What We Lost

by Sara Zarr

  Even if there is a good reason, and honestly I can’t think of one, it still hurts.

  I had all these big plans for the yard today but now that I’m home I can’t get myself up and doing anything. Gravity is powerful. It’s still before noon, and I already slept like twelve hours last night, but my eyes want to close and I let them.

  Pretty soon, I’m asleep.

  I dream of Jody. She’s in a hole in the ground, looking up. All I can see is her dirty, looking-up face, and there’s no one around but me. No context, no sense of if I’m in Pineview or in a forest or a desert. Just me, Jody, and the hole. I lower a ladder. But instead of Jody climbing up, I climb down. We’re both in the hole, staring at each other. She looks older than her picture on the flyer; her braces are off. She holds out her hand. I grab it. And then I wake up.

  In the yard, I struggle with the black plastic sheeting, which I probably shouldn’t be doing since it’s early afternoon, the hottest part of the day. My cell phone rings. It’s Erin.

  “Ah-ha,” she says when I answer. “Your dad suspected you might answer if it was me and not him.”

  I move into a shady spot, kicking the pile of sheeting into a manageable lump. “You’re with my dad?”

  “I’m at the office. Just taking care of some youth group business. Speaking of which, we’re getting together tonight at Vanessa’s to bake brownies and take them over to Nick’s. It’s the best we could think of right now.”

  It’s easy to see how this will go: Dad takes me to youth group, and since it’s at Vanessa’s he’ll say why don’t I just pack a bag to stay over, thereby denying me the one more night at home he promised me this morning. Which somehow feels important.

  “I’m still not feeling super great,” I say. “I should probably stay home.”

  “It will not be strenuous, I promise. And you’ll be well fortified because I’m going to cook you guys dinner.”

  “You’re cooking dinner for the whole youth group?”

  “No no, just for you and your dad… Here, I’m going to put you on speaker.”

  “Hey, Sammy.” My dad sounds upbeat, energetic, and not mad that I didn’t answer his call earlier. “How’s your day?”

  “Fine.” I sit on one of the dirty plastic patio chairs, trying to think of what I can tell him I’ve been doing all day since I probably shouldn’t mention going out, assuming Ida Larson hasn’t already called him to squeal. “I’m just—”

  But he cuts me off. “Here’s the plan: I’m leaving the office now to check in with the Shaws. Then I’ll come home, and Erin is going to bring us dinner at six, and afterward you guys will go do brownies at Vanessa’s.”

  “And she’ll bring me home?”

  “Sure,” Erin says.

  Church people only bring meals to other church people when something is wrong. When people are “going through a hard time,” as Erin always puts it whenever us youth group kids do meals for people. Casseroles when Heidi Capp’s dad had cancer. Soup after the Fletchers had triplets. Brownies for Nick. And dinner for us—motherless and wifeless us.

  “We don’t need you to cook dinner,” I say.

  My dad laughs and says loudly, “Yes, we do! Pay no attention to the child!” They sound like they’re having so much fun. I watch Ralph pounce on a butterfly.

  “Dad, I can cook.” Which I know is a direct contradiction to our conversation at the grocery store, but I can at least make some instant rice and open a can of fruit cocktail or something.

  “I’m bringing food,” Erin says. “Don’t even worry about it.”

  “Can you take me off speaker? And let me talk to my dad?”

  “Oh, okay.”

  He comes on the line. “Everything all right?”

  “I don’t know if I want to go to youth group tonight. I might be coming down with something.” I move my flip-flopped toe over the plastic sheeting. Saying I’m sick could go either way in terms of trying to get him to change his mind about me moving to Vanessa’s. He might just say it’s better to be where Mrs. Hathaway can take care of me. Or he might decide to take care of me himself.

  “Wait and see how you feel tonight. You’ll probably want to go out after being cooped up all day.”

  I don’t know how many different ways to say that I just want to be home.

  “Sam?” he asks. “Still there?”

