“Okay, okay.” He grabbed my hand to stop a second punch. “We. And maybe, maybe, Allie will show up at the race.”
“I sure hope so. And there’s a $250 purse,” I said. “I can’t imagine her not showing up with a chance for a big win like that. Especially after what Mike said about her being seeded first.”
“At least now we know she’s okay. Physically, anyway,” Joe said.
The sun had long since dropped over the edge of the world and the last of the dusky light was slipping away. From here, we could see the steeple of St. Peter’s and Paul’s Catholic Church, the one for the School Sisters of Notre Dame on Good Counsel Hill across another gorge, two Lutheran churches and a Methodist, but not Father Malcolm’s Catholic church.
“So you really pray for him? Father Malcolm, I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know if I believe in God or not,” I said after a pause. “If I did, I’d pray. Did you mean it when you said that’s why you never swear? Respect for God?”
He nodded.
“Do you believe it does any good—praying, I mean?”
“I’m sort of scared not to believe it. Since my brother died, especially. I’d rather pray into empty air and have it do nothing, than not pray if God really is listening.”
“Isn’t that what they call hedging your bets?” I asked.
“I guess. Sort of chicken-shit, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.” I shifted in my seat. “Or smart, maybe. Like fire insurance for eternity.”
“Very funny.”
“You’ve got a lot to lose if there is a God. And nothing to lose if there isn’t one,” I said.
“Except maybe a lot of energy and time,” Joe said. “But a person can lose hope without God, don’t you think? Wouldn’t it make the universe sort of hopeless?”
“You mean, like hope for your brother … to be somewhere besides just dead?”
Joe pulled his hand away.
I said, “But if you pray and pray and nothing happens, isn’t that more hopeless than thinking we’re on our own, and that we have to do everything we can for our own selves? Take charge of our own lives, instead of waiting for God to do something?”
Joe looked out his window, and I started to think I’d screwed up everything with him forever. Finally he looked back at me. “You’re right, I guess. I can’t stand the thought of John being nowhere. So I want to believe in God and all that. I have to.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about John.”
“It’s okay.”
I put my hand on his leg. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him—and would never tell him—that I was sure his brother was dead. Just dead. Lights out.
I squeezed his knee and started to pull my hand back to my own lap, but he grabbed it and held my hand in both of his. “Sadie. I’m glad it was okay that we talked about him.”
“Joe, he was your brother. Of course it’s … okay.”
We sat without saying anything, holding hands, looking out over the hills, watching the city lights fighting off the darkness. “I forget what a beautiful city this is,” I said.
“Easy to, with what we see every day,” Joe muttered. “The trailer court in LeHillier is at the opposite end of this world.” He slid one arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer. A thrill shot through my whole body. “Thanks, Sadie.”
I nodded against his shoulder, my heart pounding, and I wondered if he could feel it.
“You’re gonna kick butt in the race tomorrow,” he told me.
I waited, feeling his fingers on my shoulder. His face was getting really close to mine in the near-dark, but he was studying my hand, which he was still holding, looking at my fingers, not my face. He said, “I think you’ll surprise yourself.” He let go of my hand and touched my cheek with his left fingertips. “In the race, I mean.” He looked into my eyes and said, “Sadie-Sadie. I wish I knew what to do.”
I held my breath, not sure what he meant, and not wanting to break the spell.
“We’re not really cousins,” he said.
“I know,” I breathed. “I never worried about that, exactly.”
He leaned his forehead against mine. “I’m glad. What are you scared about?”
I sucked in my breath, trying to figure out how to explain that I was afraid he liked Allie more than me, that I’d never really felt like this before, that without Allie, we weren’t really whole, but I couldn’t say all that.
And he said, “For the race, I mean?”
I had to concentrate, to remember the question and to answer. Nothing seemed to matter just now besides his arm around me, the nearness of his face, how his lips would feel. I forced myself to focus, and whispered, “Everything. I’m scared about everything. The downhills most, the downhill turns. How—how about you? You scared?”
