

One cameraman we pass has a blue ribbon tied to the handle of his canvas bag of gear. Mrs. Hathaway suddenly stops, staring at it. “Mom, come on,” Vanessa says, “we need to get seats. Brandy Wilcox might be here.”

“Maybe we’ll get on TV!” Robby says, suddenly excited.

Then, Mrs. Hathaway whirls around, so fast that Vanessa and I step back. She grabs Robby’s arm and looks back and forth between him and us. “Listen to me. This isn’t a reality show. This isn’t for being on TV, or for seeing a celebrity. If that’s what you’re here for, you can march right back to the car and tell your father to drive you home.”

A few of the people walking by slow down. Robby’s lip trembles. Vanessa pulls him close to her. “You don’t have to yell,” she mutters, red-faced.

“I’m sorry.” Mrs. Hathaway’s eyes fill. People walking by glance at us, curious. “But it could have been you, Vanessa.” She looks at me. “Either one of you.”

“We know, Mom. It scares us, too.”

Then she takes them into a hug and I stand there in the hot parking lot, watching, until Mrs. Hathaway says, “Come on, Sammy, you, too,” and holds us all tightly.

We find seats in a pew near the back of the sanctuary. It’s crowded with people I don’t know, people I don’t even recognize. A lot of them have blue ribbons pinned to their shirts. A lady behind me tells someone else that she drove all the way from Wyoming with her daughter, who’s fifteen. Like me. And I realize that this isn’t mine, or Pineview’s. Now everyone thinks they have a right to a piece of Jody being gone.

There was this boy in my eighth grade class, Ronnie Gomez, a scholarship kid. He died of leukemia halfway through the school year and suddenly all the kids were crying like they’d lost their best friend. People who had treated him like dirt before he got sick—because he came here straight from Mexico and barely spoke English, because he only had two outfits to wear to school—put up this memorial poster in the cafeteria. As if they’d ever even said hello to him, let alone visited him in the hospital the way I did, with my dad, touching the gray, sick skin of Ronnie’s hand while we prayed by his bed.

“That’s the way it is with most things in life, Sam,” Dad said when I complained about the poster, and how no one even asked me if I wanted to sign it. “No one is there to see your finest moments and give you a medal. But that’s not why you do good things, right?”

A Teachable Moment. A reminder about the parable of the workers in the field, how the workers just do what the workers do for the agreed-upon wage and shouldn’t expect things to line up with human ideas of fairness. And then Dad ended up using it as a sermon illustration—changing the names to protect the innocent, and me.

Tonight, some part of me can’t help but feel the way I did about Ronnie, and want all these people to leave. This happened to us, not them.

Pretty soon Mr. Hathaway, sweaty and out of breath, joins us. I can see the back of my dad’s head in the front row. Jody’s parents and Nick are next to him, with Erin and a few of the youth group kids in the pew right behind. There’s still some sun coming in from outside, and also candles light the sanctuary, the way they do at Christmas. My dad gets up, and people start to quiet down other than a few whispers and rustlings as they try to make room for more arrivals.

Dad climbs the three stairs to the chancel. I know he’s saying the Lord’s Prayer under his breath because that’s what he’s done my whole life right before he speaks in church, to calm his nerves. I know there’ll be a small Dixie cup of water on the shelf of the lectern. It used to be my special job to put it there, when I was little. I don’t know who does it now.

He clears his throat.

“This will be simple and brief.”

His eyes search the crowd. I sit up straighter so he can see me, if that’s who he’s looking for.

“Members of the Shaw family would like to say a few words. Then we’ll hear from the choir, and have some moments of silence before heading out.” He looks down at the lectern for a second, then up again, smiling slightly. “Don’t worry—no sermon.”

Titters of laughter.

“We’re simply here to ask God to bring Jody home.”

He steps away from the lectern, and Jody’s mom and dad, and Nick, come up from their seats. I wonder how many people here are thinking about all of the rumors on the Internet as Jody’s dad adjusts the microphone,

“Each one of you,” he starts, then turns from the mic and clears his throat. “Each one of you,” he says again, then stops and looks at Jody’s mom and shakes his head.

In our pew, Mrs. Hathaway is crying very softly, and digging through her purse for a tissue.

Jody’s mom steps up to the lectern to take over. “What Al is trying to say is thank you. For coming tonight, and for everything you’ve been doing for us and for Jody.” I don’t know how she’s able to keep herself together, but she is, while Nick and Jody’s dad look on with stunned expressions. “She’s going to come back. We know she is. We believe in miracles.”

How?

Jody’s mom and dad go back to their seats while the choir files in and Gerald Ladew crosses the chancel, and I want to know
how
to believe in miracles. How
they
can, after all of this. How Job kept believing in everything. Does God give some people a kind of special faith? How does he decide who gets it? Or do you just decide that you do believe, no matter what, and then force your mind shut when doubts try to come in?

I used to think my faith was mine. When I was Robby’s age, or even two years ago, I thought that what I believed was what
I
believed. Now I think maybe I’m just like Kacey Franklin, only here because my parents expect it. The difference is at least she’s honest.

The choir is in place. Gerald approaches the organ with slow, deliberate steps, then suddenly turns and goes to the lectern where he stands in front of the microphone for a few seconds. We all wait, curious. He never says anything before the choir sings. One time he wrote an original piece for the choir and my dad asked him to introduce it, but Gerald said he likes the music to speak for itself.

He swipes a string of his thinning hair to the side of his head. “Jody,” he says, then covers his face with one hand. He exhales a shuddery breath we can all hear through the sound system. Then he says again, “Jody. Has a beautiful voice. This is her favorite hymn. You can imagine her singing it.”

I recognize the opening notes of an old hymn we haven’t sung here in a long time, especially since we started having mostly guitar music during the service—after a big controversy during which everyone over the age of sixty threatened to leave the church if we didn’t still have organ and choir every week, too. It’s strange to me that this would be Jody’s favorite. It’s not “Amazing Grace” or one of the others that people always name. I don’t think I even have a favorite hymn. I feel like I should.