.
7. CLUES
(REPETITION)
I stared out through my windshield at the cars waiting to exit the school parking lot, but although my eyes were focused on the line of bright red taillights, I wasn't really paying any attention to them.
Look for me, Edward. You know where I'll be.
The words played over and over again in my memory, the haunting refrain of a never-ending song.
Look for me. Look for me.
I'd spent most of the morning trying to pay attention in class—or trying to look like I was paying attention, at least. How could Mr. Berty or his lecture on Charles Dickens hold my attention when I could still hear the sound of her voice? How could I focus on Mr. Varner or the equation he was graphing when I could still feel the press of her cheek against my shoulder?
Sometime after lunch, though, the giddy elation of seeing her again, of finally managing to summon her into another dream, had started to give way to the strange suspicion that maybe the dreams weren't really dreams at all. How could I smell the perfume of her hair if it had only been a dream? How could I hear the perfect notes of the piano or feel the chill of her marble skin as she laced her fingers together with mine? It had all been so real, too real for a sleeping mind to conjure on its own, so did that mean the dreams were . . . something more?
What was a dream when it was too real to be a dream? A memory? No, we'd never stood on that street in Port Angeles, and while there had been many afternoons at that piano, we'd never had that conversation. What, then, did that leave? If not a memory then . . . a message? It sounded impossible, unreal, but I'd dealt with the impossible before, and I'd long since accepted that sometimes the impossible was very real, indeed.
Look for me, Edward. You know where I'll be. It was those words that had grabbed me, that had captured my imagination and were currently turning me inside out because if the dream had been a message, those words must be the key.
Look for me. Look for me.
But where? She had gone, and she had left nothing behind to tell me where she might be. Frustrated, I turned the key in the ignition. The engine revved to life but offered no answers.
You know where I'll be.
No, I didn't know where she would be. She could be, quite literally, anywhere in the world. She had left no indication of where she might be going, no clue as to where –
My hand froze as I reached toward the gear shift. Maybe she had left a clue. What if the dream was the clue?
No. It was crazy, too crazy. Shaking the idea from my head, I put the Volvo into gear and pulled out of my parking space. Up ahead, a brown Honda, the last car in the line, finally exited the parking lot.
Look for me, Edward. You know where I'll be.
I stopped at the stop sign and stared at the empty street in front of me.
It sounded impossible, but was anything really impossible when it came to her? If I took this chance and I was wrong, it was going to hurt . . . and it would hurt a lot, but what else could it have meant? You know where I'll be. Those had been her words as she'd sat beside me on the piano bench in the beautiful old house.
I don't know how long I sat there, but I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of an impatient honk behind me. Checking quickly for traffic, I turned right, heading north and continuing out of town.
It didn't matter that I had turned north, I told myself. The white house in the woods wasn't the only thing north of town—the turnoff to La Push was north, too. I wasn't really going to go off in search of a dream like some kind of madman who couldn't tell the difference between dreams and reality, but the logical part of my brain didn't seem to be in control of my hands on the steering wheel, and I didn't even glance down the turnoff to La Push Road as I continued north on the highway.
I had to know.
The way was familiar, yet not. Months had passed since the last time I'd driven this far, and for a few moments I was afraid the driveway had vanished, too, but then I finally spotted it leading off into the trees. It was overgrown now, beginning to go wild in the months since anyone had passed this way. I barely recognized it, but I didn't hesitate as I turned into the drive and continued down the once-familiar lane.
Newly grown branches hung low over the road. Unfamiliar greenery brushed against the sides of my car. How long would it be, I wondered, until the forest finished taking over, until it would be impossible to drive this way at all? It was becoming more and more difficult to recognize the turns in the road or the trees that lined its edges. I'd nearly lost my sense of direction when I finally spotted the little lane that split off from the main driveway. I slowed to a stop, my eyes moving back and forth in both directions, unable to decide which way I should go.
