Seven Clues to Home

by Gae Polisner

  So maybe I’ll never know what Lukas wanted me to find when I got back home, but maybe it’s just this. Right here. My family, my mom and dad, Natalia, Isabel and Davy, mac ’n’ cheese, applesauce, peas, and cake.

  Lukas did love cake.

  Peas, not so much.

  Maybe this is all he wanted me to find.

  I have to be okay with that.

  He’d like to know we are talking about him. I don’t know how long we go around the room, sharing stories, trying to guess what Lukas might have meant by his last clue. I’m not worried about figuring it out; it just feels good to be talking about it.

  About Lukas.

  Like the Fonsecas’ apartment building, the Sound way out here is dead quiet this early in the morning. Only me and a few scattered clamming boats. But they’re still inland some, closer to shore. By noon, the water will be busy with sailboats and motorboats, and if they saw me out here by myself, surely someone would make me go home. But now it’s just me and those few distant clammers, who have been up since before dawn and are happy enough to leave me alone.

  I drop the oar, spread my arms, tilt my head back against the rubber edge of the Angler like a pillow, and close my eyes.

  These are the people I need to think about: Mom, Justin, Rand, me, and Joy.

  I start with Rand and Mom, because that’s hard. I’ll save Joy for later, because that’s easy. The stuff about her, I’ve already decided.

  Mom and Rand. A lump catches in my throat, but the water rocks the boat and I try to remember Rand in the beginning. Back when he was laughing all the time, and taking Mom out on dates, and giving us fist bumps and fake-out high fives. Back when the sides of his eyes would crinkle up like accordions, making him look older than he is, because of all the hard work he does outside for his construction job. Or because he’s out riding his motorcycle. Or fishing on the water.

  “I’m a victim of the elements,” he once told Justin when Justin wouldn’t believe he was only three years older than Mom.

  And something else, the most important thing I remember: the look on his face when Mom made him promise.

  “Don’t come back, Rand. Not unless you’ve done the work. Gone to meetings. Stayed sober for at least six months.”

  And what he said back: “I promise you, Mel. I promise. Tell the boys I’m sorry. I promise.”

  I sit up in the Angler, my heart doing flips full of hope.

  I’m sure that is why he’s back! That he’s done the work, and that Mom just didn’t want to tell us unless she was sure.

  But now she is. And so him being back is okay.

  I lie back again and smile, amazed at how the sunshine that manages to break through the gathering clouds makes actual slanted rays of light, like you’d see in a painting, like a golden curtain that’s shielding the shore.

  The shore, and home, and Joy.

  Five more minutes and I’ll be ready to go back there.

  The streetlamps are starting to flicker on outside. Our windows are open because it’s already cooler at night, and the crickets in the grass are singing their end-of-summer songs.

  “What do you think?” I ask everyone. “What did he mean, he planted it for me? He planted all the clues for me.”

  “Read it again,” my dad says.

  I look down at the paper, creased with folds and time. “ ‘When you get there, go slow, though you won’t miss a clue, you may miss the best part I planted for you.’ ”

  “Could something be hidden in the house?” Natalia asks.

  It doesn’t seem likely, since Lukas would never have been in our house when we weren’t home.

  “Maybe he was going to come over with a plant,” my mother tries. “Like a real plant, or flowers.”

  That’s a nice thought to linger on, but my dad abruptly stands up.

  “What’s the noise?” he asks. “Shh. Shh…”

  When it is quiet, we all hear. Something like a whimpering.

  Davy, who has been silent the whole time—but, of course, he always is—points to the corner of the room, where Isabel is curled up into a tiny little ball.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I run over and put my arms around her. “This must be so sad for you. We’re sorry. We shouldn’t be talking like this in front of you. Did we make you sad?”

  But when she looks up at me, I know that’s not what’s wrong. It’s something else. Davy is right beside her.

  He uses his words so sparingly, but now he’s determined. “Tell them, Izzie,” he says.

  I want to shake her and say, “What have you done now, Isabel?” But one look from Davy tells me not to. So I wait. We all just wait, for what feels like a very long time.

  Isabel talks so softly. “I had to hide, you know, like I always used to, in my hiding place. I was so scared. The police and everyone crying. And I just found it. The box, the red box, it was there in the plant, and, I don’t know, I thought that’s why the police came. I thought that’s why you were so upset, Jolie. I thought you were in trouble or something. I didn’t know. I just wanted to help you. I thought if I got rid of it, the police would go away.”

  She’s crying now.

  No one says anything.

  Our mother gets down on the floor next to Isabel. “No one is mad at you, Izzie. No matter what. But you can tell us. Whatever you know. You should tell us now.”

  “I thought if I got rid of it, everything would be better,” Isabel says. “I just wanted everyone to stop crying. I was scared. And then I just never thought about it again. I forgot. I forgot until now, the plant. It was in the plant outside our door. Do you forgive me, Joy?”

