Torn Away

by Jennifer Brown

  “You’re hurt,” the woman said, softer now as she approached us. “We’ve got bandages. Is it bad?”

  “It’s okay,” Kolby said, but I overrode him.

  “It’s pretty bad. How big are your bandages?”

  The woman rifled through the first-aid kits, then disappeared into her house. Kolby and I snacked while we waited, shoving crackers and cheese cubes into our mouths greedily. She came back out with a roll of gauze and some tape.

  “It’s kind of old, but it’s going to be better than that,” she said, handing me the gauze.

  We made our way over to the chairs and Kolby peeled off the bandanna and clothesline from his arm. I winced when I looked at the cut, the skin around the edges swollen and angry red.

  “You’re gonna want to keep that clean,” the woman said, making a pained face. “It looks pretty bad. What did you cut it on?”

  “Glass,” Kolby answered.

  “Good, at least it wasn’t rusted metal. You’re probably gonna need a tetanus shot anyway. Although I don’t know where you’d go to get one right now,” she said. “I suppose the Elizabeth Clinic was spared yesterday, but it’s probably packed. And nobody has power.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Kolby said as I wrapped the gauze around his arm and secured it with a strip of tape. “How far did the tornado go, do you know?” he asked.

  “My husband drove around this morning,” the woman said. “About seven miles or so. Hit some of the schools, the library, the hospital, the police station, fire station. Hit everything. You two need a ride somewhere? I’m sure Jerry’ll take you.”

  “We’re going to Janice’s Dance Studio,” I said. “That’s where my mom was. She hasn’t come home yet, and I’m trying to find her.”

  The woman’s face paled. “On Sixth?” I nodded. “Oh, honey, he won’t be able to get you in there. Sixth got hit bad.”

  “Oh. Okay,” I said, trying to ignore the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. “We’ll walk.”

  The woman offered a smile that didn’t quite hold up the corners of her mouth. “I hear they’re setting up tents at some of the churches,” she said. She looked at Kolby and lowered her voice, as if I weren’t standing right there. “They’ll be starting to compile lists. There’s a Lutheran church right around the corner on Munsee Avenue.”

  Kolby nodded and grabbed my elbow, pulling me back into the street.

  “What kinds of lists?” I asked when we got a little way down the road.

  He took a long time to answer. “Of missing people,” he finally said. “And… you know…”

  My heart went cold. “I know what?”

  He stopped, still holding my elbow, his knuckles grazing my side. Ordinarily, I would be mortified at a boy touching my side, afraid that he’d feel the wobbly skin there. But I was too intent on hearing him say it aloud—that they would be compiling lists of the missing and the dead—to worry about something so stupid as whether or not I was stick-skinny. “Come on, Jersey, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’ll go to Janice’s and see what’s up before we worry about what kind of lists they’ve got at the churches. Just because she said it doesn’t make it true.”

  When we turned onto Sixth Street, we navigated in the direction we’d come from, making our way back into the heart of the destruction. Under normal circumstances, I knew this part of town like the back of my hand, but the farther west we went, the harder it was to recognize anything. The woman had been right—Sixth Street had been hit bad, most of the buildings ripped right off their foundations, no leaning walls here. There were no signs, no street markers, no landmarks at all. Other than a handful of people determinedly digging through debris where Fenderman’s Grocery used to be, there weren’t even any people.

  “I think it was here,” I said, stopping and facing a mostly bare rectangle of concrete. Around the concrete was mud; even the grass had been stripped. It was almost as if the tornado had tried to dig down into the ground with its twisting fingers and scoop Janice’s off the earth.

  Kolby walked over to the concrete and bent to pick up something. It was a small ballet shoe. Too small to have been Marin’s, but still the sight of it brought tears to my eyes.

  “They aren’t here,” I said. Kolby dropped the shoe. I tried to remember where the cloak closet was—it had been a while since I’d come to the studio with Mom and Marin, and I was turned around by everything being gone. I stumbled across the concrete to the far corner. Where walls had once been anchored into the floor, now just a few splintered boards stuck up from the ground. There were a couple of empty gym bags caught on a ripped-off piece of stud, but otherwise there was nothing.