Forward, I finally decided. The dream had been at the big white house, so I should go to the big white house.
Another moment of driving through the encroaching forest and the trees parted, opening out into a meadow, and there in the center, beneath six towering cedars, was my destination.
The foliage was unchecked here, as well. The lawn, once neatly groomed, was now overrun with ferns. They stretched from the treeline to the stairs in front of the porch, covering every empty space. It looked like the house was sleeping.
Cutting the engine, I stepped out into the sea of ferns and began to walk toward the front porch, but a sudden chill brought my footsteps to a halt. The feeling of the place was wrong. It wasn't asleep. There was simply nothing here. The house, once so vibrant and alive, felt dead and empty. Its soul was gone. It had been abandoned, left alone by the people who had once loved it.
I knew how it felt.
There was nothing here, I realized, no point in stepping up onto the front porch to peer into the darkened windows. She wasn't here. There was no reason to go any farther.
I turned back to my car, trying not to feel the sad beating of my shadow heart as it whispered sadly in my chest. I had known that this was a fool's errand, that there would be nothing here. I turned around in the field of ferns, making my way back out toward the highway, but once more my hands turned the wheel of their own accord, pulling me down the side lane that I hadn't wanted to follow.
The chalet was just as empty as the main house. There were fewer ferns here—the house was tucked so tightly into the surrounding forest that there was barely a yard in which they could grow—but I could see from the scattered twigs and branches lying about that no one had come this way in quite some time. Pulling my eyes up to the second floor, I indulged my one last fleeting hope, but her bedroom window was dark and empty. She was not watching, waiting for me within. The windows of her library, too, were dark. Had she taken her books with her, I wondered? Or had she left them, her most treasured possessions, behind as well?
I couldn't stay here anymore, haunted by reminders of what had been. I reversed and drove back down the driveway toward La Push, toward Josie and Jacob, who could surely provide me some warmth to counter the shattering emptiness in my soul.
Josie was coming out through the front door as I pulled into the grassy drive. She smiled, lifting her hand to wave.
"Hey, Edward," she called.
"Hey." I glanced toward the house as I made my way toward her. Billy was watching through the front window. I nodded a greeting in his direction.
"Jake's out back," she explained as I followed her around the corner of the house.
"Am I making a nuisance of myself?" I asked. I tried for a teasing tone, but I was serious. If I chose to be honest with myself, I had to admit that I was using the two of them, using them as a distraction and using them in an attempt to trigger the dreams—if that was really what was happening. Still, a part of me really did enjoy spending time here, and it surprised me to realize how much better I felt in their company. Josie laughed.
"What's so funny?" Jacob asked, poking his head out from behind the open hood of the Volkswagen. "Oh, hey, Edward."
"Hey."
"Edward just asked if he was being a nuisance," Josie explained, amusement dancing in her eyes. Jacob shook his head.
"Didn't you practically live here a few years back?" he asked.
"It's been a while."
He shrugged, ducking back under the hood. "It hasn't been that long."
"We've missed you," Josie said softly. When I glanced back toward her, she looked away quickly and walked across the garage to sort through some tools that were lying on the work table.
"You guys are out here working. I kind of feel like I'm in the way."
"You aren't in the way," Josie responded. She seemed a bit offended by my words.
"Well, what I mean is that I'm not much help." I made my way around the car and sat down on the old stool. "Building a car is out of my league."
"That's alright," Jacob assured me. "You can just keep us company. It gives me somebody to talk to other than Josie." I could only see part of his sister's face from where I was sitting, but I could see enough of it to know that a scowl had settled on her features. Jacob chuckled lightly at her expression, then sobered.
"Well," he amended, "I guess if you want to help, there is something you could do. How are you at Algebra?"
I shrugged. I'd had an A in the class, but I didn't want to admit it. "I did okay."
"How would you feel about helping Josie with her homework? She was going to ask Quil, but if you're available . . ."