  “Of course, I do, Izzie. Look, it was a horrible morning. No one knew what to do. It’s okay.” But it takes everything I have not to shake her memory right out of her little head.

  Our mother is talking slowly. “Do you remember what you did with it?”

  Isabel nods.

  We all wait.

  And my blood is pounding again, but this time I have my family with me. Each one of them is absorbing the racing thumps in my chest, catching them before my whole heart falls on the ground.

  We all wait.

  “I buried it,” Isabel says. “Outside. In the courtyard.”

  And then I’m floating and drifting and smiling and breathing, because I know how everything is going to be okay.

  Justin is going to graduate. And Rand is better, and back for good this time.

  And today is Joy’s birthday, and she’ll be so happy when she sees the work I did to make it good for her.

  I think about each clue I wrote, from Vincent’s to Thea’s to B&B’s. To the library and to Mr. Carter’s amazing secret tree, and the clue that will lead her back home again.

  To the red box I left outside her door.

  To the heart necklace.

  And the note I wrote for her.

  But the tree. The tree is the best part.

  I close my eyes and let the tree float in, its branches like arms spreading wide, taking up all the worried space in my head. And I imagine how Joy will feel when she figures it out and finds the clue, and when I tell her the story of Mr. Carter and his wife. And it hits me now, as I picture her standing there like that, listening to me, talking to me, that I already know the truth. I know what she said on the phone last night. It’s not stupid or unthinkable or wrong.

  “I love you,” she said. “I love you.”

  I can hear her words clear as day.

  And I can feel me and Joy, together, in the shade of that summer tree. As if it’s only my imagination letting in those cool August shadows, and not a storm moving in and the waves kicking up, and a jagged streak lighting up the swiftly darkening sky.

  The sun is setting by the time we all get outside. It paints a beautiful picture of colors across the
horizon, and it reminds me of a poem that I had to memorize in sixth-grade English.

  I picked one of the shortest ones I could find from the list of approved poets. No more Jack Prelutsky or Shel Silverstein. We were in middle school now. I picked Emily Dickinson.

  Nature rarer uses yellow

  Than another hue;

  Saves she all of that for sunsets,—

  Prodigal of blue,

  Spending scarlet like a woman,

  Yellow she affords

  Only scantly and selectly,

  Like a lover’s words.

  I had no idea what prodigal meant; I still don’t. But I remember how embarrassed I was when I finally had to say those last words out loud in class, in front of everyone, even though I knew how beautiful they were.

  Maybe because the words made me think about Lukas.

  “Do you remember where you buried it?” my dad is asking Isabel.

  No one is saying anything, as if just our talking might scare the memory right out of her brain. We are standing around the little patch of grass outside, in the center of our complex, and it doesn’t look so huge at all anymore. It just looks like a square of grass, where two little kids thought they could plant a candy garden. When the world was much smaller, and so much easier.

  “Here?” Isabel points.

  My dad has a small gardening shovel, and he pokes around. “Hmm, are you sure?”

  Isabel is trying hard. I know she is. Even if there is something under the dirt, it’s been a whole year of rain and snow and seeding and mowing, more rain and more snow. She couldn’t have buried a box very deep. For all we know, it got raked up with the leaves and thrown away as garbage.

  “Maybe there?” She points to another spot, and then another. Each time, our dad stabs the dirt carefully and stands up again, shaking his head.

  “Hey, what are you all doing here? You can’t do that,” Mr. Sweeny shouts.

  Our dad steps over the little metal fencing and reaches out his hand. “Mr. Fonseca. Building two, apartment twelve.”

  “I know who you are. But that doesn’t explain why you are digging up the lawn.”

  So my dad explains about that day and about the box, and as soon as he mentions Lukas, the expression on Mr. Sweeny’s angry face changes. It always does.

  “Terrible tragedy,” he says. “I liked that kid a lot.” Then he looks at me. “You’re looking for a box?” he says. “A red box?”

  “Yes!” I say. “How did you know?” But Mr. Sweeny is already walking away.

  He turns around. “Well, c’mon. Follow me. Does anyone ever bother checking the lost-and-found?”

  “Of course,” you are saying. “Where else do you look for something you lost?”

  Are you laughing? I hope you are laughing.

  Mr. Sweeny takes a lot of pride in keeping the grounds around our buildings clean. It turns out he saw a red box poking out of the dirt that very morning. That very day.

  How could he forget that day?

  He didn’t know who it belonged to—any name that might have been there had rubbed off in the dirt—so he brought it back to his office. He keeps a shelf in here, he tells us, for everything he picks up around the complex: tons of sunglasses, a single sneaker, flip-flops—lots of flip-flops—T-shirts, towels, water bottles, hairbrushes, a fork. If it’s a book or a letter, he’s not going to look through it or open it. He keeps it all in the lost-and-found, and after one year, he tosses it all out.

  “It’s none of my business,” he says.

