Signs of You (7 page)

Kate takes her hands away from her face and sits up. “We're talking about Noah. That was a
movie
. Please don't tell me you want to—”

“Jay's right,” I say, cutting her off. “If we don't hear from Noah by midnight, then we leave in the morning.”

Chapter 7

Help Me.

An uncomfortable truth about my friends: the more they want something, the better they are at lying to get it. Somehow, all three of us convince our parents that we're going to hang out at Noah's for a group study session the whole next day and probably late into the night. And one by one, they all buy it. We can only hope Noah's parents don't call any of
our
parents to ask where the hell he is. But knowing Noah, my guess is that he's texting home with an airtight alibi.

Of course the reality is that we're going to Maryland in my car.

In
theory
it should be fun. Because road trips are supposed to be fun. Once, Kate and I drove the Dragon Wagon all the way to the Hocking Hills just to get our picture with this ginormous wooden Paul Bunyan sculpture. I mean, we
had
to go. How can you
not
go pay homage to a guy whose Wiki page calls him a
lumberjack of unusual skill
? Plus, it gave us a semi-cultural reason to give our parents for why they should let us drive off into the Ohio sunset with no adult in the car. We didn't even have to lie, really. It worked. And it was awesome.

But a road trip to the hills of Maryland to look for one of your best friends who has taken off with a potentially cursed Catholic cross? Distinctly less awesome.

Kate keeps f lipping between country music stations despite group protest. I hear lyrics about red solo cups
and wearing lampshades on your head. Jay is in the backseat and opts for headphones.

“Google Maps says this should take almost f ive hours,” I announce as we pull onto the highway. “I'm going to have to demand musical variety.”

“What?” Jay leans into the front seat and lifts up his headphones.

“Five hours,” I say again. “Too long for a country music marathon.”

“We can make it in four-and-a-half if we go about ten miles over the speed limit the whole way. But we all know you like to drive about ten miles
below
the speed limit,” he says, nudging me in the shoulder. “You know, because it's good to be prepared for old age.”

“Whatever,” I say. “We'll be there by two-ish. Home by ten-ish. Our excuse that we're group-studying should hold.”

“Group-studying,” Kate huffs. “My mom totally knows something is up. But the good news is that I've been around long enough to annoy her to the point of fatigue. She doesn't have any f ight left.”

Just as I reach up to plug my iPod into the car, a blue station wagon cuts in front of me on the highway. A woman is driving. I can see the outline of her bobbed hair; I think she's wearing a sweater. I drop the iPod cord and speed up, my heart pounding as I pull into the left lane beside her. I can't help but look; I can't help but check to see if it's my mom. But just as I pull close enough to see who is behind the wheel, the woman's car slows way down.

Is this going to torture me for the rest of my life? Searching, always searching?

“Look out!” Kate shouts. I look straight ahead and realize I'm inches away from rear-ending the Range Rover in front of me. I hit the brakes just in time and move back over into the right lane. The woman's car pulls away, and I lose her in traff ic.

“Dude,” Jay says. “Don't hit a Range Rover.”

“Sorry,” I say, feeling little beads of sweat on my forehead.

“You sure you're okay to drive?” Kate asks.

“Yeah,” I lie.

“Here,” she says, plugging my iPod in. “You need to relax. We'll play your music. And roll down the windows. Let's pretend we're just normal sixteen-year-olds having fun on a road trip, shall we?”

So I try. I really do. I tell myself that we'll f ind Noah safe and sound, that this will all be explained somehow. I roll the windows down as Kate blasts my iPod through the car speakers as loud as it can go. I bob my head for a few beats of “Little Talks.” It was my favorite song the year after my mom died. I sing along for a verse or two as the wind blasts through the car. I steal glances at the silver hummingbird charm that hangs from my rearview mirror, as it sways back and forth. It belonged to my mother, and she was never without it. I wanted to bury her with it, but Dad insisted that I keep it. Even though it makes me sad every time it catches the sunlight, every time it sways after I brake at a stop sign, I can't take it down. I just can't.

