For This Life Only (22 page)

“I told him he could drop me off here,” I said as I held my hands against the heater vents to warm them, repeating the lie I'd given her on the phone. My coat, zipped all the way up to cover my shirt, was frosty with cold in the wet places that had started to freeze. “He had to get back to practice. They're doing strength training in the gym this week, I guess.”

Pained sympathy flashed across my mom's face, and I felt like an even bigger jerk. “I'm sorry, I know you must miss it,” she said.

“Yeah,” was all I could say. Because I wasn't sure if I did, at least not in the way she meant. What I think I actually missed most was the certainty it gave me, of knowing my place in the world. Without it and without Eli—or at least the Eli I thought I knew—I was adrift.

“But you should have gone into the church, at least,” Mom said with a frown. “Waited inside where it was warm.”

I noticed that she wasn't asking why I hadn't walked
the additional block or so to ask my dad for a ride home, though he was probably at the office. “Didn't feel like dealing with people and all the questions.”

To my surprise, Mom simply nodded in understanding instead of lecturing me about my responsibilities or maintaining a good face—even when my literal one was in bad shape. And that was it.

I should have been relieved that she was letting me off the hook that easily, but I couldn't get my brain to shut off. Thera. Eli. Riverwoods. Everyone lying. The hurt look on Thera's face and the resolute line of her mouth when I'd walked out.

A few minutes later, as Mom turned into our neighborhood, with the houses all lit up and welcoming in the dim light of early evening, I couldn't keep from asking the question.

“Is the city trying to take Psychic Mary's house to give to us? The church, I mean.”

My mother frowned. “That's not exactly right. I think the city wants to claim it and tear it down to use the land for public improvements.”

“Like expanding the road or parking,” I said, recalling what Thera had said. Leah's dad and the rest of the council must have been giddy with their victory over the devil worshippers. But what about my dad? Was he on board with this plan?

“That's one possibility,” she said. “Where did you hear about all of this?”

“Someone from school.” Technically, Thera was someone from school, even if she hadn't told me about it
at
school. “So it is happening.”

If my mom knew about it, my dad obviously did too. That made me feel a little queasy. Something about the whole “taking someone's house by force” thing seemed wrong. And yet, what did I know about it? These were my parents; I had a hard time imagining they'd be okay with something shady. My dad had a severe allergy to that, generally speaking, if only because someone might find out about it and he'd lose face.

“It's been discussed,” my mom allowed. “I don't know where they are in the process. The congregation hasn't been informed yet, as far as I know. Why are you even thinking about this?”

I ignored her question, having no truthful answer to give, but hesitated before asking mine. “Was Eli . . . Did Eli know about it?”

As always, she flinched slightly when I mentioned his name, as if the letters themselves had sharp edges when arranged in that particular order. “I don't know. I suppose he probably did.”

My gut felt hollowed out. I didn't know what to believe about anything or anyone anymore.

“What is this all about?” my mom asked. “Is this about that girl? Thera, you said her name was?” Her hands tightened on the wheel. “Jacob, if you're thinking about going over there again—”

“Never mind. It doesn't matter. Some of Eli's debate team friends were talking at school. I was just curious.”

She opened her mouth but closed it again without saying anything as she pulled into the driveway.

Once we were inside, I headed immediately for the stairs to go to my room.

“Dad's at the hospital tonight, sitting with Mr. Thompson, so we're on our own for dinner,” Mom said, in a forced cheery tone. “What would you guys like?”

I froze on the third step.

“Daddy's not coming home?” Sarah asked in a small voice.

“Mr. Thompson is being called home to the—” My mom stopped herself.

To the Lord.
That's how that sentence would normally go, but with Sarah struggling with the literal and metaphorical as it related to God, Mom was being careful.

“Mr. Thompson is very sick, and Daddy is sitting and praying with him,” Mom said instead. “That's Daddy's job, remember?”