Josie had stepped to the other side of the car, so she was hidden from me by the open hood, but I could see from the angle of Jacob's head that he was facing her. I wondered what silent conversation they were having.
"Sure," I said. "Why not?"
Several more seconds passed before Josie stepped back into view.
"Well, okay, but . . . not tonight. We're in the middle of . . . this." She gestured vaguely toward the car.
"That's alright, but I have to work tomorrow. How about Wednesday?"
Josie shrugged a little too nonchalantly. "I guess Wednesday's okay," she said. There was another shared look between them, but I could only see Josie's face from where I was sitting, and she kept her expression too well guarded for me to guess what she might be thinking. Another moment of silence passed, but just a second before it started to feel awkward, Jacob spoke.
"So, want to hear about the fight two girls started at school today?"
I saw Josie's brown eyes brighten at the mention of the day's excitement. A smile teased the corners of her lips.
"It was over a guy, of course," she explained. "Completely his fault since he's been dating both of them for weeks and lying about it."
"Uh oh," I muttered under my breath.
"Well, he's a jerk," Josie continued with a dismissive shrug, "but they figured it out soon enough. By the time the teachers broke it up, Kelsey's shirt sleeve was torn off and Laura had a split lip . . . and both of them had given David a black eye."
She paused, allowing us a moment of laughter at David's expense before continuing. Apparently it had taken three teachers to pull the girls off him, and David had decided then and there that running to the principal's office was a great idea because it was probably the safest place in school. Jacob said he'd never seen anyone so terrified in his life.
I lost track of time after that, not realizing how dark it had become until I'd already stayed longer than I had intended. When I pulled into my driveway, my mother was already home from work and had just paid the pizza delivery guy.
"La Push?" she asked as I came through the door.
"Yeah, sorry." I frowned apologetically. "It got later than I thought."
She studied me for a moment, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"Seems to me your timing is perfect. You're just in time for dinner."
She smiled, and I could see that there was a lightness to the expression. For the first time in a long time, the smile she gave me was genuine. She wasn't worried about how I was feeling. She was just happy that I seemed to be feeling better.
I wasn't going to burst her bubble by mentioning my little side trip on the way to La Push this afternoon.
I did my homework upstairs in my bedroom, but I couldn't keep my mind from wandering, from wondering just what would happen when I went to sleep. Would my theory about Josie and Jacob be proven true, or would the same old nightmare haunt my dreams?
Unfortunately, it was the latter. When I awoke in the early hours of morning, it was with the nightmare fresh in my mind, but this time, there was no cold sweat, no name on my lips. This time there had been a change. As I'd wandered, alone in the dark, calling out for someone to help me, someone had come. A warm hand had reached out to take mine. Someone had led me carefully down the invisible path toward the edge of the forest. They didn't speak, so I couldn't be sure who it was, but the hand that held mine had felt familiar.
School was different on Tuesday. I was noticing things now, and people were noticing me. More eyes met mine without darting away. More faces turned in my direction as I sat down at the lunch table. Lauren, of course, still gave me the cold shoulder, but Angela and Mike seemed glad to see that I was back. Jessica, too, seemed happy to see me—she flashed a few tentative smiles in my direction—though she seemed hesitant to address me directly.
Mike was animated and talkative at work that afternoon. It took little encouragement to get him to fill me in on everything I'd missed in the last few months. A little question here or a subtle reaction there, and he mostly kept the conversation going by himself. I imagined he was deeply relieved that he finally had someone to talk to during his shift. He'd been working with a zombie three days a week since the middle of September.
Wednesday at lunch, Jessica surprised me by sitting down in the empty chair across from mine. I didn't need to look up to know that the shaft of cold air flowing in our direction came from Lauren's glare.
"So," Jessica asked, her eyes focused on the fork she was using to push the food around on her tray, "are you feeling better?"
