“Oh, yeah, Hursts and Kowalskis were supposed to be here, but there was food poisoning and a flat tire in there somewhere, so your mother and I just decided to play like the old days, one on one, and …”
She tried to keep listening, but the small, irrelevant conversation pressed and trapped her like a house on fire. Dad didn’t understand that life was serious, that the decision for life or death hung before every person ever born, that Jesus was real and He was God and He wanted allegiance.
Follow Me.
Those two red words hovered in her head. She’d heard them before, at Elysium, and she’d thought she agreed to them. But she’d had no idea what they meant. Maybe still didn’t.
“Thought you were hungry.” Dad shoved the plate at her.
“Why’d you make nachos this late?”
Footsteps clomped toward them from the hallway. From … her room. Mom. Stomping her feet ranked on the rarity scale with throwing dishes. A yearly-or-less occurrence.
“What is this?”
An arctic lake couldn’t have been colder than Mom’s voice. Violet didn’t have to turn to see her mother. She knew. What her face looked like. What was in her hand.
“What the …?” Dad’s eyes jumped from Violet to Mom and back again.
When she turned, Violet would see it. The curl of Mom’s lip, the pleat between her eyes. She’d finally made Mom regret being a mother.
“English Standard Version,” Mom said, and Violet braced for the tirade.
Instead, Mom said just two more words. She threw the name of God’s Son like a grenade, like garbage. Violet whirled. Charged. Grabbed the book. Clutched it to her chest, the leather cover and the translucent pages. The red letters.
“Don’t say His name like that,” Violet said.
Dad rounded the counter, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mom, blocked Violet in and gaped at her.
“You’re not a … are you?”
They couldn’t even say the word? And no, of course she wasn’t a Christian. She was just reading the Bible, trying to understand it, trying to … “Why were you in my room? You’re never in my room.”
Mom stared at the Bible in Violet’s hands as if she wanted to snatch it back. She shook her head.
“You were gone five days,” Dad said. “Without calling. And then you took the car. And when you came in the house, you went straight to your room with that bag, and … We were thinking pot, pregnancy test.”
“We definitely weren’t thinking Bible.” Mom crossed the kitchen and picked up her cell phone.
“Dee, what’re you doing?”
“The only reasonable, legal thing to do. She clearly needs help, and I’m not going to be one of those irresponsible mothers who ignores her child in crisis.”
The laugh burst from Violet’s mouth. “Are you serious, Mom, are you really serious? You’re going to start parenting me? Now?”
“Dee, put the phone down. We have to talk about this.”
“There is absolutely nothing to talk about. She’s going to re-education.”
“This is Violet we’re talking about.”
“This is someone who brought illegal contraband into our house, Scott.”
Someone. Violet took a step back from them. Dad? You’re going to say something, aren’t you?
The silence screamed, sliced Violet open at her oldest seam and tore out their place inside her. This wasn’t like losing Khloe. This was a wrenching in her chest that threatened to double her over. She stayed upright to meet their eyes. She’d been the best daughter she could be, donned the invisible cloak, fended for herself. Well, she wasn’t see-through anymore.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Call them.”
Mom pressed three digits and held the phone to her ear.
“Dee.” Dad wandered to the table and sat, folded his hands and sighed. “You’re not going to do this.”
“Hello, I need a Constabulary agent at my house as quickly as possible. My daughter’s in possession of an illegal Bible, and—Diane DuBay. My daughter’s name is Violet.”
She might have only minutes. She ran to her room, dug her overnight bag from under her bed, and threw things inside. First, the Bible. Then clothes—underwear and another bra, socks, shirts, shorts, jeans. Then the envelope from her underwear drawer labeled Cash Stash. She’d count it later, but it held at least a few hundred bucks. She grabbed the pillow from her bed and pushed it through the duffel handles. Now she could carry everything she owned in one hand.
Dad stood in the doorway. “Violet.”
“Get out of my way, Dad. Unless you’re going to lock me in my room till they get here.”
“Why would you bring that thing into our house? You had to know we couldn’t let this happen without—”
“No, actually, I think part of me had this fairy-tale idea that parents protected their kids and—”
“Your mother is protecting you. From yourself. You don’t get that now, but you will.”
“Daddy.” Her voice trembled. “I’m asking you. Let me have a head start on them. Because I’m your daughter.”
“I don’t know if that’s best for you.”
“It is. Please. I wish I could explain it all, but—have you ever talked to God?”
Suspicion leaped into his eyes. He shifted against the door jamb. “If you’re going to start proselytizing me …”
“No, no, Dad. Just, God is important. Learn about Him, ask Him for help to show you what’s right, not what’s legal.”
He stepped aside. “You’d better go.”
Violet leaned down for one crazy moment and waved to her fish. “Bye, guys.” She stood up. “Would you do one other thing for me?”
Her dad waited.
“Don’t flush them. Take them to a pet store, okay? Somebody will buy them.”
