Waiting (25 page)

Jesse says nothing. Just puts an arm back around me, and when we look each other in the eye we know we were close to being caught and I think,
I’m done with that.
And maybe he thinks,
Yes, me too.

I walk everyone to the door. My feet feel like they have grown way too big, and I trip over nothing. Lili catches my arm. Holds my hand.

“It’ll be okay,” Taylor says. “I have this feeling.”

Taylor puts his
hand on my shoulder and this warmth moves right out of his fingertips and I realize, with that touch, I am going to heal. It’s a fragile feeling and it makes my throat close up.

Behind me my parents have raised their voices. Taylor doesn’t even blink at the sound. Just lets me know he’s there.

“She won’t be
back,” Daddy tells me lots later. “I couldn’t stop her.”

It’s weird.

The
house is less empty with my mother gone than it was when she lived here.

I turn my
music on.

I help Daddy pack up some of Zachy’s things.

We move a desk into the living room for Daddy to write at.

Go to lunch.

Talk.

Laugh.

Late that night, though, I hear him crying.

He misses my mother.

I know.

But I can’t say (is this evil?) that I do.

I’ve learned to live without her.

Three days after
my mother leaves, the phone rings.

I know it’s not her. She hasn’t called at all—not that I’ve seen.

As I walk to the phone, I wonder—has Daddy called her?

Has she thought of us once?

Does she miss Zach more or less now that she’s gone?

I pick up the phone, glance at caller ID. I don’t recognize who it is.

“Hello?”

“London?”

I know her. “Rachel,” I whisper.

“Anyone there?” she says.

I speak louder. “Rachel,” I say. “Hello!”

My hearts thumps.

“Hey!” She sounds so . . . happy. Like she hasn’t been fighting to get out of fog for that last almost-year. Or maybe she has and she’s succeeded.

Whatever, she sounds good.

“I’m back in town,” she says. “I want to see you.”

I nod, then find my voice though my fingertips have gone numb. Before the words come out I think,
Why should I?

You left my brother.

He died because of you.

Murderer!

Why are you back?

Do you have any idea what we went through here?

Why now?

Why should I?

I swallow. “Okay, Rachel,” I say. “Where?”

Time has this
way of slowing down and speeding up, depending on how it feels.

When I’m kissing Taylor, time moves so fast I think I must age a million years in a few hot moments.

When Mom was home, in the same room with me, time didn’t even pass. Seconds went on forever and I felt I might stop breathing for the pain of it all, and how long it seemed to take.

And when we found my brother, Zacheus, hanging in his room, time both sped up and slowed down. The way I ran and couldn’t get to him fast enough and how Mom seemed to take her time trying to help and how long it was for the ambulance to get to us.

Time does this to me now. Slows down
and
speeds up.

Rachel and I plan to meet late that afternoon, at the library.

I spend more energy changing clothes and thinking what’s best to wear than I ever have when I wanted to impress any guy. The clock doesn’t seem to move. The next thing I know, it’s almost five p.m. and I have to run out the door to get to the library on time.

I sit in
the parking lot for several minutes.

It’s warm outside and sweat trickles down my forehead, making my skin itch.

Will she recognize me?

Will I recognize her?

Will I slap her?

Cry?

Not show up?

Run?

Hide?

Drive away right now?

Maybe
she
won’t come. Maybe this is all a trick.

I close my eyes and wish Zach were here with me. How many times have I wished that very thing—a million? A gajillion?

Oh, Zach, Zach.

Somehow, I get
out of the car and walk around to the front of the library. Up the steps. Through the double doors, and there she is. Looking right at me. A baby in her arms.

I blink.

Am I imagining this? Is it her? Really?

I look behind me, I’m that confused, because maybe I have come to the wrong library here in New Smyrna Beach. Maybe that’s not a baby. Maybe that’s not Rachel but some unknown twin.

She steps forward, fast, and then Rachel’s there, one arm going around my neck, and without meaning to, as soon as I see that baby’s face and my brother’s eyes, I burst into tears.

“There was no
way,” Rachel says as we settle down at a table in the children’s section of the library, “that I was going to have an abortion.”

“But that’s what you told Zach.”

She shakes her head. “I told him my mom and dad wanted that. Not that I would do it.”

I swallow. “He thought. . . .” And I can’t keep going.

She looks at me. Rachel’s eyes are so clear I can tell she’s telling the truth. Does she have any idea, ANY idea, that her words were the end for my brother?

“I kept telling him that I would work things out.” She swallows and those clear eyes fill with tears. When she tries to speak, the words won’t come out. She takes my hand. Pulls in air. “I loved him. I love him still. If I had known . . .”

And then, without my even asking, Rachel hands her daughter to me. My brother’s daughter. My
niece.

“London,” she says.

“Yes?” My voice is a whisper. I can’t get over this baby’s dark-lashed eyes. She looks so much like Zacheus I can’t
believe it. Even her little bald head is like Zach’s when
he

was a baby.

“That’s her name,” Rachel says. “When I thought what to call her, I just knew Zach would want her named after you. Her middle name is Faith, for her father.”

Faith, like my brother.

Now I can’t speak. There’s so much I want to say. But all I do is bring that baby to my lips and kiss her cheek, soft as air.

Maybe nothing could
have saved Zach.

Maybe things were too messed up before he ever met Rachel. Maybe he was too sad since we were little.

Maybe he had faith in everyone but himself.

Or . . .

Or maybe he just made a mistake and realized moments too late.

After the library,
the feel of London Faith still in my arms, I climb in my brother’s car—it will always be his—and drive.

I drive straight to Taylor’s house.

His car’s in the driveway. I see that as I round the corner.

My heart pounds so it makes me sick to my stomach.

What in the world? What am I scared about?

When I turn off the car and take the keys from the ignition, I drop them my hand is trembling so and I leave them on the floor mat. I have to swallow a couple of times. Rest my head on the steering wheel. When I look up, I see Taylor standing on his front porch, hands deep in his pockets, the door ajar behind him.

He just stands there, waiting, waiting for me.

Like he has for the last few months.

I get out of the car. At first I can’t quite move my feet, and then I can’t get to him fast enough.

“London,” he says when I’m standing in front of him.

I swallow. “I have a niece,” I say. “A little girl niece.”

This slow smile starts across Taylor’s face. “A little girl niece?” he says. “She kept it?”

“Her. She kept
her.
”

And then I put both my hands on his face and kiss him.

“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for waiting for me to come back.”

I put my arms around him, my head on his chest, listen to his heart. After a second or two his hands rest on my hips, and we stand there like that for I don’t know how long.

When I open
my eyes, the moon has filled my bedroom with light.

Zach’s at the foot of my bed. “You are hard to wake up.”

“Zachy,” I say. “I saw her.”

He doesn’t say anything, just kind of turns away from me.

When he looks back, I can see he’s crying. The tears slide down his face like diamonds.