1
Lost
My little sister, Aubrey, is not like other nine-year-olds. Don’t get me wrong, she normal. She likes to wear our mother’s jewelry, screams when Justin Bieber’s on TV and watches the Disney Channel too. But the kid can throw a punch.
She pummeled a 6th grader once, right before I picked her up from the bus stop. She was out of breath and wincing as she shook her right hand. The image that stands out the most is how crooked her pigtails were. In fact, one was completely unraveled, but then I saw the other guy. And it actually was a guy, who was hunched over and clutching his face. He had snatched a soda can away from one of Aubrey’s friends. It was her third fight that week, and we had only been living in Wynn for about month at the time. Six months later, she was still beating up other kids: boys too afraid to hit a girl and girls who never told a chance.
Aubs always has an excuse for why she needs to resort to violence, too. She claims it’s usually in the defense of others, but I know better. She’s angry about the divorce, really angry, but she doesn’t really grasp adult behaviors and relationships yet. She doesn’t understand yet that it’s easy to be a pass as a decent father, but a terrible husband. Our dad is a jerk and a raging alcoholic. One time he even struck our mom across the face. He said he was trying to get her to move away from him, and that it was accident, but I saw different. No one, including my own mother, can convince me that my five-year-old brain fabricated the details of that night. Aubrey wasn’t born yet, and we haven’t ever told her.
But somehow he always managed to hold it together enough to tuck Aubrey in at night. Every night, until our parents separated. Now, he rarely calls. She only hears from him on or near major days: birthdays and Christmas. And when he does, it’s only because I’ve reminded him. But she doesn’t know that, and she’s still holding on the person she remembers.
Aubrey is also really angry that we already have a step-dad. His name is Sam, and he was one of the paralegals at the office where my mom works as a receptionist. He was really the push she needed to get the divorce, and after dating for a few months, they got married. She never even told us how serious it had gotten until the day she drove us to the courthouse. Sam is a good guy, and we’re a lot alike. I think he saw my mother as somebody he wanted to save, and as long as my mom stays that way, they will be happy together. But he is not our father, and Aubrey is resentful.
Then, I spent a month and a half’s salary from Señor Sausages Hot Dogs on a camera and introduced her to photography. Now these are the only shots she wants to take.
Any Saturday that I don’t have to work, as soon as she hears the slightest creak from my room, she bounds in and asks where I’m taking her. And when I see that camera dangling around her neck, no matter how tired I am from work the night before, I say,
“Anywhere you want to go, Aubs.”
And the weekend before her tenth birthday is no different. At a little after nine, Aubrey pushes open the door to my room and collapses inside as she tripped over her untied shoelace. I lift my head from my pillow to make sure she hasn’t hurt herself, but she is smiling from behind the veil of hair hanging in her face. The strip of pink, colored in with a highlighter, is gone from her hair. One less thing for our mom to start going gray over.
Standing, Aubrey examines her camera. It survived the fall, too. Lucky for her. Though I love seeing her happy, she is wearing some of my community college tuition. She begins to plead her case.
“I know it’s far, Jackson, but there’s a fair in…” she says. She pulls a crushed brochure from her pocket and reads it quietly. “…Brock County, in a town called Calvert and it would be really cool if I could take pictures there. Think about all the people…and the animals…and everything. Stuff around here is cool, but I’m tired of taking pictures of Able and his friends skateboarding, and Leslie and her friends always want me to take pictures of them because they think they’re models. And Mrs. Freeman says I can even show the class my work. Then, I can help her think up a class project using my photos.” She is breathless by the time she concludes.
Mrs. Freeman is one of the few teachers who sees beyond Aubrey’s bad grades and her “problem child” façade and has really taken an interest in my sister’s well-being.
“Please, Jack?” She claps her hands together in a begging motion as I swing my legs to the floor. After a yawn, I nod, and her face brightens. She skips out my room, and I hear the thuds of her footsteps as she bolts down the stairs. My mother’s distant voice reprimands her, and the footsteps intentionally get louder. Then, the front door slams.
I really don’t want to go to Brock County because it is almost three hours away, especially since I am looking forward to spending time with my friends tonight, and I know that I will be exhausted from the drive. It is my best friend Ed’s eighteenth birthday, and even though we are just going to sit around and drink at his house, (Wynn doesn’t have anything resembling a social scene) my ex-girlfriend, Ashlan, is going to be there. Ashlan and I have only been broken up for two weeks, but her friends insist that she is still into me. It was just that she was starting to feel neglected. I tried my best not to roll my eyes when they told me. Ash is paid attention to by everyone she knows. Still, I really like her and want to try to work things out.