  “Yeah. Okay.” I slide the phone shut. Two black ants crawl across my toe and I let them, because right now I’m distracted with wondering if I should worry about my dad and Erin. I like her. Everybody does. Some of the youth group kids are really close to her, like she’s a sister or an extra parent. If I could find the words to open up to anyone, I’d definitely consider her. But there’s this one memory I can’t get out of my head. Back in May, we had a mission trip–planning meeting thing at our house, a dinner. Mom was still able to pull herself together enough to pose as the perfect pastor’s wife, cooking a bunch of Martha Stewart hot and cold appetizers and making punch. Everyone kept saying how good everything was, how great the house looked, how cute the little mice she made out of strawberry halves were, each tiny chocolate nose smelling its own miniature hunk of Swiss cheese.

  What they didn’t know was how I’d been helping for days, giving Mom pep talks every two hours, telling her it was going to be okay, everything looked great, no one was going to look behind the shower curtain and see the little bit of grime that might be in the corner of the tub and if they did they wouldn’t judge her for it.

  “You’d be surprised, Sam,” she said, scrubbing out the inside of the microwave. “Some day, you’ll know how it feels. There’s a lot of pressure on a woman. Like you have to be camera-ready at all times. It hangs over you constantly, like homework you can’t ever get an A on.”

  The people at the dinner also didn’t know that she had her personal supply of punch under the sink, spiked with gin. I went in and out of the kitchen all night, making sure she was okay, making sure people had everything they needed, and one time I walked into the living room with a tray of mini quiches. Erin—who sat on the floor near my dad—was looking up at him, laughing, her eyes dazzling and alive, while he stared down at her, the biggest smile on his face. Everyone was laughing, not just them. You could tell that someone had just said something funny. Still, the look between them, something about it stopped me. It was the way I wished my mom and dad looked at each other. Everything else in the room disappeared as I watched them, until Daniel saw me standing there and said “Mini quiche!” and broke the spell.

  And I don’t think anything is going on. I’m sure it’s not. If my mom doesn’t think my dad is the kind of man who would cheat, why should I. But I will be paying attention.

  Dad is barely home for twenty minutes when the doorbell rings a little before six. He shouts at me to answer the door—he’s just getting out of the shower.

  Erin looks excited to see me, even though she was just here yesterday. “Let me put this down, then I’m giving you a hug.” She walks past me, smelling citrusy and dressed like she’s stepped out of an outdoor supply catalog: cargo skort, athletic sandals, microfiber T-shirt, ponytail, and no makeup. That’s her look, like she’s ready to hit the climbing wall at a second’s notice.

  I follow her to the kitchen. “What did you make?”

  “Patience, patience.” She drops her keys on the counter, and sets down a foil-covered bowl and a grocery bag. “Hugs first. You look a billion times better than you did yesterday.”

  I let her give me her solid, full-bodied hug but now I’m on watch, and can’t quite show much enthusiasm in return, especially as I’m imagining her giving that same hug to my dad. Our church is touchy-feely, and my dad is among the most-hugged of the congregation.

  “Homemade potato salad,” she says, “cold grilled chicken, and fresh green beans. Sound good?”

  “Fantastic,” Dad says, and we both turn to see him there in the kitchen with us. His hair is damp, and he’s wearing the brown polo shirt my mom says br
ings out the blue in his eyes.

  I study Erin’s face. Her cheeks could be going pink from whatever feeling there could be between her and my dad, or it could just be that her skin is reacting to the lack of cool air in our house.

  “Yeah, looks good,” I say, to remind them both that I’m there, too. I lift the foil off the bowl and pick up a chunk of potato salad with my fingers. It’s better than any potato salad my mom ever made, with bits of bacon and a sweet, mustardy dressing.

  Dad gets down plates from the cupboard.

  Erin opens the plastic container full of chicken. The smell of lemon and garlic wafts out, bringing Ralph in from wherever he’s been lounging. Erin watches my dad put out three plates and says, “Oh, just two.”

  “You’re not staying?” Dad asks. Disappointment is all over his face.

  “I already ate. I need to run and get the brownie stuff. You guys eat.”

  “Are you sure?” Dad holds the extra plate. “I thought…”

  “I’ll be back in about half an hour to get you, okay, Sam?”

