Waiting (3 page)

And not one thing changed.

“You’re changing,” Daddy said. “Maybe God isn’t sweeping the world clean of injustice, but, London, you’re changing. You’re getting stronger. Learning more. Loving God with a fierceness no one would expect.”

And Zach just nodded, wide-eyed.

He believed. More than me. Always more than me.

He held on to his faith, even through his sad times, his hard times.

“It’s gonna be okay, London,” Zachy said. “It’s never what we think.”

I remember it was a hot November night. Our first

Thanksgiving in the South and here was this freak weather.

“It should be,” I had said.

Zach slipped his arm around my shoulder and we sat there, quiet between us, for the longest time. Then he said, “I know.”

Zach was right.

Daddy doesn’t know. Mom doesn’t know. But on those trips, I think I started wondering about a god that would let all this bad stuff happen. All of it so awful. I
was
changing. Stretching from my old religious skin. Feeling itchy with the worrying and the cracking free.

And just know this. You don’t have to be the daughter of a missionary to know what’s going on. Watch the news.

Read the paper. Check online.

I told you so.

So when I
was little, Daddy said, “God answers prayers through Jesus Christ.” And I believed. One day, believing, I wrote this note to Jesus. It was like, Are you there? Check one box, yes or no. And I folded the note up small and set it on the bar in the kitchen. I spied around for a while, watching, to see. Left. Came back.

“What are you doing?” Zach said.

“Waiting,” I said.

“For what?”

I couldn’t say, “For Jesus.” Or maybe, with Zach then, I could have. But I didn’t. That’s all I’m saying now.

I didn’t.

Now with this
company I don’t look for a quiet moment. In fact, there’s nothing quiet about Lili. She runs her mouth and never takes a breath, I don’t think.

She’s here, that strange Lili. Sitting up close, hands folded, ponytail falling forward, leaning at me as she chatters.

Utah this and that, she says.

Grammy and Grampy this and that, she says.

And what about Disney World, it’s waaaay better than Disneyland, right?

Sure.

I look at her and stay quiet. I let out a sigh.

She can
talk
. Wow.

This talker saves me from having to speak.

This talker is better than being alone.

How did Lili
happen upon me here at the library? I shift in the sun, glance at the clock. Forty-five more minutes before Daddy will pick me up.

“Tell me about your family,” Lili says. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, London?”

Just like that. Like she has a
right
to know.

I swallow, swallow, look at her side-eyed, back at the clock. In the sun her dark hair has a red tint. She’s thin, looks like an athlete. I catch my breath and there’s time for my words because she’s stopped talking. She waits. Quiet.

After the account of the long drive from Utah, after Provo High, after being the middle of five kids (four boys and her) and being an aunt when she was twelve, after how her father is the new football coach at the local university, after how her mother can’t get bread to rise in the Florida humidity, she looks me right in the eye and waits for my answer.

That’s an ugly question sitting on the books between us.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

My body takes
over.

I’m up, going, headed toward the door. Leaving everything behind.

I look back once, flip her the bird. Her mouth drops open.

How the hell did she find me, anyway? All tucked away in the back like that?

For a moment I imagined her as a friend. A good friend.

I could have lived with all the talking, turned my ears off, nodded when I needed to, if I had a friend again.

But she is, I see, just like everyone else—wanting to know the end.

Daddy beeps as
he passes, makes a U-turn. Pulls up alongside me. I climb in the car.

“London, you didn’t wait for me.”

My mouth is dry as a sock and I’m cold. I want to say something, answer him, tell him what just happened, but my voice is trapped in a box.

Lili and her stupid T-shirt and shorts.

“Honey, I told you I’d pick you up. You’ve been walking a long while. You’re halfway home.” He sort of looks at me.

We pass a huge orange grove. This is why we live here now. After Daddy retired and decided to settle down in one place. We came here for the oranges and avocados and hot, steamy weather.

“Are you okay, London?”

I glance at my father. My eyes are dried out too. Now

I’m hot all over, though my fingers remind me of ice chips. And I can’t stop trembling.

“Let me get you home,” Daddy says.

I open my mouth to speak, to say anything, but Lili seems to have used up all the words I might have said today.

She has four
brothers.

Count them. One, two, three, four.

And my one is none.

When almost all
the shivering has stopped, Daddy says, “Honey, your mom’s resting again today.”

I look at my hands, empty of everything. Not one library book, not even a magazine, though I’d thought of putting together a stack on the table, if I hadn’t been so tired, and checking them out.

I stare at what might be the lifeline on my palm.

The truth is, books used to connect us.

They’re something we always had, even in Africa, though not like what’s here in this house.

I can do without the books this weekend—I haven’t read anything I wasn’t forced to in
months
. What I need is to share the air with what’s left of my family. Take small steps. Sleep on the edge of life.

“I’m going back to the church to look over photographs for this next book. I’ll work in my office some more.”

Sunnyside Baptist Church opened its arms to us when we arrived, because Daddy is a well-known missionary. They wanted him here. Gave him an office to work from. He’s even spoken from the pulpit several times over the past three years.

I mean, Before.

Not as much now.

He needs time.

When I glance at Daddy, I see he doesn’t look in my direction. He grips the steering wheel. Holds tight. Stares ahead. Just stares ahead, hanging on to the steering wheel. Looks at the road like it’s his best friend.

I bet it is. I bet the road
is
his best friend, because he has always loved to travel.

“Right,” I say. I’m surprised I found my voice, like all along it was hiding in the backseat or near my lifeline or something. “Thank you for picking me up.”

“Sure thing, honey.”

We drive down our street, so green. Trees hunch over the road, cold sunlight splashing through, houses set far apart, wide spaces between, and a breeze moving American flags like a gentle wave, like they’re saying good-bye to an almost-friend. A talkative almost-friend.

“I’ll be home by dinner.”

I nod.

We pull in the driveway. The house seems all closed up, the windows dark-eyed. The sidewalk even feels like it might roll up and pull the welcome sign off the tole painting Mom did so long ago.

“Check on your mom for me, huh, London?”

When I touch the car door handle, a shiver runs up my arm, makes me look Daddy in the eye.

For a moment we stare at each other.

Who would think someone could get old in just a few short months? But it’s happened to my father. His hair graying like it is at the temples. Wrinkles that make him look sad, even if he smiles. He just seems brittle somehow. We all are, I know.

Then I see it. Past the age. Past the gray and sadness. I see him—

Zach, my older brother,

hidden in my

daddy’s face.

“London, come with
me.”

That long-ago night, my eyes popped open. Zach stood over me, in his pajamas. His hair was all messed up from being asleep. He was right in my face, so close I clapped a hand over my nose to keep from smelling his breath.

He laid a finger on my hand like he was silencing me. “Come on. You have to be quiet.”

I got out of bed, clutching Mandy, my little one-eyed doll.

The wooden floor was cold.

“Guess what I found?”

“What?” My voice came out low and full of gravel.

“Shh!”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re going to like this. You will.” He took my hand in his.

We went down the hall to Mom and Daddy’s room. The door was open just a bit.

Everything was gray. Even Zach. But the hall night-light was a yellow blob with shadows spreading away. It scared me, seeing it like that, but I didn’t tell Zach.

“They’re sleeping in there. So really shush now.”

“Okay.”