He pulled back enough to look me in the eye. “I’m scared I’ll freeze at the top and be too petrified to be able to go down.”
I nodded, thinking about how I’d seen him do this. “You just go, Joe. Don’t hesitate. Don’t think. Just pretend it’s you and me, following Allie.” I grinned. “Ride through the chicken.”
“What? The chicken?”
“Something Allie said to me. I said I was chicken to race. She said, ‘Sadie, everybody’s chicken. You just have to do it anyway. Ride through the chicken.’ ”
“Sounds like a butcher shop. A-1 Bike and Butcher.”
We laughed.
Joe said, “What if Allie doesn’t race? And we can’t find her?”
I felt myself deflate a little. Joe was touching me, touching me, holding me, and talking about Allie. Again. Maybe he did really like her and just wouldn’t admit it. Why, still, every time he touched me, did he have to talk about her? Or maybe she was our glue, and without her, there wasn’t an us … not even a Joe-and-me us.
He ran his fingers up my left forearm. “Speaking of a butcher shop, you think seeing the priest beat up like raw meat just freaked her out? Some people can’t handle blood. Maybe she took off because she was so freaked out.”
“Allie?” I pulled back to stare at him. “You’re kidding, right? She’s tougher than that! Allie—Allie is not freaked out by blood, for chrissake.”
“How do you know? Maybe it’s the one thing in the world she’s a wuss about. There has to be something.”
“Allie? A wuss? You kidding? She sewed up her own leg one time when her chainring cut her open and she needed stitches and didn’t have health insurance, for cryin’ out loud. I don’t think that much of anything freaks Allie out. She has more guts than y—”
Joe pulled his arm away, and I realized too late what I was about to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just meant that nothing freaks her out. I know it wasn’t just … the … blood.” But my words were lame and I lost steam while I tried to backpedal.
“Well, sorry!” Joe turned and put both hands on the steering wheel. “Sorry I’m more of a wuss than Allie.”
“Joe, you’re not—” I reached out, touched his arm, but he shrugged me off and stared out across the river valley.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, but he didn’t respond.
Finally he said, “So if she wasn’t freaked out, why did she take off?”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t freaked out, Joe. Just that it wasn’t the blood. Something else freaked her out.”
“What, then?”
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be doing this, would we?”
“Oh, wouldn’t we?” Joe sighed heavily and turned on the ignition. “I was hoping you and I would be doing this anyway.”
“Wait. Joe. Yes! I was hoping that too. That’s not what I mean! I can’t say anything right.” I wanted his arm back, wanted the moment back, wanted more than anything to take
back my words, to have his face close to mine.
But he guided the car toward home and I sank against the passenger door.
Twenty-One
Night
July 3, continued
When we walked in the door, Aunt Susan handed me the phone. “Your dad.”
Joe kept on walking and went straight to his sanctum in Scout’s office.
“Hi Dad,” I said, watching Joe disappear.
“Hi Honey. Happy Fourth of July! You ready for your big race?”
“Mostly terrified.”
“That’s good,” he said. “If you weren’t scared, you wouldn’t respect what you’re doing. Being scared is good, Sadie. Good luck.”
I talked to Mom, too, and I wanted to tell them in the worst way about all the insanity of Father Malcolm and the nuns and the detectives, but Timmy wouldn’t leave the room, and Aunt Susan was listening, and I couldn’t say I’d take the phone in the study because Joe was in there, so I asked about Nefertiti and then said good night.
And I went downstairs and shut myself in CCC.
I’d changed into pajamas, and crawled into bed with a book, when there was a knock at the closet door.
“Yeah?”
Joe stuck his head in. “Can I come in?” He looked sad, really sad.
“Sure.” I sat up, pulling the sheet up to my armpits because I was only wearing my oldest, comfiest, see-through T-shirt.
“Can we talk?”
I nodded, patted the bed beside me for him to sit down. He did.