  “Okay.” I’ve decided I do want to go, if only so that I can do something for Nick, even indirectly.

  “Erin, really, there’s plenty,” Dad says.

  “Dad, she said no.” It comes out harsh, more than I meant. I open the drawer to get forks and knives, and feel them both looking at me. Ralph looks, too, his ears going flat. “I mean, she has to get the brownie stuff.”

  “So, yeah.” Erin waves her hand dismissively, then draws it through her hair. “I want you guys to have leftovers.” She whisks her keys off the counter. “See you in a bit.”

  After the door closes, Dad quietly feeds Ralph and puts glasses on the table, and we sit down. I scoop a heap of potato salad onto my plate, saw off a third of a chicken breast, and take about six green beans. His cell rings. And of course he answers it.

  “Hey. Yes. Uh-huh.” He listens for awhile, moving potato salad around with his fork. “I think we can get it together by Friday. And if… mm-hmm. Exactly.”

  The food is really good, and I’m starving, but I make myself leave some behind as if I don’t like it, imagining Mom watching and worrying that I like Erin’s cooking more than hers.

  When Dad gets off the phone, I ask, “When are we going to visit Mom?” We haven’t been since the day we all went together to drop her off, and got the tour and a stack of pamphlets they print up for family and friends. Those are still sitting around here somewhere.

  “That’s kind of up to her,” he says, like this is no big deal. “The counselor there said that sometimes people choose not to have contact with their loved ones until they’ve really settled in.”

  “It’s been three weeks. Of a four-week program.”

  He sets his fork down. “I know. We can’t make her.”

  “Have you even asked?”

  “I’ve been a little busy, sweetheart.”

  I want to say: I know, but it’s Mom. She’s your wife. You’ve got time to sit around the church office joking with Erin.

  But how can I complain? Jody’s parents don’t even know if their daughter is alive. At least we know where Mom is. I get up for water. When I press my glass against the ice maker in the fridge door, a grinding sound comes from inside the freezer, followed by a loud clunk, before the whole thing kind of shudders and goes dead. Half a cube of ice drops into my glass. I stare at it, feeling the tears building.

  Why does everything have to be broken right now? I think of Job, in the Old Testament, who lost everything. He didn’t just lose everything, God took everything away from him—his wife, his kids, everything he owned. Despite it all, Job kept on believing that God knew what he was doing. Well I don’t. I hit the fridge door with my open hand, hard, and it’s all I can do not to smash my glass onto the floor.

  “Sam, easy,” Dad says.

  I turn around. I want him to give me answers, but I can’t even ask the questions. And he just looks at me like I’m the one with issues.

  What’s the point of being a pastor if you can’t tell when your own daughter needs help? I turn away and draw water from the tap, over my half-cube of ice, and take it to my room to change before Erin comes back.

  She’s mostly quiet on the ride over to Vanessa’s. The dark clouds that have been clustering and dispersing for days have finally stuck around, sending a half-hearted drizzle onto the windshield. Erin rolls down her window; the car fills with the scent of wet asphalt. I consider mentioning how Job-esque my life feels right now, but the response seems obvious: at least I’m better off than the Shaws.

  “I love that smell,” she says, dangling her arm out, opening and closing her left hand as if she could somehow grab hold of the thick evening air. “It reminds of being your age. School out, running around in the streets with my friends, standing outside the house where my crush lived hoping he’d look out his window at exactly the right moment.”

  It’s not hard to picture Erin as a teenager. She’s only twenty-six now, and seems to remember what fifteen felt like, which is why she’s good at what she does. And she is. It’s easy to see why my dad likes being around her. Classy and elegant are words to describe my mom, and she’s beautiful, but also she’s anxious. A little high-strung. Erin is the opposite. Maybe when my mom was twenty-six, she was more like Erin, too. I wonder what my mom was like at fifteen. Like me, maybe, quiet, not sure where she belonged. I’d like to be like my mom when I’m older, with a little bit of a personality like Erin’s mixed in.