  “They aren’t here,” I repeated.

  “I know,” Kolby said. “Sorry.”

  I sank to the ground on my knees. When I’d called Mom, had she been right here? Had this been where she’d been shouting to get down, where she’d been ordering me to the basement, where she’d been unable to hear me? I pressed my palms onto the gritty floor. A handprint stamped itself into the drying grime.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said, but Kolby didn’t answer, which made me unsure whether I’d said it out loud. “Kolby, what do I do?”

  Kolby used his foot to scrape some shattered glass out of the way, then came over to where I knelt on the ground. “I don’t know,” he said.

  I turned my eyes up to him. “What if they’re dead?” I asked. “What if they all died?” The question felt like a punch to my stomach.

  Kolby knelt next to me. He didn’t try to tell me they weren’t dead. I guessed that was because he knew this looked as bad as I thought it did. They might be dead, or they might be injured or in comas or God knew what else. Telling me they were anything other than that would be a lie, and we both knew it. If they were alive and fine, they would have come home. Mom would have come for me.

  The food I’d wolfed down in the tents roiled in my stomach as Kolby’s silence sank in. I scrambled clumsily up to my feet and thunked as far away from him as I could before bending at the waist and vomiting on a bare spot of dirt. I heard shuffling sounds as he stood up. “I’m sorry,” I said between retches. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, and when I finished and came back to him, he clumsily patted my back between my shoulder blades. “Let’s go to the church,” he said. “Maybe they’ll know something.”

  We scuffed away from Janice’s and toward the Lutheran church. The woman we’d talked to was right—they had set up a tent full of supplies. Kolby and I grabbed water bottles from a bucket of ice as soon as we reached the tent. I opened mine and began sipping it while Kolby downed his. The tent was stuffed with people who looked just as homeless and dazed as we were.

  “Can I help you?” a woman in sandals, a tan vest, and a safari hat said, hurrying to greet us.

  “Do you have lists?” I blurted out, getting to the worst before I tried to talk myself out of wanting to know.

  “What kind of lists are you looking for, honey?” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder and pulling me toward a table, where she eased me into a folding chair.

  “I can’t find my mom or my sister,” I said. “They were at Janice’s Dance Studio?” The last came out as a question, as if part of me was hoping that the woman would tell me I was wrong—that my mom and sister had never been at the studio, that they’d ridden out the storm safe and sound in someone’s basement instead.

  The woman’s face fell a little, but she recovered very quickly. She leaned to the side and picked up a clipboard. “You want to add them to the list of those who are missing?” she asked.

  “Is there… another list…?” I asked. “Of people who didn’t make it through?”

  She shook her head. “It’s too early, and I’m afraid we haven’t been getting many updates about that,” she said. “The power’s out all over Elizabeth, which is making communication a challenge. But we’re compiling a list of the missing, so families who aren’t in contact with
one another can at least see that someone else in the family is looking for them.”

  “Is her name on there?” Kolby asked, pointing to the list. “Jersey Cameron?” He looked at me eagerly. “Maybe they’re looking for you, too.”

  The woman scanned the list, running her finger down the names, her lips moving. At last she looked up and gave a rueful head shake. “No, honey, I’m sorry, it’s not. But we’ll add your mom and sister to this list—”

  “And my stepdad,” I interrupted miserably. I felt my chin shake. “Everyone.”

  “Okay, we’ll put their names down on the list, and that way when they get their bearings and come looking for you, they’ll know you’re fine,” she said.

  I gave her my information, along with Mom’s, Ronnie’s, and Marin’s, but my voice got thick and tears welled in my eyes as I talked.

  The woman put down her pen and stared at me sympathetically. “Honey, do you have somewhere to go? Someone you can try to get ahold of? We’ve got some cots we’re setting up in the sanctuary and the basement, and we can work with you to get in touch with any family you might have outside of Elizabeth. Or Child Protective Services.”

