“Esther, what are you doing here?” he asks.
“Do you guys smell fire?” I ask. Hannah wipes her bottom lip and looks at me.
“We were just—” Pastor Rick starts to say.
I cut him off. “She’s barely fifteen.”
“What?” Pastor Rick looks at Hannah, his face turning white. He doesn’t look so gorgeous right now.
“It’s not a complex math problem,” I say. “Just take this year and subtract it from the date she was born, and you’ll get fifteen.”
Pastor Rick puts his hands in the air like he’s surrendering and glares at Hannah. “You said you were the older sister. You said you were eighteen.”
Hannah doesn’t look at him. She keeps her whole body aimed at me. “I lied.”
“I’m ruined.” Pastor Rick paces his office.
“Join the club,” I say. “At least this time it’s not my fault.”
He runs his hands through his not-so-perfectly tousled hair. “If anybody ever finds out . . .”
“Something really is burning,” I say again.
“It’s me. I’m going to hell. I’m going to be fired. I’m going to be arrested. Oh, God.”
“I don’t think God can hear you,” I say. “The rain is too damn loud.”
He grabs my hands. “Please don’t tell anyone. It was a mistake. A horrible, terrible mistake. Let’s just forget it ever happened.”
“Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
“It would. Please, Esther.” He clasps his hands like he’s praying to me. “Please.”
A woman appears in the doorway then, out of breath. It’s one of the gossipy women from the front office. Pastor Rick backs up from me, his face almost translucent.
“Rick,” she says, trying to get air.
“What is it, Faye?” He wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
“The Lux Mundi.” She grabs her chest, heaving. “It’s on fire! Jesus is burning to the ground!”
“I told you something was burning,” I say.
Pastor Rick shoots me a panicked look and disappears out the office door.
Hannah crosses her arms over her chest. It’s the two of us, locked in a room, but it feels more like a boxing ring. “What?”
“How could you?”
“How could I what?”
“You tried to kill my fish,” I say. “You broke everything.”
“I broke everything?” Hannah snaps. She starts pacing the room, running her hands through her hair.
“Why don’t you love me?” I ask.
She stops, stone still, and then points at me. “That’s your problem, Esther. You’re selfish. You’re so focused on fixing your own problems, you can’t see anyone else’s.”
“I’m selfish?”
Hannah comes at me. “We moved halfway across the country for you! All to solve your problem! We left our home, our friends, our school.” She ticks items off on her fingers.
“But I didn’t want to leave,” I say. “I wanted to stay.”
“It’s always about what you want and what you can’t have. But you do it all to yourself, and we have to pay the price. What about me? What about Mom and Tom? What about what we want? Do you think any of us wanted to leave Ohio? But we did it for you, so you wouldn’t be ruined. Whenever you get what you want, everything falls apart!”
I feel the earth spinning really fast beneath my feet. Beth said the earth’s rotation is actually slowing down, but it feels like the opposite right now. It’s pressing on me and swirling the truth into hazy lines of gray.
“I know,” I say, grabbing my head.
“And you refused to tell me anything! You didn’t tell me you fell in love! You didn’t tell me you had sex! You still won’t even tell me his name!” Hannah won’t stop. She’s catching on fire. I have no choice but to let it burn. The room smells like a bonfire, and sirens wail in the background. Her voice quivers, the pain inside her palpable, and as she speaks, I start to break. “When Dad left, you promised you’d always be there for me. It was supposed to be two of us against the world, but you purposefully left me behind. I could have helped you, Esther, but you shut me out.”
My head starts to spin. “You’re right. You’re right about it all.”
“I know!” Hannah yells. Then she slumps over. Like she’s been carrying a weight all these months. Or maybe, she’s been dragging it behind her all the way from Ohio, living in memories that won’t stop swallowing her. I’m not the only one tied to the past, unable to let go. Hannah is broken, too.
“I’m sorry, Hannah. I am so sorry.”
When Hannah starts crying, she sobs so hard her body shakes and she almost falls to the ground, but I catch her before she does.
“I wanted to love you through all of it,” she says, tears wet on her cheeks. “But I wasn’t good enough. Why am I not good enough to love?”
Complex Math Problem: Can you subtract love from unconditional love?
“Amit Kahn,” I whisper. The surprise in Hannah’s eyes breaks my heart even more.
“That’s his name?” she asks.
“He’s good at math. Almost as good as me. And he has really beautiful eyes.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes,” I say. “I loved him.”
“Why didn’t you let me catch you?” Hannah whispers in my ear. “I would have, Esther. I would have caught you. I wanted to be there for you.”
Smoke seeps into the office under the door. I wish there was time for me to answer all of Hannah’s questions about the past, but the present is on fire.
“It’s smoky, Hannah. We need to leave,” I say.
“But what do we do now?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I’m all out of solutions.”
Hannah covers her mouth with her arm and coughs. Then she grabs her Bible off Pastor Rick’s desk and runs her hand over the black cover with gold lettering.
“Esther?” She looks at me, tears on her face. “I may have the answer you’re looking for.”