“I can’t stand feeling like this. I know I’m a wuss, but I don’t want to be. I lost John. I don’t want to lose you—”
I let go of the sheet with one hand and grabbed his hand. “Joe, I’m really sorry for what I said. That’s not what I meant. I just meant that I’m sure Allie didn’t disappear ’cause of being freaked out by blood. Besides, she’s got way more guts than me. No comparison. And sometimes I wish I were her. And she’s got enough guts that she’s been at the hospital every night. I’m so sorry.” The words tumbled out. “Sometimes I don’t think what I’m saying. I didn’t mean—”
But his finger was on my lips and he was smiling into my eyes. “It’s okay. I know I can be a wuss. It just drives me crazy that I think you like Allie more than me, or that she’s more important to you than I am, and that you admire her more. And I guess I’m jealous, so I came to apologize.”
“You are? I mean, it does? I mean, no, I don’t like her more. Joe, I like—”
His finger was back on my lips. “You don’t have to explain. But thanks. I had to say that ’cause we need each other right now. The race, Allie, Father Malcolm—this is crazy enough without being mad at each other.”
I nodded, too vigorously. I bit my lip and plunged in. “Joe, I get jealous because it seems like you always bring Allie up whenever we’re close. Like every time you touch me, you have to bring up her name.”
“Ha. You serious? I thought it was you who always did that.”
Our eyes met, and we smiled.
“’Night, Sadie.”
“’Night, Joe.”
My heart was so much lighter. I only wished he’d leaned over and kissed me.
Twenty-Two
Race Morning
July 4
Fourth of July morning. I didn’t have to work because I’d taken the day off for the bike race. I woke up, saw 5:30 on the clock, and turned over. The race wasn’t until nine. For once I could sleep in.
The next thing I knew, Joe was in my closet-turned-bedroom. “Sadie.”
Joe looked awful. Worse than last night. His eyes drooped like he hadn’t slept at all.
“Joe, what’s wrong?” I sat up. “What time is it?”
“Six thirty.”
I was aware again of wearing only my thin T-shirt, the closeness of the closet.
He sat on the edge of my roll-away. He wasn’t looking at my thin T-shirt or what he could probably see beneath it. “Go for a walk?” he said quietly. “We’ll wake somebody up if we talk here.”
“Okay.” I pulled a sweatshirt over my T-shirt, flannel pants over my boxers, and stepped into my flip-flops.
We shushed Peapod, let him out the door with us, and walked down the road toward the waste treatment plant, through the Dumpster cemetery but avoiding the woods. Peapod bounded around behind us, then in front of us, delighted we were walking, delighted for the dewy grass to roll in and for morning smells to sniff.
We passed the north end of the trailer court and the junked mobile homes where I’d met Allie. In the early morning, barely there light, we eyed the trailer on its side, without a floor, its pipes hanging out like intestines, and we both shuddered. Joe took my hand. We walked, holding hands, until we reached one of the Blue Earth River overlooks.
Joe dropped my hand and climbed onto a rock, looking down at the river. I followed him. The water rippled in all the same places that it always did.
“It’s going to be a hot day to race,” I said. The valley was an explosion of five hundred shades of green, surrounding the black river water and reflected in it. The change in temperature overnight made mist rise in thin wisps that hovered like ghosts over the shimmering water.
Joe stared into the still-life photograph before us. Then, as if he was pained, he sat down, curled up tight, in the fetal position, hanging onto his knees as if they might shoot out and down the bluff if he didn’t hold on. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to sit on a cliff again,” he said finally.
I watched his face and waited for him to explain. I sat down as close to him as I dared.
Peapod sensed Joe’s mood, jumped up beside him on the rock, and nosed his big head into Joe’s lap. His big yellow head rested on Joe’s thigh and Joe rubbed one golden ear.
“It doesn’t break your heart. It’s bigger than that.”
