The Lost (21 page)

He’s flushing fiercely as he talks. His neck is bright red.

“How did you wind up here?” I ask.

“That girl, the first girl, the one that I started with telling lies. She killed herself. And after that...I didn’t go to the funeral. Didn’t think I had the right. Stood outside the church, though, and when the family came out, I...took a walk. And kept walking until I was in this part of town I didn’t recognize. Turns out it wasn’t a part of my town at all. It was here.” He shrugs. “And that’s pretty much it.”

“Okay.”

He looks at me. “So, can you help me?”

I take a deep breath and meet his eyes. “You pretty much just confessed to causing an innocent girl’s death. I don’t know what I can find that will fix that.” He hangs his head, and I wish I hadn’t been so harsh. He’s a kid. He screwed up, yes. But he’s a kid, and what the hell kind of right do I have to judge him? Besides, maybe there’s more to the story. More gently, I ask, “What will you do if I succeed?”

“See if the other girls are okay,” he says immediately. “I keep thinking...I can’t undo it for her. But those other girls, yeah, maybe. I owe something, you know? And I can’t pay it back here.”

I nod. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises. I’m new to this. If there’s any hint you can give me as to what you expect me to find...” I can hear a voice inside my head screaming at me that this is not my responsibility! This is not my problem! I have my own problems, thank you very much. But Claire’s right—if I can win over the townspeople, I’ll be safer. And I did find the star sapphire ring and the 1986 newspaper.

“Her.”

I’m not sure I heard him correctly. “She’s dead.”

“So are some people here.”

I think of Tiffany. “But...” I don’t know how to phrase it nicely. I don’t even know if I’m right. “But if she intended to die, then she wouldn’t be lost. She’d be exactly where she wanted to be.
Dead
dead. Not lost-dead.”

He shook his head so hard that his bandana slipped. “She can’t be. She has to be here. I need her to forgive me, or else I can’t ever return. You have to find her.”

I don’t know that she’ll be willing to forgive, even if I could find her. After all, she killed herself. That’s about as unforgiving and stuck-in-pain as it gets. But I don’t say that. His eyes are so pleading, so young, so hopeful and helpless and hopeless all at the same time. “I’ll try.” I rise. “I need...”

“What? I’ll get it for you. Anything.” He jumps to his feet.

“Just...need my bathing suit. Wait here, okay.”

He sinks down.

I scurry into my room, shut the door, and change as quickly as I can. I then head to my window and open it. I look out at the ocean, the empty boats, the blur on the horizon. I can’t do this. What was I thinking? A shape swings down in front of my window. Jumping backward, I bite back a yelp as Peter, upside down, grins at me.

Opening the window, I let him inside. He swings in and lands on his feet. “So...you’re saving them now?”

“Am I being stupid?”

He shrugs. “If you are, then I’m stupid, too.”

“Why me?” I ask. “Does the void like me? Or—”

He curls his hand around my cheek, his fingers in my hair, and he kisses me. Instantly, the rest of the world dims and fades, and the only sound I hear is the crash of waves hitting the back of the house. He tastes like the salty air.

I’m kissing the ocean,
I think.

He releases me and then launches himself out the window without another word.

Wrapping a towel tight around me, I walk back to the living room. I lift the window and climb out. I drop down into the sand softened by the waves. The water curls around my toes. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Colin.”

“Seriously?”

“My mom really liked
The Secret Garden.
”

“Mine read me that book, too,” I say. Mom used to read to me all the time, through a lot of elementary school. We both liked to read. Spent a lot of high school curled up on couches side by side reading books. We’d trade them back and forth. I used to keep a steady supply of bookmarks in the house because she liked to grab whatever was nearby to mark her place—a tissue, a napkin, a straw, a plate, a pencil, her glasses. I wish she were here, reading on this couch, in our little yellow house.

“Yeah, stupid book,” he says. Quickly, he adds, “Unless you like it. Been a long time since she read it to me. Maybe it’s good.”

“Help yourself to any of the books on the shelves. Just use a bookmark.”

“Right. Okay. Good luck.”