40
I’d forgotten the vow Hannah and I made to each other all those years ago. Or maybe I just didn’t believe in it strongly enough to remember. Hannah’s the one who’s been devout. She believes with strength and promises. It may not always be right, but if truth were easy to find, Jesús would have written his senior statement by now.
I should have trusted her.
It’s loud and chaotic outside, with fire trucks and police cars and people in their Sunday best.
“Holy hell,” Hannah says.
“That’s one way to put it.”
Struck by lightning, Touchdown Jesus is burning to the ground. The flames are uncontrollable. It’s a fire that no amount of water can put out. Touchdown Jesus is slowly disappearing into a pile of wet ash and dust on the front lawn.
Beth, Jesús, Moss, and Color stand in the rain, watching the fire.
“You made it out of church alive!” Color shouts.
“Barely,” I say breathlessly. I look at Jesús. “My fish?”
“She’s fine.”
“You found her.” Beth acknowledges Hannah with a nod. “What do we do now?”
Hannah’s bottom lip trembles, turning slightly blue. She’s always run colder than me. I pose Beth’s question to her, as I should have done over a year ago. “I don’t know. What do we do now, Hannah?”
It’s the question I should have asked before the walls went up and we grew apart. It took me this long to find it.
“I just wanted someone to notice me,” Hannah says. “Mom and Tom, they focus on you. But me . . . And then I found someone who took notice.” Hannah shakes her head, the rain mixing with her sadness and pooling in a mess on the muddy ground. This is a mess that’s going to take a while to clean up, but as if offering somewhere to start, Hannah holds out her Bible to me. “Look inside.”
“I don’t think—” I start to say.
“Just look inside,” she repeats.
So I do.
; Here’s a notable thing about Hannah. Turns out, she’s had the answer all along.
I stare down at the address written on the first page, a California address in Hannah’s handwriting.
“Last year, I looked through Mom’s drawers and found the adoption paperwork. I wrote it in the one thing I knew Tom would never take away from me.”
“A Bible,” I say.
“Go see her.” Hannah can’t look at me.
“What?”
She takes a deep breath, broadening her chest, and transforms herself back into the dramatic teenager I know so well. “If there’s one thing Mom and Tom are good at, it’s making sure we keep our mouths shut. I have a feeling they won’t approve of my behavior with Pastor Rick. Sometimes silence is the best blackmail. I can threaten them with exposing myself if they come after you. That should work for a couple days at least. Long enough for you to go.”
“You’d do that for me?”
A flicker of pain crosses her eyes again, but she recovers almost immediately and nods.
“I’m coming with you,” Moss says.
Color grabs my hand. “Me, too.”
“Me three,” Beth says.
“Me four.” Jesús holds up the cup. “Plus a fish.”
“Hannah?” I say. “Do you really want to do this? Mom and Tom . . . they’ll . . .”
But she states firmly, “I finally found a way to get their attention.”
The rain continues to fall, Touchdown Jesus won’t stop burning, and the station wagon is running. I guess there’s only one thing left to do.
“To California,” I say.
No one stops us as we drive away. They’re too concerned with their own problems to notice mine.
We make a quick stop at my house on our way out of town. I need to get something from my room before we go. I’ve been holding on to it, and now it’s time to let it go.
With the picture of Amit and me in my hand, and pieces of broken glass and rocks all over my bedroom floor, I don’t linger. I’ll clean that mess up when I get home.
We stop at the border of Truth or Consequences. Moss pulls the car to the side of the road.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he says.
“Yes,” I answer definitively.
“I’ve always wanted to see the ocean,” Moss says.
“To San Diego we go!” Color hollers.
I hold the cup with my fish in it and whisper, “You’re almost free.”
Moss puts the car in drive, and we exit Truth or Consequences.
Somewhere in Arizona, the rain stops. The clouds break, and we watch the sunset in the west as we drive toward the ocean.
41
“My clothes are dry now,” I say to Moss. We lie on the hood of the car in the middle of the desert, somewhere deep in Arizona. The stars are bright. Jesús, Color, and Beth are asleep in the station wagon.
“Mine, too,” Moss says.
I point to the sky. “The Big Dipper.”
Moss points. “Orion’s Belt.”
“Real stars are so much better than glow-in-the-dark ones,” I say. “This is real, isn’t it?”
“It sure feels real.”
I kiss him, just to make sure.
“Definitely real,” Moss says.
“We made it away safely.”
I lean my head on Moss’s chest, and he says, “For now.”
But now is all we have.
And so I’ll take it.
Salt water. The smell hangs in the air as I sit on the beach. We made it to California, where the journey ends. It’s here that I’ll find what I’m looking for. Dharma said so.
Jesús hands me a donut and coffee. Beth and Color walk along the shore, their feet in the ocean.
“It’s not an iced soy mocha frap, but it will have to do.”
“Thank you,” I say.
Jesús squints in the sunlight and I lean into him, like a comfortable piece of furniture, Moss on my other side. The sand is cold beneath us.
“Do you think the water is cold?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Moss says. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact that we’re here. Another blue tack for the map.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” I stand up, pulling Jesús and Moss to their feet.