I stretch and reach for my glasses because it is too early for contact lenses. I stick the lens case into my pocket for later. I pivot and make a face, becoming disgusted with the state of my room. There are clothes and Señor Sausage wrappers everywhere. All week I have slept in the small space carved out on my bed, next to a mountain of recently laundered clothing. I have worked long hours for the past few weeks trying to recoup all the money I’ve spent while trying to stop Aubrey from becoming a delinquent. There is never enough time in the day to get everything done.
I also work a lot to make up the lost income from Sam because he has only been working part-time while he prepares for the Bar Exam so that he can become a lawyer. My mother is making less than she did before we moved. She’s convinced that Sam will become a hotshot lawyer overnight, and all our problems will be solved. Until then, the creditors call.
As I search for my towel, my cell phone rings, and Aubrey’s number flashes on the screen. Before answering, I walk to the window and spy her sitting in the grass.
“How much longer are you going to take?” she asks. “I don’t want to come back in the house. Mom is being such a---”
“You’re not allowed to call her that, Aubs,” I interrupt.
“Even if she’s being one?” she asks through clenched teeth. She rips a tuft of grass from the lawn and tosses it to the side.
“Not cool. She loves you, and you really have to start being nicer to her or no more of these trips, Aubs. I mean it,” I say sternly. She sighs and gets quiet, and I realized that she has ended the call.
Soon I’m dressed in my normal weekend attire, black t-shirt, jeans and black Nikes with bright blue check marks, and down the stairs, telling my mother that we’re going to the Brock County Fair for the day. She turns away from the stove and wipes the sweat from her brow with her forearm. Relief flares in her face, but guilt quickly replaces it. She bites her upper lip. Without her saying it, I know she’s glad to have Aubrey out of the house. I don’t think she loves me more, but I think she prefers me because I am more independent than Aubrey. She needs saving, so she can’t have someone who needs her the way Aubrey does. My mother is the kind of woman who learned to hide any negative emotion with red lipstick and a smile. She told me once that no one can see the tears in your eyes when they’re staring at your mouth.
“Girls have it lucky that way, Jackson,” she said once. So when I see her all made-up before ten o’clock I know that there’s more going on than just Aubrey barreling down the staircase.
She wipes her hands on the front of her dress and beckons me closer. I do, and she hugs me, pressing her face against my chest. Her shoulders quiver as she sobs.
“Mom, Aubrey doesn’t mean it when she’s like that. Wynn is just so far from home.”
“You should probably be the one to tell her that Sam and I…are pregnant,” she says when she pulls away and leaves a smeared stripe of crimson on my shirt. Immediately, she’s back at the stove, sniffing intermittently. “Don’t go congratulating Sam yet. I want to wait until he’s done with the Bar Exam before I spring that on him.”
She doesn’t even realize that my jaw has hit my chest because doesn’t turn around again. I’m supposed to be the strong one. My mother always tells people, “Jackson can handle things. He’s a lot like his father…but just in that way.” I overheard her saying that to one her friends when she was on the phone. She said it when she sprung the marriage and the move on us, and most recently, when she confessed late last year (after I had already started applying) that there wasn’t enough money for me to go to college. Her excuse was that she had postponed saving until it was too late to start.
As my irritation heightens, I am glad that Aubrey hasn’t taken the lipstick route yet, and I rub the ruby stain from my shirt vigorously until it fades. She is humming an unknown song as I murmur “goodbye” and walk outside.
Aubrey is lying flat in the lawn, her eyes closed tight from the brightness as she rocks her head to whatever she’s listening to. As volatile as she is, she still listens to songs with catchy rifts from singers whose voices have been digitized so much that they sound like robots. I position myself so that I am blocking the sun, and she opens her eyes. I’m amazed sometimes by how much the kid looks like me. We’ve both got deep blue eyes that almost look like they’re glowing. We’re dirty-blonde and curly, though these days, I keep my hair a lot closer to my head than she does.
“Took you long enough,” she says loudly since she can’t hear herself, but she allows me to help her to her feet. I notice that the white noses of her Chuck Taylors. One has “fear” written in permanent marker. The other says “love.” Sneakers with dresses are her new thing, and she’s wearing a plain, black sleeveless one that hangs just below her knees. Black is also her new thing.
Pulling out one of her earphones, I say, “I was thinking we could use the map today,” even though I know that the GPS is in the center console of my Camry. I started the car. “We might see places along the way we want stop.”