  Mr. Sweeny reaches to the top shelf, takes down a small red cardboard box, and hands it to me.

  And now I am holding it in my hands.

  This morning feels like so, so long ago, and a year feels like yesterday.

  There is my new guitar, just propped up against my bed. There is my bed, the Ariana Grande easy-chord songbook on top. There is my desk, the bottom drawer left partially open. I was in such a rush this morning.

  I think I’m going to text Audrey and see if she wants to come over and “play.” She has a really great voice.

  My family left me alone when I asked them to, but I can hear Isabel and Davy right outside my door. Davy is kicking the wall, and Isabel is whisper-shouting for him to stop. We are going to have dinner soon, and then cake.

  Aunt Idalia and Uncle Joey will come over, our cousins Aiden and Zoey and Holden. The house will be a zoo. I would always warn him, but I know Lukas loved it. He let my little cousins climb all over him, too. He ate seconds and thirds of mac ’n’ cheese when my mom offered. He stayed for candles and dessert and more presents.

  But this year he’s not here.

  Only this red box.

  Slowly I take off the paper, carefully, like even the wrapper is a gift I almost didn’t find. I open it, and there is a letter, folded tightly. And when I take out the letter, there is something underneath. A sparkling gold chain, with a delicate red heart dangling between my fingers.

  Isabel and Davy are beside themselves outside my door, I can just feel it. And hear it. The kicking is louder; whispering isn’t even attempted anymore.

  But I need more time.

  I need more rainbow cupcakes and another candy garden. I wonder if things will get better or get worse, but I imagine it’s probably a little of both. It’s probably about realizing that you don’t get everything you want, sometimes not even close.

  I unclasp the chain, reach around under my hair, and I lock the ends together. I can feel the heart pendant resting right in that little dip in the center of my throat.

  I don’t want to ever take it off.

  This is part of what it is to be thirteen.

  To go on a journey and end up right back home. To love someone who loved you back, and still have to say goodbye to them.

  “I’ll be right there!” I shout toward my bedroom door.

  I know Isabel is so happy we found the box.

  I reach up and touch the necklace, the heart around my neck. I wonder what this year would have been like if Lukas hadn’t died.

  Would he be here with me, today?

  Would I have put on this necklace and never taken it off?

  But one thing I know for sure, we’d always have been friends. We would always know parts of each other that no one else knew. Keepers of Secrets, Wizards of Clues, Growers of Gardens, King and Queen of Summer Birthdays, Holders of Hearts.

  The letter is pressed into such a tiny square, it is hard to unfold. It opens up once, twice. Three, four, five times before it is fully flat and I can read it. My throat isn’t constricting or stinging; it just hurts, but I can take it.

  Dear Joy,

  Justin says I’m a jerk for doing this.

  But then he thinks our hunts are stupid, too.

  Maybe he’s right, but I think he just doesn’t understand what it means to have a good friend, someone you like to be with more than anyone else. Someone who makes the crappiest days better, and the bad stuff funny, and awful summer birthdays the best. Someone you care more about than anyone.

  Someone you love.

  This is for you.

  P.S. Happy birthday every birthday, always,

  Lukas

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Gae and Nora warmly thank:

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  Jim McCarthy and Katelyn Detweiler, our skilled, calming, and accessible literary agents, who worked so lovingly in concert to find a perfect home for this book.

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  Karen Greenberg, our editor, who fell in love with Joy and Lukas just as we did, and helped bring them so beautifully and fully to life.

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  Esther Lin, Artie Bennett, Alison Kolani, Amy Schroeder, and Diane João, meticul
ous and artistic copy editors.

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  April Ward for our amazing and beautiful cover design, and Ken Crossland because the inside counts just as much.

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  Behind the scenes: production manager Jonathan Morris, and managing editor Jake Eldred.

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  It really does take a village.

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  To the whole team at Knopf/Penguin Random House, our appreciation is boundless.

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  And with gratitude and love: Ginger Polisner, Lesley Burnap, Sidney Snyder, and Melissa Guerrette for their fast and enthusiastic early reads; LuAnn O’Hair, an exceptional educator, and her astute 2018–19 eighth-grade class at Forgan Public School in Oklahoma, who read an early draft of “Finding Joy” and encouraged us with their excitement for Joy and Lukas’s story; Cindy Beth Minnich for her constant support of us and our stories (and of writers everywhere); and the extraordinary Leslie Connor, Tony Abbott, and Wendy Mass for letting us put their heartfelt praise on the cover.

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  And, mostly, and always, to our families, for their unwavering belief in us.

  © Rick Kopstein

  GAE POLISNER is a lawyer by trade but a writer by calling. She lives on Long Island with her husband, their two sons, and a suspiciously fictional-looking dog named Charlie. When Gae isn’t lawyering or writing, you can find her in a pool or the open waters off Long Island. She’s still hoping that one day her wetsuit will turn her into a superhero.

  gaepolisner.com

  © Sam Baskin