She couldn’t expect a committed answer. Maybe he’d do it. Maybe not. They were only fish. She hoisted her duffel and her pillow and marched down the hall, past her mother, who still held the phone to her ear.
“Violet, did you…? They’re telling me you were involved in some kind of …?”
Violet swiped her keys from the counter, stepped into her tennis shoes, and stood in the doorway. She’d never lived in any other house. Her best memories were at Khloe’s, not here, but this was the base she returned to, involuntarily as a tetherball.
She glanced back. Dad hadn’t followed her. Mom hadn’t followed her. She ought to be grateful. Or maybe they were falling back on the only mode they knew. Maybe the easiest thing for them to do with her was to look straight through her.
She shut the door behind her, climbed into her car, and stowed the duffel in the back seat. Maybe they would come to the door and watch her drive away. She backed down the driveway under the soft moonlight. If the door so much as cracked open, the light from inside would show.
It stayed dark.
Violet drove away as if she had a destination. As if someone, somewhere, would see her little blue car coming down the road and rush out to meet her.
37
Clay didn’t dream, or if he did, his mind blocked the mess of his subconscious the moment he surfaced in a hotel bed under a down comforter. The AC rattled under the window. Sunlight slanted through the blinds. He squirmed, stretched, and reached toward his wife. That side of the mattress was cold.
He sat up. Two seconds’ glance confirmed she wasn’t in the room. She’d tugged her half of the sheets wrinkle-free. He padded barefoot to the bathroom.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “we’re going to need to trade the Jeep or …”
She wasn’t here, either. His stomach tightened. He turned in the doorway, and his eyes roved the room as if he could conjure her. They snagged on the ivory sheet of hotel stationery propped against the TV screen. Five steps crossed the room. His fingers swiped the paper
—papers. Several sheets. The cheap black ballpoint had dried up on her a few times on the first page. She’d had to scribble a loop in the margins to get it writing again.
Dear Clay,
No. His eyes snapped shut.
She’d taken the Jeep to get some breakfast. She was coming right back. Read it, imbecile. That’s all it says.
Three sheets of stationery for a breakfast run. Right.
He was going to throw up before he read another word.
Coward. Read it.
His hands quivered. He opened his eyes.
Dear Clay,
You’re going to be shocked, I know. You don’t think I have it in me. I’ve known for a while now that I do, that this kernel of action is lying in my chest waiting for something to water it. Something finally did, the night our baby jumped out of the Jeep and we didn’t stop her. And since that night I’ve been trying not to do this and trying to believe in us because I want to, I really want to. You’re my husband. I pledged myself to you. I loved you. I do, still.
We should have said things to each other. Part of me wants to rip this up and wait for you to open your eyes, so I can say all this to your face instead. But I don’t think I can. It hurts to give you pieces of me and watch you drop them on the floor and walk over them because you don’t know what to do with them. So you do nothing. I know it isn’t your fault. I know if you could, you would be the husband who stays with his wife through everything, not just with her in the room, but really with her. Not because it’s what I need but because it’s what you want.
I have tried for days not to compare past and present. Not to remember every night I stayed up waiting for you to find it in yourself to come home and face life again. Come home and make us a team again. I guess it really isn’t fair, but when I think about that night, leaving Khloe behind, it’s like in that second you made me like you. You have no idea how many times I’ve vowed never to let her feel abandoned.
Clay doubled over on the bed. The next sheet was wrinkled at one edge with drop marks. Tears. A little sound pushed up from the pit of him and bled into the air. He forced his eyes to the page.
I don’t want to leave you right now. I can see in your eyes that you’re lost, you’re hurting, just like I am. But you let hurt drive you, Clay. You’re going to keep leaving, whether by your choice or the Constabulary’s. Last night, when I asked you about prayer, it was because I need to know what I’m facing. I need to know, if we get caught, whether I’ll ever see you again or whether you’ll cling to your version of Jesus for years. Right now, I think I would lose you.
It’s not an ultimatum. Please, please don’t see it that way. I just have to give myself a little time away from us. You said you don’t know where we’re going from here. I don’t either. I just know that the last week has torn us up and I don’t think we can deal with this if we’re stuck together in a little room.
I took a taxi and half the photo money. I have my phone. Don’t call me today. I’m not going to turn myself in. That’s a promise. Not for at least a week. I don’t know if I will eventually or not. What I’m asking is that both of us figure out what we want and how much we want it.
Clay flipped to the final page. The tear marks on this one warped the center, right on top of the words.
Clay, I love you. I think if I loved you less, I could watch you grab your keys and head out the door and I could just wait for you to come home and not feel a thing. Maybe if I loved you less, I’d be a better wife. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m still sitting here with you. You’re sleeping just a few feet away, hair all mussed and your arm stretched toward me. I feel as if I’m going to be leaving half my body and all my heart in this room, but I have to do this for me and for you, too.
I want to come back to you. I think I can. Not today, but maybe soon.
Forever,
Nat
The pages slipped from his numb fingers. He rocked and held his stomach. His vision washed gray. Time passed.