  Fear wracked my body. I couldn’t go sleep on a cot in a church basement and wait for a social worker to show up and send me off to foster care. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I wasn’t going to do that. I eyed Kolby, who had gone over to another table, where a woman was pouring peroxide over his cut.

  “I’m staying with his family,” I said. “Until we find mine.” I tried to smile, though it felt counterfeit on my face. Kolby was going to be leaving town to stay with his aunt, he’d said. He wasn’t going to take care of me. His mom wasn’t going to take care of me. They hadn’t offered, and even if they had, I wouldn’t go. What if Mom came back after I left?

  “Okay,” the woman said. “But our doors are always open. We’ve had donations of clothes coming in all morning. You might go through those boxes over there and pick out a few things. Also, feel free to take any food and supplies you may need. We expect we’ll be getting lots more donations by tomorrow. Plenty of folks have already been coming in with truckloads of stuff.”

  “Thank you,” I said, but I didn’t take anything. My stomach was still sour with nerves and exhaustion, and the last thing I cared about was my clothes. I still had water in the mini-fridge in the basement. I wanted to get out of there before I ended up having to stay.

  The woman who was tending to Kolby’s arm slathered some cream on it and rewrapped it, telling him about the cots and the clothes and the food as well.

  “You going to stay?” he asked when we were alone again.

  “No. I’m going back. I don’t want them to freak out if they somehow make it home and I’m gone.”

  My words felt hollow to me. Like something I didn’t really believe in.

  But Kolby must have known how much I needed to say them. He didn’t question me, just started walking back the way we had come.

  We got a ride back to our street from Jerry, the husband of the woman at the tent on Kentucky. He filled us in on details, what the radio newscasters were saying about the tornado. At least one hundred people dead. So many more injured.

  But Kolby only answered him in grunts and thoughtful humming noises. He didn’t add anything of his own. And I didn’t respond, either. I watched out the window as the destruction rolled into view and thought, Home. This is my home.

  And wondered if three of those one hundred dead belonged to me.

  And how soon I would find out for sure.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  It rained again that night.

  I sat outside on what used to be my front porch and watched the rain fall. Let it soak into the skin of my forearms and drip off my earlobes. I took off Ronnie’s boots and wriggled my toes in it, the closest I could get to feeling somewhat washed.

  Kolby’s mom tried and tried to get me to join them in Mrs. Donnelly’s cellar.

  “Honey, your mama will find you there,” she promised. “You can leave her a note.” I stared at the raindrops, which landed in heavy splats on the toes of Ronnie’s boots, washing away the dirt and dust that had gathered there during our walk. “Sweetheart, you need to take care of yourself. The last thing you want is to get sick now. Come into the cellar and dry off. Get yourself something to eat. We’ve got canned pickles and peaches down there. Mr. Fay brought over some crackers as well.” I blinked slowly and shook my head. “Honey, nobody’s gonna be staying here much longer. You’re gonna have to go someplace, too. It’s unsafe. It’s unhealthy.” A drop of water slid down my nose. Finally, Kolby’s mom said a quick prayer that I was too numb to listen to and picked her way back to Mrs. Donnelly’s cellar, her big hips shaking with every step.

  I watched the rain. I watched people disappear into the cellar and into their relatives’ cars and into the night. A few of the neighbors had already fled to nearby motels. Kolby would be leaving for Milton first thing in the morning. Soon I would be the only one still here. If Mom didn’t show up, I would eventually lose my options. Someone would find me, would force me to go to the cots in the church, would force me to go to Child Protective Services, to a foster home. I wasn’t about to voluntarily give up my freedom before then. In so many ways, control over where I slept and ate was all I had left, and maybe not for much longer. I was going to hang on to it as long as I could.