I toss the towel over the windowsill and wade into the water.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

I pause. For some reason, I don’t want to tell him. Maybe it’s what Claire said, about needing to seem wise and mysterious. Or maybe I just don’t want to share. “I’m the one who’s going to help you. I think that’s good enough for you to know, don’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

I immediately feel like that was totally cheesy and want to shout back that my name is Lauren, but I don’t. Instead, I turn my back on him and hurry into the water. It splashes around my legs, and I lurch forward to belly flop into the surf. A second later, I think I should have done that more gracefully if I’m impersonating some kind of oracle or savior, but whatever.

A minute later, I spot the familiar silver dorsal fin in the water. I swim to it with overhead strokes that I remember from the summer I thought I might train to be a lifeguard, until it occurred to me that lifeguards spend most of their time out of the water, watching, when what I really loved was being in the water and tuning out the world. I swim to the dolphin, and I stroke its side. It chitters at me. I grab its dorsal fin, and it shoots through the water. I feel the waves splash into my face. Salt water sprays into my eyes, nose, and mouth. I taste the salt as I breathe. Closer to the void, I release, and the dolphin veers away to safer waters. But I keep going. I swim directly into the void.

The water fades, and I lower my legs. It doesn’t feel quite so lonely this time. It’s oddly peaceful. The dust wraps around me, warm and soft on my skin. I walk through it. It’s not unlike pushing through water. I focus on Colin, think of his story, wonder if he’s told me everything, if it’s really forgiveness that he needs, and what happens if he never gets it. If I fail here, with all those people outside...I don’t think they’ll be forgiving, either. I try not to think about that, and instead I picture Colin, his face, his eyes. He did a horrible thing that had an even more horrible consequence, one he didn’t intend of course and maybe there were other factors in this girl’s life that led to her quitting life, but I believe he was a factor. More important, he believes it.

But if forgiveness isn’t possible for him...

I don’t know.

I quit trying to guess. Instead I just walk and think of Colin, whom I’ve known for all of five minutes but want to help and not just because if I fail, it will be bad for me. But because he sat in my living room—me, a total stranger—and tried to articulate where his life had gone wrong.

I can articulate when mine went wrong: Mom’s first diagnosis.

She came to my apartment after work and brought Chinese food. She set the table as I unpacked the food. As I unpacked it, I began to notice she’d ordered every single appetizer on the menu. No lo mein or fried rice. But fried dumplings, spareribs, egg rolls, crab rangoon... This is a woman who never orders appetizers at all because she doesn’t believe the cost-to-food ratio is worth it. If you want small portions, she’d say, you order regular and save the rest as leftovers. “We’re either celebrating or mourning,” I said.

“Just wanted something special tonight,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

Why hadn’t I let it lie? Why had I pressed it? She would have told me when she was ready, when she thought I was ready. This was for herself. She wanted this nice meal with me. But I didn’t let it go. I was like a dog that had grabbed one of those spareribs. I teased, begged, cajoled, pestered, and demanded.

Ovarian cancer.

“Surgery works for many, many people,” she said after she told me. Her voice was so bright that it was brittle. I’d been eating a crab rangoon, and I bolted to the bathroom and threw up. I didn’t come out until much later to find that Mom had transferred all of the food into plastic containers and stored them labeled in the refrigerator. She was sitting in front of the TV. The TV wasn’t on, but the remote was clutched in her hand. She smiled brightly when I came into the room.

“You’re going to be strong for me, aren’t you?” I said as I flopped onto the couch next to her.

“One of us has to be.” She pointed to my nose. “You’re a terrible crier. Makes you look all splotchy.”

“Your genes.”

“Sorry about that. And sorry if you inherit this.”

“Mom!”

“At least I won’t have to see you die first. Unless you’re hit by a bus. Please don’t get hit by a bus.”

“I can’t believe you’re talking like this.”

“It’s called gallows humor. Standard coping mechanism. Frankly, I’m suspicious of anyone who doesn’t find humor in death.”

“Stop talking about death!” I threw a pillow at her. Not sure why. Because it was childish, and I felt like a child in that moment, the moment everything suddenly spiraled out of control. How dare she turn my life inside out, my carefully constructed illusion of happiness? How dare she rip it apart with this messiness? I knew it was an ugly thought the instant I had it, and I buried it as fast and hard as I could. But there it was. I’d been so happy when I’d graduated because it felt as if I was being handed the reins to my life, and Mom had ripped those reins away, drenched them with acid, and let them dissolve at my feet. “So what do I do?” I asked, though I knew it was about her, all about her, but still, I couldn’t help but ask. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or say, what she expected, what she needed...what I was supposed to do. But I knew it was a selfish question so I changed it. “What do you need me to do?”