My dad often went to the hospitals and nursing homes to sit with sick and dying parishioners or their family members,
but he almost always made it home for dinner. Mom would just shift the time to accommodate when he could fit us in. Why not tonight?

“Daddy may end up having to spend the night at the hospital,” Mom added in a carefully neutral tone. “He doesn't know for sure yet.”

Oh, shit.
I turned on the stairs to be able to see my mom in the kitchen. “Dad's not coming home at all?” I asked, incredulous. That had never happened.

“Is Daddy okay?” Sarah asked, her gaze bouncing between us and her eyes welling up.

Mom glared at me. “Sweetie, he's fine. He's just working. Remember what Dr. Monroe said today? Just because you can't see someone doesn't mean something bad has happened to them. Daddy said he'll call you tonight on my phone. You'll be able to use the video chat.”

Sarah perked up immediately, tears seemingly forgotten. “Really?”

“Mom—” I began.

“Not now, Jacob,” she said almost under her breath. “Sarah, I think you've got a
My Little Pony
episode saved on the DVR. Maybe Jace will watch it with you while I figure out dinner?” She beamed a “you'd better, if you know what's good for you” look at me.

“But I need to change and . . .”
Be alone for a while. Try to understand what happened today.

Sarah, in the meantime, had begun bouncing from foot to foot, her pink coat making a swishing sound with her eager movements. “Yes, Jace, let's watch! Come on!”

She looked so excited and so not the worried shadow of herself she'd been. How could I say no and crush that?

•  •  •

I was allowed a brief reprieve to change my clothes—which was good because my shirt was a bloody mess—but that was all.

It wasn't until after two episodes and dinner, when Sarah and my mom were finally settled on the couch together, that I could escape upstairs for good.

At the top of the steps, though, instead of heading toward my room, I turned toward Eli's.

Curiosity mixed with doubt flickered in me. If Thera was right, if Eli had been helping her, there would probably be proof of it somewhere in his room.

And I needed to know. Not just whether Thera was telling the truth, but whether Eli was who I thought he'd been.

I could hear the quiet murmur of the TV and the dull roar of laughter from a studio audience. I hoped that would keep Mom and Sarah occupied for a while. If they came upstairs and caught me, I'd have to lie about what I was doing, and I didn't want to have to do that, not with this.

I paused at Eli's door. Stickers from a Relient K concert
and the leadership conference he'd attended last summer were taped to the white panels, where they could be easily removed without damage, per my dad's rules. The edges of the stickers, where he hadn't secured them, moved with my breath. Going inside felt like crossing a threshold in more than the physical sense.

I twisted the handle and eased the door open.

A puff of stale air greeted me, along with a solid darkness inside, which was somehow unnerving. I could see nothing of the room, other than a foot or two of uninteresting beige carpeting caught by the hallway light.

I made myself move forward and fumbled for the light switch. The lamp on his bedside table flared to life.

Everything in here was exactly as I remembered, but with that faint air of disuse. Eli's bed was made, but in a hasty and rumpled way that suggested he'd done it himself before leaving that last day. His laptop sat on the desk, squared off with the edge of it, the cool green “charged” light glowing from the side. The complete Harry Potter series, along with Eli's Patrick Rothfuss and Robert Jordan novels, were on the shelves of his bookcase, beneath the row of debate team trophies and medals, and his textbooks were stacked on the floor by his desk, with the color-coordinated folders and notebooks interspersed. By subject, no doubt.

The punishing ache of missing him struck suddenly and so hard, it felt like it would never let up.

I missed my brother, my twin. And he wasn't coming back. I would never see him again. Sometimes that idea seemed so impossible.

I stepped farther into the room and closed the door quietly behind me. A name badge (“Elijah Palmer, Riverwoods Bible Church”) on a thin lanyard, hanging on the back of the door, clacked softly against the white faux wood. It was a room full of all the pieces that made up my brother, but they were not Eli, just souvenirs that pointed to a place that no longer existed.