“You don’t mind spending the whole day with me?” she asks removing the other earpiece and smiles. “And I’m sorry about what I said earlier.”
I take a map out of the glove compartment and unfolded it over the hood of the car and let her mark a thin route from our town to Calvert.
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to…and before you tell me that you didn’t actually say it to her face, you’ve said a lot of mean things to mom in general,” I lecture, sounding years beyond seventeen as we both get in the car. She slumps down in the passenger seat and puts her feet on the dash, but she leaves her headphones off.
Wynn is in the middle of rural-suburban hell. I say rural-suburban because while there aren’t many farms in the immediate vicinity, we’re hours outside of any major city, and Brock County is even worse. It’s almost completely rural, but it seems like they put a lot of effort into the County Fair to draw tourists from the surrounding areas. The organizers had even bought ad space in one of our local papers.
As I drive I reflect angrily on my mother’s revelation and ponder how I will tell my sister about the upcoming addition to our family. Aubrey’s reaction to the wedding involved running away from home. Granted, I found her a few blocks away from home sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, but for a few hours, things were definitely chaotic.
“Crazy suggestion, but there’s a two-week art camp in Florida at the end of July and if you’re interested, I want you to go. My boss is letting me pick up a few extra shifts because some people will be starting their summer internships soon, and I will have enough saved by the registration deadline,” I said. Even though I had been playing it as a surprise for her, after finding out my mom’s news, I feel compelled to tell her about the camp. I will be able to earn enough, but out of spite I will guilt our mother into putting up half. And I would tell Aubrey about the pregnancy when she got back. It was cowardly and I hated myself for it.
“They have photography stuff?” She lifts her head, shifting her eyes from the map spread across her lap to stare at me with curious eyes.
“Yeah. I only looked up ones that specialize in photography and decided the one in Florida was the best. It’s in Orlando.” I emphasize the last word for dramatic effect. Her shoulders straightened instantly and she stops fiddling with her iPod.
“Two weeks? In Orlando?”
“Last two weeks in July. And you still need mom’s permission. The cost includes meals and all the activities. There was something about an all-day visit to some place called Disney World.” I grin. At that moment, the seatbelt can barely restrain her, and she smiles the way she used to. Seeing her that happy almost makes me forget about the load my mother has burdened me with.
It’s a beautiful spring day, and only a few wisps of clouds interrupt the blue sky. It’s that shade of blue that sometimes blends with the ocean when you’re on the beach staring at the horizon. I’ve only been to the beach once, but that color is burned into my brain. As our surroundings change from houses to grazing land, Aubrey frequently asks if I can pull over so that she can snap a few pics.
The drive is traffic-free for most of the way, and when my passenger side navigator falls asleep, I plug my GPS in. After several attempts at recalculating my route, the GPS becomes completely disoriented when we reach Calvert around 1 p.m. and it is nothing like I expect. It’s surprising residential. I drive beneath a canopy of trees that casts shade over a strip of road, and I make a mental note to come back this way so that Aubrey can get a picture of it. I reach over and shake Aubrey her awake. Suddenly, the GPS loses its signal and our location.
“Thanks for getting us here safely, Magellan,” I say to her sarcastically. She stretches and looks around.
“Who’s Magellan?” she asks.
“He was an explorer.” After a left turn, I pull to the curb and wait for GPS to find us. The neighborhood reminds me a lot of my own except that it oddly quiet for a weekend afternoon on such a nice day. No children are out playing. No mothers strolling their babies. Not a single person is on the street.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Aubrey, brow scrunched, raises the map.
“I followed 80 to 203, then to 165 and took it until I hit 301,” I recalled. “Calvert was the first exit from 301.”
She traces her finger over the line she drew, and when she jerks her eyes up, there’s a puzzled expression on her face.
“Did I make a wrong turn somewhere? I turned the GPS on right when I got to 165 and I actually saw the sign for Calvert,” I explain. Then I wonder why I’m trying to convince my nine-year-old sister that I can follow directions.
“No, you’re right. We are in Calvert according to the map…” She released her seatbelt and stepped out of the car. “This doesn’t look like the picture. There should be cows and barns and sheep like, everywhere.”
“Get back in the car. We’ll drive down the road. I’m sure there’s a gas station nearby,” I hoped. She nods and gets in. Disappointment is overtaking her demeanor. I sigh knowing that soon, I’ll have a sulky tween to deal with. Her feet are back on the dash. She pulls a Sharpie marker from her bag, leans forward and writes “forever” with a sad face in the “o.”