My mother had a thing with birds. But after she had me, she couldn't see well enough to watch them f ly anymore; they were too small in the sky. But she could sit on our back porch near the hummingbird feeder and hear the gentle buzz of their wings as they hovered close. She loved that sound. She called them “my birds,” the ones that were made just for her, to make up for all the ones she could no longer see in f light. She said they made it all right, that she didn't miss seeing them play in the wind. She said that she'd accepted not being able to see, that she'd accepted what she'd lost.

But I know it wasn't true. I don't know that it's ever true about loss—real loss, anyway. My deepest, darkest fear is that maybe we don't ever get over some things. Maybe we just carry them around, permanently, these heavy, dull aches in the heart. And maybe they don't heal; maybe we just learn to work around the pain.

I stop singing, shut the iPod off, and put the windows back up. I slow down, make sure I'm driving the speed limit. I know better than to try to enjoy the ride, to try to forget what's happening to us, to forget that having me is what ruined my mother's entire existence. Joyrides won't ever feel right. Ever.

“Sorry,” I say, as soon as the all the windows are back up. “Can't really get into the whole road trip thing right now. And can somebody try Noah again?”

“I texted him about two minutes ago,” Kate says. “He's still incommunicado.”

I think about Noah in his fake periodic table T-shirt with his sparkling blue eyes and his tell-me-everything look. He feels like a stranger now, and I hate it. None of this is like him, to disappear like this, to keep things from us. We
do
have a Family Rule: we tell each other everything.
Everything.
The good, the bad, the dark, the scary. And especially the stuff that has anything to do with the people we've lost, the deaths we've all been marked by. And I realize I'm mad at him, but more than that—I'm worried. Because I know if he's keeping secrets, it must be for a reason. A really, really good reason.
What did you know about all of this, Noah? What did you know?

“Can you read the stuff you brought?” I ask, eyeing Jay in the rearview mirror. “From Noah's room?”

“You
sure
you want to try and f igure this out right now?” Kate looks at me like a worried parent, or like I'm some sort of delicate plant that might wilt and die at any moment if someone doesn't f igure out
exactly
how to take care of me. I nod. “Okay then,” she says. “Jay, read us some of the crap you brought from his room. Go.”

Jay shuff les through the pile of papers he scooped up from Noah's f loor. “I mean, all we know is that the cross belonged to Saint Ignatius and that it's all scratched up and has the word
magis
on it, right?” I ask to speed things along.

“Right,” Jay says. “I used to know who he was and all, but it's been a long time. Hang on.” He starts skimming an article. “Um, Saint Ignatius of Loyola. This says he was a Spanish knight, a hermit, then a priest, then a saint,
blah, blah, blah
. Religious mystic during the Counter-Reformation,
blah, blah, blah
. Wait. Let me read more and then I'll paraphrase.”

We ride in silence as he reads his dad's articles. The absence of sound lasts too long. My f ingers drum on the wheel. I start checking cars again for my mom. I imagine her pulling up in a car beside me on the highway, slowly looking over. I imagine her smile. But then her face changes, like she's afraid, that she sees or knows something horrifying that she wants me to know, but can't tell me. And then I imagine her disappearing again.

“Okay,” Jay says f inally. He leans into the front seat with an article in his hands. “Here's the upshot: he was born in 1491 and before he became a saint, his real Spanish name was Iñigo de Loyola.”

I try to shake off the image of my mom and my worries about Noah and focus on what Jay is saying. “Go on.”

“And he lived in the Basque region of Spain and his family was super wealthy,” Jay continues. “He was totally vain and obsessed with women, and he was kind of a slacker—he didn't even know Latin all that well. He was in love with the sister of Emperor Charles the Fifth. And he always wore the latest fashions—like men's tights and a codpiece.”

“Ooh,” Kate says, holding up her phone. “I'm Googling
codpiece
. Sounds like f ishing gear. But maybe it's super sexy, like tights.”

I laugh in spite of myself. I have the urge to reach over and hug Kate. Jay ignores her and keeps going. “And in 1521, his leg was practically blown off by a cannonball in a battle with the French. While he was recovering, he ran out of books to read. So he picked up a book about the saints. And he felt inspired and thought he had a vision of an angel or something.”