“Joe. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
He went on. “When you scream, the noise isn’t big enough. You scream from the inside, but it splits you open like an egg. I felt cracked wide open like a broken egg, and I was screaming on the path at the Grand Canyon, like all that was left of me was a broken shell, and I couldn’t scream loud enough.”
I stared at him. I knew my mouth was hanging open. I could tell that Joe had been thinking these words for a long time, holding them in. He dragged his eyes from the river far below to look at me. I put my hand on his knee. “Go on.”
“My brother,” he said. Peapod pulled his head back, cocked his head, and whimpered, watching Joe’s face.
I waited.
“When John died. But you know all that, right, Sadie?”
I shook my head. “All I know is you’re here ’cause your brother got killed in some horrible accident hiking and you needed to get away. Aunt Susan won’t talk about it, and I asked Uncle Scout to tell me, but he said you probably needed to tell me yourself. That’s all he’d say.”
“You never asked me.”
“You kidding? I wanted to ask so bad. I figured you’d tell me if you wanted to.”
“So, here goes then, Sadie-Sadie. My brother John and I were hiking along the edge of the Grand Canyon. We loved going there. My twin brother and me.”
I tried not to move. “Twins,” I said, barely more than a whisper.
“He fuckin’ fell, Sadie. I … I watched him splat on the rocks. Four hundred feet. Splat. Like he exploded.”
I stared. My mouth felt like sand.
“He was being stupid. Stupid. He was jumping around, showing off on the ledges to piss me off ’cause he knew I’m scared of heights, so he kept jumping around and he kept saying over and over—‘precipices, Joe, precipices!’ And he jumped back a little too far and slipped right off, me five feet away, watching him go, listening to him scream
… and I started to scream … ”
I wasn’t sure if this was real, or a bad dream that had started in the hospital room, or on the road with the rednecks, or when we found Father Malcolm, or when Joe suggested Allie was gay, or maybe back when the cannonball explosion landed me here in LeHillier. The whole world as I used to know it had shifted, and I grabbed at the rock on each side of me. I had to hang on or I might go flying off, but the rock was smooth and there was nothing to hang onto.
“Oh, Joe,” I heard myself say.
“They sent me up here, Sadie. Minnesota’s about as far away from the Grand Canyon as you can get. So they sent me here.” He looked at me, so much pain in his eyes it hurt to look at them. “So that’s my story. He was my twin, so it’s like I splatted down there, too. At least half of me did. That’s why I totally freak at the top of the big hills. I’d always freaked out a little, but now … now sometimes I just freeze, and all I can think about is watching him go … and it’s like I have to push myself over, ’cause I can’t go on purpose. John—he was fearless on the mountain bike, like Allie. I thought I had to do this, to keep mountain biking, to get over this, to face it, to ride the big hills, but it’s not getting any better. And then I fell and flew over the ravine … and that was bad enough, but then I almost landed on top of Father Malcolm. And that freaked me out more than falling. And—and I’m scared to not pray. Because I didn’t pray that day. The day John fell. Until it was too late. And I don’t want John to be nothing. I want to believe he’s still alive somewhere.”
“Oh my God,” I said.
“Holy crap,” Joe said, leaning back, the palms of his hands behind him on the rock. Peapod shifted, too. “Fuck and shit.”
“Joe,” I said, “you are using profanity.”
He swiped at his eye with the back of his hand. “Sure as fuck am.” Then he yelled over the river valley, “Doesn’t fuckin’ matter, does it?” He threw his head back, looked into the sky. “Wish I had a smoke. Damn. I really want a fucking cigarette.”
“No you don’t,” I managed to say. I was in slow motion, watching myself from the outside. I reached out and put my arm around his shoulder and lay my head against his neck. I felt tears dripping from my face onto his shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed I was crying, but I didn’t stop them. I wrapped the other arm around him, too. Joe sat there while I cried, and after a while, his arms wrapped around me, too, and I felt teardrops plunking on my temple from his face. And then he started sobbing. And I held on tight.
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