  In a flash, the drizzle turns into sheets of rain that hit the roof of the car with a sound like machine-gun fire. “Holy downpour, Batman,” Erin says, frantically rolling up her window. “Sam, I know you don’t really want to come do this tonight, but just remember these are your friends.”

  “Sort of,” I say, as the car glides to a stop in front of Vanessa’s house.

  Erin makes a sound that’s half laugh, half disbelief. “Why would you say that?”

  She’s observed us closely enough. She has to know that when they get together at non-church-sanctioned events—driving up to one of the alpine lakes in the summer to lay around and drink beer, or in winter meeting up at someone’s house to watch horror movies or listen to music—they don’t invite me. Even Daniel and Vanessa sometimes go to those parties and don’t tell me. They’re just “busy” and then I’ll catch them talking about it and changing the subject when I appear. She has to realize that I’ll never totally be one of them.

  Anyway, I don’t want to get them in trouble by telling all this to Erin. It will only confirm their idea of me as naive and goody-goody, or worse, a mole. So I say, “I just mean I’m shy.”

  “Well, we can work on that.” She opens her door. “Come on.”

  I can see into Vanessa’s living room as we walk across the brush in front of her house, crickets hopping away from our feet. Her house has an open floor plan, like ours. At least half the youth group has already congregated. Paul and Daniel and Allie are huddled with Kaleb Franklin around Kacey’s iPod, Vanessa’s mom passing through the kitchen with a pitcher of iced tea or punch or something, Daisy trying to show everyone her hedgehog chew toy.

  “Ready?” Erin asks as we stand on the porch.

  I nod, and we go in. The last time the youth group got together on a non-Sunday was before most of them went on the mission trip. Nick had been there, I remember, playing Guitar Hero with Daniel. For some reason that memory makes me so sad, like it’s just another thing that will never happen again, because how can you sit around playing video games, that carefree, once you know how life really is?

  Vanessa immediately runs over to give me a hug and grabs my arm, pulling me into the thick of things. Daisy tries to stand and put her front legs on my shoulders.

  “Daisy, down,” Mrs. Hathaway says, dragging Daisy by the collar. “I’m going to put her downstairs. You kids let me know if you need anything.”

  “We missed you in Meh-hee-co,” Paul says, putting his skinny arm around my shoulder. Van
essa claims Paul has a crush on me, which only makes me want to avoid him because I don’t know what to say to someone who has a crush on me. Like it isn’t hard enough for me to relax and talk to boys, other than Daniel.

  I let Paul side-hug me, anyway, and then Kacey comes over and hugs me, too. “Glad you’re okay,” she says. For someone who only comes to church because her parents make her, she seems pretty happy to be here, tonight.

  “Thanks.”

  Erin holds up her grocery bags and says, “We should get started.” She organizes us into brownie-making teams, and we get to work. They all have stories about the mission trip, shared experiences, inside jokes. Eventually, conversation tapers off while we concentrate on tasks. Until Allie, cracking eggs into a mixing bowl, says, “Are we all going to take these over to Nick? Tonight?”

  Kacey grimaces. “It might be kinda overwhelming if we all just showed up on his porch, like, hi, hope you don’t mind ten people dropping by with no warning or anything during this tragic time.”

  “We could call,” Vanessa says. “It doesn’t have to be with no warning.”

  Daniel, who’s just put a handful of chocolate chips in his mouth, says, “Plus, we’ll have brownies. Who doesn’t want people showing up with homemade brownies?”

  Everyone kind of laughs, but Paul says, “I may be crazy but I don’t think brownies are going to cut it as a substitute for Jody.”

  We all stop what we’re doing, Jody’s name hanging in the hot air of the crowded kitchen. I glance at Daniel, who looks stricken. “Dude, that’s not what I meant. At all.”

  “Okay,” Erin says. “Let’s think it through while the brownies cook.”

  Daniel leaves the kitchen, shaking his head. I set down the pan I’ve just coated with cooking spray and follow him through the dining room and down the hall. Without turning around, he says, “I hope you’re not going to follow me all the way into the bathroom. ’Cause that’d be weird.”