“Cheer up! We’re already in Calvert, Aubs. The fair can’t be too far from here. Keep an eye out. If you see anyone, I don’t care who it is, even if it’s a little kid, we’ll ask for directions,” I say. The GPS still can’t find us and the screen has darkened significantly. It does this when the signal has been out for awhile.
I glance at the side view mirror before I drive away, but I already know that no other car is there. As we pass row after row of houses, I strain to listen for the sound of traffic, and I try to guess which street will take me to a main road. I shiver because the place is so still. It’s like one of those western towns in movies when the villain is on his way and everyone hides in there houses and a large tumbleweed blows across the dusty path.
“How come no one’s outside?” I ask out loud absently.
“Cause everyone’s at the fair,” Aubrey responds, and there’s irritation in her voice. I sign deeply.
“Try that one.” Aubrey points to a street called Chambers Avenue. There’s no strategy to her choice, just a blue house on the corner. I turn. Like the last street, every curtain is drawn. Aubrey sticks her cell phone out of the window and waves it around.
“I’m not getting a signal at all,” she announces. My gaze abruptly falls to the GPS screen. No signal either. I swallow my rising worry. Part of me wants to turn around and drive back to 301.
The road ends in a in a “T” and I slow to a stop, undecided about which way to go on a street called Madison Drive.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“Left,” she says it matter-of-factly. Like she knows. I turn. Thankfully, Madison runs into a main road, and we both cheer when we see a gas station in the distance. I have never been happier to see a sign for flammable liquid in my life. Aubrey starts to sing a nonsensical song about the fair. For her sake, I hope an attendant will be able to put us on the right track.
We pull into the Gas-and-Go and my stomach drops because there’s no attendant in the station. A “closed” sign hangs in the door of the convenience. Soon, I’m waving my own cell phone in the air. No signal and no internet connection. Even our mom would be concerned that she hadn’t heard from us by now.
The passenger side door opens and Aubrey stretches when she gets out.
“Need to find a bathroom,” she explains. We walk toward the back side of the store and find the unisex restroom door ajar. I stand guard since the door doesn’t lock. Not that anyone is actually around. When she comes out, Aubrey cups her hands around her eyes and presses her face against the convenience store window.
“I’m hungry, Jack. I didn’t eat breakfast ‘cause I wanted to make sure I had room for funnel cake at the fair,” she says, frowning.
“We can get food. Something small. Hold out for the funnel cake. My treat.” I pull her away from the window and smile at her. “I’m getting you to that fair, Aubs. It’s only quarter to two.”
“I just want something, anything, to eat.”
“We’ll get food, and you will eat at the fair. Promise,” I say firmly and hold up my palm as an affirmation. She shrugs. As we walk back to the front of the building, I notice that she has added “friendship” to her shoes. Her nails have been colored black sloppily. The Sharpie is still in her hand. I shake my head and think at least it’s not her hair or her face.
There are sneakers near the back tires and for a moment, I think I must’ve rolled over them when we entered the gas station. But then they move.
I yank Aubrey more forcefully than I intend and throw her behind me. She starts to protest, but I swing around and press my hand over her mouth with one hand and point with the other. Her eyes grow wide when she sees the shoes, too.
“Go back to bathroom and keep trying to get a signal,” I order in a whisper.
“No,” she whispers back. Not an ounce of fear in her eyes.
“Go, Aubrey.” I point. “If I don’t come back there in five minutes, run and scream as loudly as you can.” I spin her around and give her a little shove, and she goes. I hope the shove impressed the gravity of the situation. This person could be trying to rob us…or worse. We were in a strange town without any means of communication with anyone we knew, especially since I have no idea where the heck we are.
I look around, and the streets are still oddly empty. My heart pounds as I position one of my keys, ridge end out, between my index and middle fingers. I inch forward, allowing a generous amount of space between me and car.
“Need something?” I call out with forcefulness in my voice. The young man stands, and his eyes are frantic.
“Where’s the kid?” he asks, and the question shoots ice into my veins.
“Take my wallet. There’s an iPod in the car,” I offer. He starts to walk toward me. It’s not intimidating or threatening stride, but he looks desperate. I take a few steps back.
“I don’t want your money,” he says.
“You want the car? You can have the car.”
“Where’s the kid?” he repeats.
“Aubrey! Run!” I yell. Suddenly, the boy brandishes a gun, but he doesn’t aim it at me or Aubrey, who dashes out from behind the building. Instead, he presses his finger to his lips.
“Be quiet. We need to get out of here. Before they come.”