"I guess." I wasn't sure better was the best way to describe me, but I was functioning at a higher level than I had been for the last few months. When she looked up, I offered her the smallest smile I could manage. I didn't want to encourage her, but I didn't want her to think I was being standoffish, either.
"So, you said you went to see Dead End the other night, right?" She glanced back down to her food.
"Yes," I answered. I didn't know why, but something about the tone of her voice felt . . . . familiar.
"Are you . . . into scary movies?"
"Not really. My friends picked it." Something about this conversation seemed familiar, too. It felt like we'd had it before, but I knew we hadn't.
"Oh," she said after a moment. She seemed to be searching for words. "Your friends from La Push, right?" she asked after another long pause.
"Yes." I remembered now why this felt familiar. It felt like our conversation last spring, when she'd tried to ask me to the dance. Had she been wondering if I'd made plans to see some new horror movie that had just come out? Was she going to try to invite herself along and turn it into a date? That would explain her moment of regrouping when I said I wasn't usually into horror. And she was probably wondering now if any of the friends I'd been hanging out with were more than just friends.
"So, do you have any plans for Friday night?" she finally asked. She tried to make the question sound like idle conversation. She wanted to be able to play it off if I told her I did. It was just as I had suspected.
"Actually, yeah. I'm helping a friend with her Algebra. We were going to study."
"Algebra?" Jessica asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Yeah. She's a sophomore."
"Oh," Jessica said again. I watched as several emotions flickered across her face. Surprise. Disappointment at the thought that she may have already missed her shot with me. Annoyance that she'd lost it to a sophomore. Her gaze slid back down toward her tater tots. After a couple of moments, she lifted her head and joined the conversation the rest of the table was having about someone's college applications. Her questions about my social activities seemed to have run out. I was relieved.
That evening, when my mother came home from work, she found Josie and I sitting at the kitchen table doing homework. I'd been planning to help her study at her house, but soon after I'd arrived, Quil had appeared, wanting to talk to Jacob. Gone were his sideways glances at Josie, his speculative glares at me. I could tell there was something strange going on, something important, so when Josie had suggested we go back to my house, I'd agreed. Still, even back in Forks, she was strangely preoccupied. She didn't seem to have any trouble with what little homework she did get done, but she spent most of the time just staring at the page with a distant look in her eye. She did stay for dinner, though, brightening up a bit at the meatloaf I'd taken from the refrigerator and stuck into the oven. I wondered if maybe it had been her night to cook. When I took her home later that evening, along with some leftovers for Jacob and Billy, Quil was gone. No one said anything about his visit.
There was still a sense of unease on Friday as the three of us hung out in the garage, but no one mentioned it. Instead, Jacob talked about the Rabbit, insisting they were nearly finished. After a few minutes, the tension eased and things started to feel normal again, but there was still a shadow lurking in their eyes, and I caught more than one silent look as it passed between the two of them.
Saturday after work, Josie and I did homework again at my house, while Jacob stayed in La Push to work on the Rabbit. For the most part, my mother left us alone as she bustled about doing laundry and stocking the freezer with pre-made dinners for the next week, but every now and then she would lean her head in the door of the living room to check on us. Josie seemed to be more attentive with her Algebra, although, to be honest, I was starting to suspect that she hadn't really needed much help to begin with.
"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" I asked as I dropped her off at her house that evening. Jacob, who had abandoned the garage to come out and talk, shared a secret smile with his sister.
"No plan," he said vaguely. "Just a couple of things to take care of in the morning."
I glanced at them both, wondering if this had something to do with whatever secret thing had been going on with Quil, but they seemed too happy to be thinking about anything serious.
"We'll call you." Josie smiled mysteriously.
"Okay." I frowned to myself, wondering what was going on, but Josie's smile only grew brighter, enjoying whatever secret they were keeping from me.
. . . . .