“A swim, mon chéri? Only if it’s a skinny-dip.”
“I will if you will.” All three of us wear devious grins.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Moss says. He sprints toward the water, taking his clothes off along the way, like a trail of crumbs for me to follow. He dives in headfirst as Color and Beth holler from the shore.
“What are you waiting for?” Moss yells back to us.
It takes one look at Jesús before we’re off and running. Beth and Color are next, and soon we’re all naked and swimming. It turns out the ocean in California is perfect.
Moss grabs me around the waist and pulls me into him. “Thank you,” he says.
“For what?”
“This.” He takes a scoopful of salt water and drips it on my head.
“It’s like I’m being baptized all over again.”
“I bless you, Esther,” Moss says, “in the name of . . .” He gets contemplative for a moment before continuing. “Truth, wherever she may be found, and Heaven, which actually exists in a lonely, abandoned Blockbuster. Who knew.”
Water runs down my forehead and cheeks. I lick my lips and taste the salt. “Heaven right here on earth.”
Jesús swims up to us and takes a scoopful of water, dripping it on Moss’s bare head. “Consider yourself baptized, Fungus.”
“Do me!” Color hollers, and Beth dips Color’s head back in the water so that her hair circles around her head like a red halo.
“My turn,” Beth says. Color tilts Beth’s head back in the water and kisses her on the lips.
Beth stands back up, shocked. “I added my own flair,” Color says.
And just like that, we’ve all been baptized in the Pacific Ocean, in the name of Truth and Heaven, and I know it doesn’t really count, but at this moment, it feels like everything.
It feels like we can go on like this for infinity.
42
A plastic baby swing hangs from the tree in the front yard. I check Hannah’s Bible again to make sure the addresses match, even though I know without a doubt that they do.
“Why couldn’t the angle get a loan?” I say.
“Why?” Beth asks.
“Because his parents wouldn’t cosine.”
“I don’t get it,” Jesús says. “But who cares?”
I count the seconds along with the clock in the station wagon: 60 × 60 × 3 = 3,600.
It’s been three hours.
“Why couldn’t the number four get into the nightclub?”
“Why?” Jesús says.
“Because he is two square.” I can’t take my eyes off the swing. It’s just so small and innocent.
“What are you going to do when the jokes run out?” Jesús asks.
“Maybe we should just go,” I say.
“It’s too late now,” Moss says.
“Is it?” I look at him. “What if I missed my chance?”
Color says, “Then you’ll catch the next one.”
Another hour goes by, and now it’s lunchtime. The station wagon smells like the potato chips Jesús and Moss are eating. Jesús wipes crumbs from his shirt and leans his head back on the seat. We only stopped in Arizona for a few hours last night to sleep. Fatigue hangs on all of us.
More seconds pass, and then I say, “I only have one more question.”
“Is it a joke?” Beth asks.
“No.” I pause. “How do you blow up someone’s universe?”
Jesús closes his eyes. “Very gently.”
An hour later, everyone is asleep but me. Color and Beth are sprawled in the back of the station wagon. Jesús is reclining in the front seat, and Moss is lying in the middle with me, his arm draped over my side.
I count everyone’s breaths along with the minutes and seconds. They’re even, and practically weightless. My breath comes heavy, though, weighted with the anxiety that’s clogging my throat.
I close my eyes, needing a break from the swing. The baby probably sits in the seat, without a care, soaring through the air easily, knowing her parent is there to catch her. How it should be.
There’s only one more memory left to wash over me before I need to let this go.
“On the count of three, I need you to push, Esther.” The doctor’s voice echoes in my head. “Are you ready to do this?”
“No!” I screamed. “I’m not ready!”
Everything hurt.
Mom grabbed my hand tightly. “You don’t have a choice, baby. You have to do this. On the count of three . . .”
One . . .
Two . . .
“OK, one more joke,” I whisper. “What do you call a destroyed angle?” I take a deep breath and step out of the car. “A wrecked angle.”
And I pray I didn’t ruin her.
Three.
I stand at the door, practicing my speech in my head, but unable to knock.
Hi, my name is Esther, and that’s my baby.
Hi, my name is Esther, and that’s my baby.
Hi, my name is Esther, and that’s my baby.
When the garage door opens, I jump.
A man, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, walks out, pushing a stroller.
“Can I help you?” His voice is pleasant and soft, not the voice of a yeller.
“Hi, my name is . . .”
Time passes. Invisible time. How did I get here?
“Actually, I’m lost,” I say.
“I can help,” he says. “Where are you trying to go?”
“That’s a good question,” I say. “You have to have a good question to get a good answer.”
An object falls out of the stroller and lands on the ground. The man doesn’t notice, so I pick it up, biting the inside of my lip so hard it starts to bleed.
“I think someone dropped this.”
“Thank you,” the man says. “She’s not one to keep things inside the stroller. She’s a messy little creature.”
“Like her mother,” I whisper, bending down in front of the stroller and peeling back the shade.
The Infinite Pieces of Us Page 20