A clear plastic dry-cleaning bag rested in the center of his bed. In it, a piece of clothing was folded neatly, the plastic pulled tightly against the surface.

The words on the front had been almost obliterated by a deep brown stain and a smooth slash up the center, the edges of fabric curling away from the cut, but I recognized them.

BIG TALK, BIG WALK.

My mom had brought Eli's debate team sweatshirt back to him.

Stupidly, even though it was my blood all over the front of it and not Eli's, I half wanted to tear into the plastic covering to touch the sweatshirt, as if it might transport me to him or that last night so that I could save him.

I sank onto the edge of the bed and listened to the springs groan, a familiar sound from when we'd shared
a room a long time ago or when I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear him shifting on his bed across the hall.

Forcing my attention back to his room, I tried to figure out where to start. I didn't know what I was looking for, only that it was probably hidden.

His laptop seemed as good a place as any to begin.

After flipping the screen up, I hit the power button, and as I waited, I sat in his chair and searched his desk drawers.

They contained absolutely nothing unexpected. A few pictures of Leah and him. Some stray scripture/prayer cards that someone had given him. In the deeper drawers, he'd meticulously filed old papers, speeches, and assorted “important” documents.

I flipped through them quickly, but the contents in each file seemed to match the printed label on the tab. His “important” documents were mostly college brochures with his notes on applying for financial aid as well as what appeared to be a running list of his accomplishments.

None of that surprised me.

Once Eli's laptop was up and humming, I went straight to his browser history.

But his searches were all mundane, boring. Along with obvious debate topics (right to die, the ethics of corporate donations to political campaigns, abortion), he'd been researching colleges, competing debate teams, local
restaurants, movie times, and various scripture and theology sites.

The only semi-strange thing was a bunch of searches on something called sunshine laws, which seemed to be about access to local government meetings and freedom of information.

That could have been about Thera's house. But it also might have been research for a debate or a paper. With Eli, it was hard to know.

It wasn't enough.

I opened his email to be sure, but at a quick glance, his sent box contained nothing controversial. Homework, student council agendas, emails to Leah.

A quick search of his files didn't show anything out of the ordinary, but Eli was so detailed—every folder had subfolders—that it would take me years to get through everything. When I ran a search for documents modified the week before the accident, though, nothing came up.

I sighed and swiveled in his chair to stare out at his room. I didn't really know what I was looking for, and there were too many possible places to check, assuming there was something to find at all.

The battered Bible on his nightstand, shining in the light from the lamp, caught my eye. It was the same as the one I'd received in third grade, a gold cover covering tissue-paper-thin pages.

If Eli was keeping a secret, odds were he felt conflicted about it. And if it was important, he might want it near him, like the Bible.

I walked to the nightstand and scooped up his Bible. It fell open easily in my hands, multiple verses underlined on every page I could see, with Eli's neat handwriting in the margins. In Mark, after Jesus heals the blind man who initially describes people as walking trees: “Why trees? Ref to tree of knowledge or life?” In Luke, near the story about the woman with the bleeding illness: “Faith comes first. Then healing. Same pattern.”

He'd stuck a photo of Leah in the pages, to keep it safe or maybe as a bookmark. I could see the top of her head and her eyes. When I flipped to that page—Matthew 10, with verse 37 highlighted: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more is not worthy of me”—the rest of her face was revealed, softer and happier than I'd ever seen it. Eli had obviously been the one to take the photo.

The lump in my throat grew. I'd destroyed that, too. Not only him, but the two of them.

It was so strange to think of him lying here at night, right here, looking at Leah's picture and reading verses, only a few months ago. It felt like there should be a way to reach back, like that segment of time should still be close
enough to touch, to warn him not to answer my call.

He'd been sitting right here on the edge of the bed when I came to bug him about taking the car. If I'd just stayed in . . .