Watch How We Walk (22 page)

34

EMILY CAN HARDLY MOVE
IN
her own house. The rooms overflow with elders, Ministerial Servants, their wives, and other brothers and sisters from the Hall. They perch on the living room sofa, cluster around the kitchen table, huddle in groups of three or four in corners, while another van load pulls into the driveway. It's as crowded as a party, but the atmosphere — the reason everyone is here — is the opposite.

Someone has taped the service map to the wall and they're organizing who will take each area for the search, like they do on Sundays before going out door to door. Emily weaves through the fray, wondering where her parents are. No one looks at her, just at each other, and then they shake their heads when they think no one is watching. Emily feels something on her shoulder and she jumps. Sister Bulchinsky pulls her hand back and looks away. On the far side of the living room, flanked by two sentinel-like elders' wives, sits her mom with her hands over her face, crying.

These must be the Last Days. Emily can feel the panic in the room as it erupts into goosebumps on her arms and scalp. She shivers. She is afraid to move, lest her tiny action trigger further catastrophe, so she stands rigid in the middle of the room as adults drift past her. Everyone's murmurs meld together into the sound of wind keening at the windows. She holds her breath and the room blurs. She tries to conjure up Lenora's face, Lenora's laugh; she needs Lenora's strength today more than ever, but her mind is fogged.

Then Emily falls to the carpet, into a black hole, and everyone surges into the space she left behind. Someone picks her up and sets her on the couch and gives her a glass of water. Still, she won't open her eyes. Not until she can will everything to return to normal.

Please Jehovah God, make Lenora come home. Please don't let her get in too much trouble. Please forgive Lenora for running away.

Lenora has been missing for three days.

The congregation, a tidal wave of search-and-rescue, has taken over their home. Emily knows she cannot just chew her hangnails and eavesdrop anymore; she has been swept up into this tsunami and must save her sister. She is the only one.

Please Jehovah, let me be the one to find Lenora and bring her back home. It has to be me. I know that you understand this. Please God, this is very important.

The phone rings while her mother sobs amid the elders' hushed tones and surreptitious glances. Emily's father answers, tells whomever it is that no, there is no news, and he must keep the line clear.

Emily has to get out. She wishes she'd thought of it earlier, before their house had so quickly filled with all these brothers and sisters. She knows what to do.

Thank you Jehovah God, and forgive all my sins. And Lenora's too, especially Lenora's. She doesn't mean it, I promise. In Jesus' name, Amen.

It's weird to have everyone in their house — in the kitchen, the bathroom, sipping from their mugs, looking at their things. Someone is bound to find something else wrong with their family.

With the group's attention on her parents, Emily darts upstairs, grabs a handful of change from her piggy bank, and slips out the back door.

She walks quickly down the road, almost running, shoulders hunched, hoping that no passing carload of fellow Jehovah's Witnesses recognizes her. She clutches a tiny piece of folded paper in her pocket.

It takes Emily about fifteen minutes to reach the payphone outside of the truck stop on the highway, the same one she'd watched Lenora use the other night. She wishes she'd had time to find her mittens before she left.

Please God, Jehovah, please don't let them notice I'm gone. You know I'm just getting Lenora to come home. Please don't let them worry any more. Please make this work.

She takes a deep breath and unfolds the paper, chanting,
Please let me find my sister. Please let me find my sister. If I can make Lenora come home, I promise I will always pay attention during every single meeting, even the assemblies. I won't fidget anymore or daydream during sermons. Please just let me find my sister. And make her not be mad at me. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Emily's hand no longer aches beneath her cast, and it's due to come off in a week. Still, it takes her a little longer to do things with her hands, and her awkwardness frustrates her. She rallies what shreds of patience she has left and unfolds the page torn from the H section of the phone book, picks up the phone, drops in her coins, and dials the number for Lenora's secret, worldly boyfriend.

The phone rings four times.

— Hello?

— May I please speak to Theo?

— You got the wrong Hansen. Try P. Hansen in the phonebook.

Emily thanks him and digs in her pocket, hoping she's brought enough change. She hadn't planned for wrong numbers, but there are three Hansens on the same street. She dials P. Hansen's number and again asks for Theo.

— Yeah. That's me. Who the hell's this?

— This is Emily Morrow. She pauses, cringing.

— So?

— I'm Lenora's sister.

— Like I said, so what?

There is laughter in the background, shrill like a banshee. Emily doesn't know if it is the television or a real person, but it is definitely not her sister. Lenora's laugh is deep and full and sophisticated.

— Well . . .

— Spit it out, kid. What do you want?

Emily rushes, spits it all out as fast as she can, before he laughs at her or hangs up or both.

— I'm trying to find Lenora. Is she there? I'm not at home, I'm calling from a payphone, and I promise I won't tell, she won't get in trouble, I just need to know if she's there, and I need to talk to her for a second. I'll be really quick. It's important. It's an emergency.

Theo laughs, but he doesn't hang up. Not immediately.

— Listen, kid. Your sister and me aren't going out anymore. I don't know where the hell she is, and I don't give a damn. So you and your freak family can fuck off and leave me alone.

The dial tone hums indifferently in her ear.

Emily stares at the numbers on the telephone for a long time. Her hands are numb and she drags her coat sleeve across her nose.

— I'm not crying, I'm not crying, I'm not crying.

This wasn't what was supposed to happen. This is what being punched in the stomach must feel like; this is what people must mean when they say,
I got the wind knocked out of me.
Emily lets the receiver dangle in the phone booth and puts her hands on her knees and leans over, breathing like someone who has been running for hours.