“Duck,” she said. And she threw the pillow back at me.

That was the last time we talked about it for three months. She had her surgery, she started chemo, and I helped her with the day-to-day stuff, but we didn’t talk about it.

One day at the café with my artist friends...I simply couldn’t be there anymore, knowing Mom’s medical bills were piling up. I went home and typed up my résumé. It was pitifully short, but I was creative. I didn’t lie, but I embellished with the most forceful verbs I could think of. I bought a pencil skirt and a blouse with buttons, and I bought a pair of sensible black heels, if heels could ever be considered sensible. I tried not to feel like a tightrope walker as I walked in them and missed my flip-flops, my standard footwear. I didn’t tell my mom until after I’d gotten my first job offer, three more months later. By then, the bills were more than Mom could pay, even with her insurance. I quietly started to pay them, and that was that. That was how my world changed. One conversation. And everything that followed.

The boy waiting for me in the living room had traced his moment to one day, too.

I think again about what he told me about his one conversation.

And that’s when I see the photograph. It’s in a Popsicle-stick frame, the kind you make in elementary school. Dried glue is clumped all over it, and stray bits of construction paper and googly eyes are covering it. It’s a picture of two boys, one of them clearly Colin, the other a younger version of him with ears that stick out like Dumbo. “Thanks,” I say out loud. The dust swallows my words. I feel giddy as I hug the photo.

I turn around and walk—though I don’t know why I bother since every direction looks the same, but it feels right so I do it. It’s faster to reach the edge of the void than it should have been, and I walk out into the desert. I’m not far from my ocean.

I walk to the nearest junk pile. It has all the usual lost clothes: kids’ sweatshirts, a few coats, umbrella, newspapers, hats, mittens. I select a raincoat. It’s the lightest of the choices, and I throw it over my bathing-suited self. I then trudge back to the yellow house.

Lounging on the junk pile and draped over the porch, the people are still there. Waiting for me. Waiting for a miracle. I clutch the Popsicle-stick photo to my chest and try not to make eye contact as I walk past the junk piles and up the steps to the porch. Claire flings open the door as I arrive. She sees I’m holding something. I hear whispers behind me; they’ve seen, too.

In the living room, Colin slowly rises from the couch. His hand is shaking as I hand him the photograph. He looks at it and frowns. “That’s my brother.” He looks at me. “I don’t understand. I mean, yes, I lost this years ago. We’d made it together for Mother’s Day. One of those stupid crafts projects, you know?” He sits down heavily with the photo in his hands. “You couldn’t find her? ’Course not. She’s dead.”

Claire is close to my elbow. “He’s not glowing,” she whispers.

He lifts his head. He’s heard her. “This isn’t what I need.”

“Then why did I find it?” I ask.

He doesn’t have an answer to that.

“Maybe it isn’t what
you
need. Maybe it’s someone who needs you.” I feel proud of myself for saying that. I sound wise. I have no clue if it’s true.

His eyes bug and I see him look at the photo fresh.

“There,” Claire says, satisfaction filling her voice.

Squinting at him, I see what she sees: a soft glow that surrounds him, a match to Claire’s own glow.

“You did it!” Claire throws her arms around my neck and hugs me hard. I hug her back, elated. I really did it! Twice! Three times, if you count the ring, but I don’t know if that counts since I had to be rescued then.

Happily, Claire ushers him out of the room, and I scoot into the bedroom to change out of my swimsuit into the dress Claire chose for me. It occurs to me that if this continues, I’ll have to change right back into it. All those people would expect me to go into the void for them and come back with some item that would make them magically see the light.

I wonder if I can do it.

I wonder why I can do it.

I tug my dress into place and tie my wet hair back with a ribbon. I listen as Claire guides the next “visitor” into our living room. When I hear the squeak of the couch, I walk out of the bedroom. A woman in sequins and diamonds is seated on the couch. She turns as I enter, and I plaster a smile on my face. “Do you know what you’ve lost?” I ask.