  After a while, goose bumps rose up on my arms, and when thunder boomed off in the distance, I began to shiver, even though I didn’t feel cold. I didn’t want to go inside. I didn’t want to be afraid. I wanted to be like I always had been—the kind of girl who didn’t pay attention to the weather, the kind of girl who sometimes went outside and danced around in the rain, who stuck her bare feet under the downspout to wash grass clippings off. The kind of girl whose mom stood on the front porch, soda in hand, smiling and watching as her daughter let the crying sky drench her until her shirt and shorts were stuck to her like a second skin.

  Instead, I was shaking, my heart pounding, my eyes drifting worriedly to the sky, trying to remember what it had looked like before the tornado touched down and if it had been similar to what it looked like now. Wishing I’d paid more attention.

  By the second crash of thunder, I couldn’t take it anymore. I ducked back into the house, not even bothering to stop and sift through our belongings this time—heading for the basement and the safety of the pool table, carrying Ronnie’s boots in my hands.

  Once downstairs, I dropped the boots and climbed under the pool table and wrapped myself in one of the towels I’d found in the bureau, pulling my knees to my chest, my teeth chattering. I sat next to the couch cushion, bent forward at the shoulders so my head would clear the bottom of the table, wondering what I would do next. My body was tired from all the walking, but my mind was racing. What little food I had would spoil soon, and the water bottles would only last so long. I was filthy. The living room floor could cave in on me at any time. Rain was beginning to pool on the basement floor, inching toward me. Soon I would have no choice but to leave.

  I wished, more than anything, for a TV. Or a radio. Anything to break the silence. Anything to cover the noise of the relentless rain pattering and the weird sound it made on our house now that our house was no longer standing. I longed for voices, or music, or laughter, or chanting—anything to break up the monotony. Anything to remind me that I was still here, still alive.

  What I wouldn’t have given to listen to Marin’s chatter, to have her stand in front of my face begging me to dance with her. Life with Marin was never quiet. Life without her seemed so still it was maddening.

  I snaked my hand out from under the towel and unzipped her purse. I pulled out Mom’s lipstick and opened it. I closed my eyes and smelled it, letting the scent of Mom wash over me, cradle me. I missed her so much.

  “Please, Mom,” I said aloud, “be out there somewhere. Be alive. Come find me.”

  I closed the lipsti
ck and dropped it back into the purse, then grabbed a stick of gum and popped it into my mouth. Thunder rolled and I jumped, thinking about Marin and how much she hated thunderstorms. When one came through Elizabeth, Marin would wander the house on her tiptoes holding her hands over her ears, her eyes big and wet and worried. She constantly asked, “Is it over? Huh? Huh, Jersey? Is it fine?”

  Once, a few weeks before, when Mom was gone on an errand, I couldn’t take it anymore. Marin’s eyes had gone from wet to spilling over and her voice had gotten smaller and smaller. “Is it fine, Jersey? Is the noise fine?” She was nearing Full Meltdown Mode, and I knew I had to do something to distract her.

  I had learned during fifth-grade summer camp that I was apparently some sort of card genius. I’d taken a gaming elective and had paired up with a counselor named Jon—“with no ‘h,’ ” he was constantly telling people, to the point where everyone called him Noaychjon, all one word, like that was his name—who spent the entire four weeks teaching me new card games and then trying in vain to beat me at them. He couldn’t do it. Nobody could. I guess everybody is naturally gifted at something. If my gift couldn’t be music or sports or theater or chemistry or something worthwhile, I supposed being gifted at cards wasn’t all that bad a sentence. It had been a long time since I’d played, but I still remembered all the games, and that afternoon I’d decided Marin was finally old enough to play with.

  “Is the noise fine, Jersey? Is it over?”

  “C’mere, Mar,” I’d said, pulling a worn deck of cards that Noaychjon had given me as a good-bye present when summer camp was over out of my top dresser drawer. “I’ll teach you how to play Sixty-Six.”

  She’d followed me into my room, warily taking her hands down from her ears, and had climbed up onto my bed. I sat cross-legged across from her and shuffled the cards.

  “Okay, so you know how the princes and princesses always get married in those movies you like?”