“Found it,” Kate says, “Codpiece. Popular in the f ifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A sack that attaches to men's pants and accentuates and holds their . . .” She giggles. “Yup. I was right.”

“About what?” I ask.

“Let's just say that you use a codpiece to f ish—
for the ladies
.”

“Forget about what he wore,” Jay grumbles. “Anyway, he ditched the codpiece. Listen; this is important. So after Ignatius saw some sort of angel, he completely freaked out, left the rich life behind, and started praying in a cave seven hours a day in a little Spanish town called Manresa. He let his hair grow, started dressing in rags. People thought he was a lunatic. They had a nickname for him—El Hombre Saco, which meant Old Sack Man.”

I nod, trying not to look over at Kate in case she'll make me laugh. And even though laughing can make that dull ache go away, even for just a moment, Jay's right; this is important. Noah is missing. I can't lose another person I love. I pull the sun visor down to keep the glare out of my eyes. “Okay. Let's review. So a wealthy Spanish guy gets hit by a cannonball, freaks out, sees an angel, renounces his old life, and goes to live in a cave . . .”

“Right, and this is where it gets interesting,” Jay says. He leans back, skimming and f lipping through pages. “So after praying in the cave for about a million hours, he had some sort of crazy enlightenment-f lash-of-white-light moment by the Cardoner River. His cross necklace got so hot it burned his skin, and he said he could write for the rest of his life and not communicate all that he learned in that one instant. So he went back into the cave and tried to write down as much as he could in a book he called
The
Spiritual Exercises
. It became one of the most famous theology books of all time. All it says here is that it gives directions about how to make good decisions in life and talks about how everyone should get quiet and practice
spiritual discernment
. Whatever that is. The end.”

I shoot him a quick smile in the rearview. “Nice paraphrasing,” I say. “Thanks.”

“And I Googled
magis
,” Kate says, her voice serious now, too. “It's Latin. For more.”

“So let's review again,” I say, my mind reeling with Jay's history lecture. “This guy etched the word
more
on the back of the cross necklace he had on during his epiphany—which is the cross we all wore,” I say. “And he had some sort of revelation about how to make decisions? And wrote a famous book about it. And as far as Noah goes, that helps us understand . . . exactly nothing.”

Jay sighs. “I know, I know. But Saint Ignatius is pretty famous I guess—if you're a Catholic. It says his book became the foundation for the Jesuits. You know, they started a bunch of universities and they're all into social justice and stuff. And Noah has written a note on the side.
Pope Francis, elected March 13, f irst Jesuit pope in history.
”

I shake my head, staring at the highway. I'm more confused then ever. “How the hell did your dad f ind the necklace in the f irst place?” I wonder out loud. “I mean, the guy was Spanish. It was around the time of Columbus. Hardly any Europeans were here. The necklace was in a cave in
Maryland
.”

Kate shifts in her seat and sighs loudly. “First, it's not all
that
surprising. Think about it—MARY-land. The whole state was like, founded by Catholics, for Catholics. His cross must have been sent here to his Jesuit buddies for good luck in the New World or something.”

I nearly gasp. I know that Jay shares the silent shock that reverberates through the car. To say that Kate would be the
last human on earth
we would expect to know any United States history would be an understatement so huge it would be virtually immeasurable. But the smirk Jay and I share in the rearview also sends a pang through me. Noah should be here, to share in this moment, too. He'd practically faint if he heard Kate spewing facts about US states.

“What's the second point?” Jay asks.

“That if I'm going to be called upon to absorb any more of this theology presentation, I'm going to need a Diet Mountain Dew.” Kate runs a hand over her forehead like she's already mentally exhausted. “Scratch that. I need a full-sugar Dew. And chewy Sweet Tarts.”

I take an exit
near Newton Falls.

“Who names a gas station Sheetz?” Kate says as I ease into a spot by a pump. “It sounds like they sell gas, snacks, and a room for a quickie in the back.”