While You Were Gone (4 page)

I peer through the windshield, my fingers digging into the seat as memories play out like a movie in my head. I'm eleven years old. It's night and we're driving home on the 101. I'm in the backseat, my stomach full of spaghetti and soda, and I'm watching streetlights tick past. Each one flashes a sliver of light across the dashboard, the seats, my legs. The car zooms around the big curve at Pima, pressing me into my seat belt. I can just make out the dark edge of the McDowell Mountains. I touch one finger to the window and block out a star. The road straightens and the streetlights blur. There's a jolt. A bang. A squeal. Then the wall and a heaving crush of metal.

The last time I was in a car with my parents, we crashed.

They died.

Dad catches me looking at him in the rearview mirror. I can't take my eyes off him.

A car cuts us off. He pounds the horn. I brace myself against Mom's headrest and double-check that my seat belt's clicked.

“Parker, please.” Mom's hand grips the dash, but her voice stays calm. “Take it easy.”

“Guy almost clipped us.”

“We aren't in a hurry.”

He catches a break in the traffic and speeds us over to the far lane, where things are moving. I look out the side window and try to breathe.

“Slow down,” Mom says. “I think he's getting carsick.”

Dad looks at me again and the car slows. A little. “What were you doing at the mall?” he asks.

“Parker.”

“We have a right to know.”

Mom points at the dash. Dad shakes his head. “Fine. We'll talk later.”

Traffic backs up, then stops altogether. Up ahead, barricades merge all the lanes down to one. “What's going on?” I ask.

“Checkpoint,” Dad says.

“For what?”

Mom gives me a look. Dad doesn't answer. We creep along, letting some cars in, keeping others out, until finally it's our turn. Soldiers with semiautomatics slung over their shoulders guard the road. One carries a long-handled mirror. Another holds the leash of a mean-looking dog. A third leans into Dad's window while the other two walk slowly around the car.

“Identification.”

Dad hands over his ID. The soldier swipes it through a scanner. “Parker Ogden?”

“Yes.”

The guard leans in. “Rebecca Ogden?”

Mom nods.

“Need a verbal reply, ma'am.”

“Yes.” Mom's voice cracks.

Then it's my turn. “Daniel?”

“Yeah.”

“What is your destination, Mr. Ogden?”

“Home.”

“Confirm your address.”

“Thirty-seven twenty-seven Del Mar.”

The soldier gives each of us a once-over. His eyes are hard, like he's seen some bad stuff go down. When he looks at me, I don't flinch. I've seen a lot of bad stuff, too. The guard with the dog passes behind him and says, “All clear.”

The soldier hands Dad his ID card and waves us forward with two fingers.

“Out in force,” Dad mutters as he rolls his window back up. The car accelerates and he merges back into traffic.

“What did you expect?” Mom turns a little in her seat. “Doing okay back there?”

No, I'm not okay. I'm in a car with my dead parents. They just picked me up from a bombed-out disaster. There are checkpoints guarded by soldiers with guns. I'm in the freaking twilight zone.

The road rises. A blazing orange sunset fills the horizon and glitters across the ocean. I grab Mom's headrest and lean forward. Docked boats bob in a harbor. Farther on, a seawall sticks out into the water. At the end stands a lighthouse. We're in
California
? The freeway turns and I crane my neck to watch the water disappear behind us. High-rises take over the skyline again. Neon signs and flashy billboards advertise Phoenix businesses. Pest control. Boat rentals. Seaside property.

Not California. But definitely not the Phoenix I know.

Dad turns the car onto a street lined with trees and pulls into the driveway of the fourth house on the right. It's blue, with a grassy front yard. A boat sits on a trailer to the side of the garage.

I've never seen the place before. It makes the foster home look even worse than the dump it is. Was? I don't even know.

Dad pulls the key from the ignition and the dome light clicks on. He exhales and lets his head fall forward. Mom reaches over and touches his arm.

His hair is thinner than I remember. His eyes more tired. He pats Mom's hand before going around to help her out.

Mom's even more different than Dad. She uses her cane to push herself out of the seat, her other hand holding on to Dad's. What happened to her? I remember her running alongside me when I learned to ride a bike and dancing with Dad in the kitchen. She was never like this.

I close the car door for her. She taps the necklace around my neck. “Told you it would protect you.” We both look at the iridescent square hanging from the leather cord. Her eyes are the same. And her smile. She reaches for my forehead, but she holds back. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah.” I wince, hoping she doesn't touch the bruise.

I watch them walk toward the house. Someone's gonna jump out of the bushes with a camera and tell me none of this is real, right? That it's all a joke and I'm still a loser orphan in a crummy foster home.
Look how we fooled you. Made you hope. Ha.

But no one jumps out. There is no camera.

Mom turns on the living room light and goes into the kitchen. Dad walks halfway across the room and stops, his hands on his hips. Along the walls are pictures of the three of us, and some of just me, all of them taken in places I don't recognize, doing things I don't remember. Rafting down a river. Standing like a superhero on top of a tree stump. Chasing birds on a beach. Asleep in the backseat with my head against the window.

It's like a completely different life.

A completely different me.

I put my hand on the wall as the realization hits.

It
is
another me. But how?

“Are you going to tell me what you were doing there?” Dad crosses his arms.

I have no idea what to say. I don't even know where “there” was.

“We thought you were on your way to school,” he says. Mom joins him at the doorway. “I think we at least deserve an explanation.”

“I…” My brain scrambles for something to tell them. All I come up with is, “Everything's kind of a blur.”

“It's one thing to hear the emergency announcement. But when the phone rings and they say your son is hurt?” He shakes his head. “You were supposed to be with Germ, going to school. Not at a parade on the other side of town.”

Germ? Parade?

“Were you painting?” Mom asks. “Tagging? Or whatever you call it?”

“You promised you'd be careful.” Dad runs a hand over his face. “You know every inch of that place had to be covered by Spectrum.”

“Spectrum?”

“I know,” he says, holding up his hands. “Don't start. But I'm not the one in the hot seat this time. You are. So whenever you're ready to tell us why you lied, we're all ears.”

I cross my arms but that doesn't feel right, so I stuff my hands into my pockets. Brent never asks me to explain. He just beats the crap out of me until I swear I'll never do anything ever again. Not even breathe, if that's what he wants. Whatever it takes to make him stop pounding on me. I wish I knew what to say here, but I have no clue why he—
I
—wasn't at school. I don't know squat. I look again at the kid grinning in the photos. Who is this other me and what am I doing here instead of him?

My parents—
my not-dead parents
—stand there, waiting for something I can't give. It's too much. The walls feel like they're closing in. I don't know what else to do but push past them and run down the hall, away.

Once I find his room, I close the door and fall onto my knees, dizzy. Bury my head in my hands and try to breathe.

This can't be real. It isn't possible. You don't just get sucked through darkness to a different world. That kind of thing only happens in science fiction movies.