A few cars zip past the truck stop, and Emily starts to breathe normally again, though she feels like she has just woken up and doesn't know where she is. The incessant recording tells her to
please hang up and try your call again.
Emily shakes her head, hangs up the phone, and stuffs the page from the directory back into her pocket and, having no other great plan to find her sister, starts toward home.

When she gets back, another couple of elders — Brother Maxwell and Brother Bouchard — are just coming up to the back porch, so she stashes her coat there and enters the house with them, as though she is letting them in. Her absence appears to have gone unnoticed.

She pushes through all the men in the living room, past Brother Wilde pointing at the map with his pen, past the brothers pulling on their coats and getting ready to leave. She heads into the kitchen, where a clump of elders' wives cluck and sigh and shrug.

— Well, you know what I heard, don't you?

Sister Bulchinsky purses her lips, narrows her eyes, and glances sideways at the sister standing closest to her.

— She was running with a worldly crowd, those freaky kids with the spiky hair and safety pins.

— Bad associations spoil useful habits. Amen.

Someone nudges Sister Bulchinsky and they stop talking and look at Emily, their eyes glassy, their heads tilted in pity.

Stupid gossips
, Emily thinks. They don't even care about Lenora, not really; they're only here so they don't miss anything. Emily glares at each of them in turn. Sister Bulchinsky puts an arm around her and coos softly.

— There, there, let's pray together and ask Jehovah—

Emily pulls away as though burned.

— Don't touch me!

Her voice bounces off the fridge and stove and back toward her and it's far louder than she meant it to be. She tries to walk away, but the kitchen is thick with grasping women and sniffling toddlers and she is surrounded; they all move as one, and she cannot escape the throng. They all stare at her.

— Get out of my house! I hate you, I hate all of you!

Like pillars of salt, they fall silent and unmoving, and Emily hears an echo of herself, someone unfamiliar and horrible.

— Get out get out get out!

Emily stops in the middle of the kitchen, looks down at the green and yellow linoleum, closes her eyes, and tries to pray silently to Jehovah. She wants to ask to be forgiven for hating her fellow sisters; hatred is a sin. But this time, praying doesn't work. She cannot force the words out. She pretends to pray, but it doesn't calm her down or make her believe that everything will be okay.

— Oh, you poor lamb. Sister Bulchinsky clucks and sing-songs.

— Everything will turn out fine in the end. Are you hungry? I left a tuna casserole in the fridge. Do you want some?

Emily fights back the urge to scream or, better yet, throw all the dishes and cutlery — including the knives — at their heads. She doesn't need their pity. They don't understand Lenora, her beautiful and complicated sister, no one does. Except maybe Emily. At least, a little bit.

— I hate tuna. She glowers over her shoulder and leaves the kitchen.

In the living room, her dad has his arm around her mom, something Emily has rarely seen. The others organize who is driving where to look for Lenora. Some are going as far as King Street in the city, where all the record stores are. It doesn't seem as though anyone heard her outburst in the kitchen, or if they have, they don't say.

— Excuse me, Brother Wilde. Emily taps him on the elbow and he starts, as though he hadn't noticed her before. He looks at her, then at her parents, then back down to Emily.

— Yes?

— Which car will I be going in?

— What do you mean, Emily?

— Who am I going with to find Lenora?

His arm flops down to his side and he looks back toward her parents.

— You're going to stay here, Emily. Her mom looks up at her from the couch.

— But why? I have to go! I'll find her! Emily squeezes her eyes tight, trying not to shout. She had truly believed that Lenora was just at Theo's, and that he would tell her the truth, that they would be co-conspirators, together, for Lenora.

She has to make up for that mistake.

Her mom takes her hand and pulls her into the bathroom. She puts the seat and lid down on the toilet and sits. She pulls Emily onto her lap, and even though she is too old for that, Emily slumps against her.

— We're going to stay here in case Lenora, or someone with information, phones. We need to maintain a home base, okay? It's the most crucial job of all.

Emily doesn't believe her but knows enough not to fight. She is tired of being told to stay home, to keep out of the way, to be quiet. She knows her sister best, so surely she should be the one to find her. But does anyone ask her to help? No. And so she must find Lenora herself. That will show them.

Twenty minutes later the house is empty except for the two of them. The cushions are dented and askew, mugs sit half empty on the coffee table, there's a pool of slush by the back door, and someone has dropped a black woollen scarf on the floor. When her mom goes into the bathroom and shuts the door, Emily knows exactly what she must do.

She slips silently to the back door again, pulls on her boots, and gets her coat and hat from the porch, as well as the emergency flashlight they keep out there. This time she remembers her mittens. She puts them on as she runs across the back field toward the woods.

The snow slows her down — it's slippery and she falls once, bashing her knee against a rock, but scrambles up quickly, ignoring the pain. She knows her mom might see her from the kitchen, so she runs full speed and hopes she doesn't look out the window. Once in the trees, she knows no one can see her.

Emily has no plan. She thought she'd find Lenora because that's how it should be — she deserves to be the one to find her. Now she has no idea how to do that. She decided on the woods out back because that's where Lenora goes on long walks. And besides, no one else thought to look out there. She doesn't know which path through the trees to follow first. The wind hisses through her coat, and so she decides to start walking in the same direction as the wind.

Emily pulls her hood over her toque to shield her eyes from the late afternoon sun glaring off the snow, and thrusts her hands deep into her pockets. She walks for half an hour, finds nothing indicating that Lenora was recently there, finds nothing at all, but isn't ready to give up. She yawns and slaps at her cheeks.