When he could think again through the howling inside, he straightened up and pulled on the jeans he should wash soon. Where would she have gone? Another hotel? Somewhere she linked to Khloe? She was too smart to go home. A taxi was risky, though. Someone had seen her face in his rearview mirror.
Lord, don’t let her get recognized, don’t let her—
Wait. Wait a minute. What was he thinking? His voice spurted at the ceiling.
“What is wrong with You? I prayed. I believed You. I tried to be a witness for You, like You wanted, to my family, and You just stand back and watch while they … while I …”
He kicked the sheets of paper, and they flew up around his feet like startled birds, then drifted back down.
“I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m not doing this. Anymore.” His knees hit the carpet. “You don’t keep Your word.”
He turned on the TV and found a local channel. If Natalia had been arrested this morning, the media would be highlighting the event for at least a day. For the next eight minutes of news loop, he hid his hands in his lap to keep from shutting it off.
The blonde anchorwoman paused to shift her notes on the table in front of her. “And now for our last local story, the Michigan Philosophical Constabulary has been—”
Bile rose halfway to his throat.
“—recently made suspicious of an organized movement created to thwart them. Members of this movement are unidentified at this time, but they’re suspected of aiding and abetting Christian fugitives, including some of the most dangerous criminals on the Constabulary’s wanted list. We interviewed MPC Agent Larry Partyka earlier today regarding the steps the Constabulary is taking to apprehend these suspects.”
Clay swallowed, breathed, and sat back against the bed frame. This had nothing to do with Natalia. Unless they tacked her arrest onto the end as a reassurance to the public that the Constabulary was still on top of things.
The camera cut to a tall redheaded agent in a black suit, standing beside the same news anchor but obviously at a different time, in a different location. She angled her microphone toward him and flaunted her perfect teeth.
“Agent Partyka, can you explain for us exactly what civilians can do to aid the Constabulary in this …?”
Partyka grinned, or grimaced, or something. “The suspects taking part in this resistance movement are considered erratic and dangerous, and we’re starting to believe they’re more organized than originally thought. The most important thing—the only thing we’re requesting from civilians—is information. Stay safe, avoid a confrontation. Leave that part to law enforcement.”
The camera cut back to the blonde anchor. Her words blurred, but that calm voice coated the room and let Clay think again. The news looped a minute later. No Natalia.
Syllables filtered back into his brain. “Recently made suspicious of …” Not likely. They’d known about the resistance for a while, he would bet on it. They’d wanted to nab the offenders quietly, then pop up on the news with a surprising success story. Clearly, that wasn’t working, and they’d resorted to enlisting information from the public.
No wonder they couldn’t find anyone. Clay knew Marcus personally and still hadn’t known …
“Unidentified at this time.”
No, the resistance leader wasn’t unidentified.
What would Clay’s knowledge be worth? Not that he’d ever use it.
Marcus was worth a lot more to them than Khloe. She was only one harmless teenager, and she wasn’t even a Christian, and they knew that by now.
He wasn’t really considering this.
Would they consider it? Would they honor a deal?
Marcus was a friend.
A friend who’d lost Khloe and Violet and not cared enough to contact Clay, to fix this failure.
The Constabulary might say they agreed to his terms with no intent
ion of letting him or Khloe go. But the hollowness of this room and the pain in his gut and the crumpled letter on the carpet beside him …
He had to try.
He shut off the TV. Pulled on his shirt. Stuffed his wallet in his pocket, grabbed his keys and his shoes. He’d be there for Nat. He’d learn how to hold the pieces, if she’d give them again. He’d get their daughter back.
He’d make everything right.
38
Assuming the con-cops had her license plate number, her description, and everything else ever officially recorded about her—work records, medical records, school records—Violet’s best bet would be to go live in a forest as a hunter and gatherer. Make her clothes from squirrel skins and live on … Fern leaves. The memory squeezed her throat. Running through the woods, Khloe’s hot hand in hers. She shoved it away and put her car in park. Maybe she ought to leave it here, grab her duffel bag, and start walking. Somewhere.
For now, though, she rolled down the window and sat in the parking lot behind a mostly vacant strip mall. A non–chain ice-cream shop occupied one end, and next to it sat a used book store. Every other window in the strip sported a For Lease sign.
She’d driven almost an hour from home, north on M-53 and then west on a random mile road. Based on her memory, she shouldn’t be too far from Chuck and Belinda’s house. From Khloe.
Maybe she was stupid to park here and think she could relax. She was probably really stupid to unzip the duffel and dig through her clothes until her fingers grazed cool leather. But she needed to read more. She needed to be sure about the decision that had been nudging inside her all night, all morning.
She’d finished Matthew and Mark. She was halfway through Luke. The tiny differences in the stories fascinated her. He was the same Man in every one of them and did the same things, but the different men who’d known Him noticed different details about Him. They told some things in different order, which she didn’t get. Maybe someday she’d have the opportunity to ask someone which story was chronological, and why all of them weren’t.
Found and Lost Page 23