I did laundry the next morning as I waited for them to call. I hadn't dreamed of her since the dream with the piano almost a week before, but at least the nightmares were getting easier. After a few moments of panic in the dark, the warm hand always came to lead me back out of the forest. I was still blind, but at least I wasn't alone, and the hand that held mine felt comforting, reassuring after so much time wandering alone in the darkness.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to finish some homework, when someone honked a car horn outside. I ignored it at first, but then the honk came again, and then a third time, so I went to the front window to investigate. At the edge of the driveway sat a very familiar looking Volkswagen Rabbit with two grinning mechanics leaning against its side.
"You're done?" I asked as I came down the front walk toward them.
"Quil and I took it on the maiden voyage yesterday while you and Josie were doing Algebra."
I almost missed the look Josie gave her brother, but Jacob only laughed.
"We thought you might like to be on the . . . second maiden voyage," she added, her eyes moving back to my face.
"Sounds great. Just let me leave a note. Mom's on night shift, so she's trying to get some sleep."
The twins turned to glance back into the car, toward the horn button on the steering wheel.
"Oops," Jacob said. For just a moment, they looked a bit guilty at the thought that they may have disturbed my mother's sleep, but then Josie's smile broke through, ruining the effect.
When I returned from leaving the note, Josie was in the back, and Jacob was behind the wheel, leaving me the front seat. I offered to switch places with Josie, but she shook her head.
The car rode well, even though it was technically older than any of its passengers. We drove to La Push, then headed south down a dirt road I hadn't remembered. It wound in and out of the forest, the scenery alternating between trees and increasingly tantalizing views of the Pacific. I stared out the window, taking in the view as the road drew closer to the cliffs. In the background, I could hear Jacob and Josie talking about what kind of work the motorcycles would need, but I wasn't really paying much attention to their conversation. Up ahead I noticed four men standing at the edge of a cliff. All four were shirtless, wearing only shorts, but it was far too cold for anyone sane to wear so little clothing. I was still watching them, wondering what they were doing on top of the cliffs on a day like today, when the tallest man in the group stepped up to the very edge . . . and threw himself over it.
"Did you guys see that?" I leaned closer to the window, as if doing so would somehow give me a better view. The car grew silent.
"What is it?" Josie asked from the back seat.
"One of those guys on the cliff just jumped."
Jacob let out a short laugh, but something about it sounded . . . off.
"They're just cliff diving," he said.
"In January?" I asked. "Isn't it a little too cold for that?"
I watched as a second figure stepped up to the edge, paused, and then leapt gracefully into empty space. From the angle we were at now, I could follow his entire descent as he fell, sliding smoothly into the dark water below.
"That drop has to be . . . what?" I paused to do some mental calculations. "A hundred feet?"
"Yeah, most of us jump from lower down, though. There's a rock that juts out from the cliff about halfway down." Jacob slowed, pulling the car to the edge of the road to park. As we got out and walked toward the shoreline, the entire cliff face came into view.
"Those guys are crazy. You know guys, showing off how tough they are." I glanced to my left to see Josie rolling her eyes, but I knew she was only teasing us. Jacob, on our right, ignored her.
"It's freezing today," I said, thinking aloud. "The water can't feel good." Remembering Jacob's words as he'd pulled off the road, I searched for the second ledge, finding it farther down the cliff. It seemed like a much safer—and saner—height to jump from. "So you guys have jumped from the lower ledge?"
"Sure, sure." Jacob shrugged, but something about his expression was off. His gaze was focused on the two figures still remaining on the top of the cliff. "It's a little scary, kind of a rush."
I glanced back toward the cliffs. A third figure was pacing the edge now, psyching himself up to jump, it seemed.
"It's not so bad lower down. The top is probably way more of a rush," Josie added. Her brother sighed.
"Not everybody swims the way you do, Josie."
We were all watching the top of the cliff now. The third man made a running start, jumping farther out into the air than either of the other two had gone. What followed next was a series of flips and turns worthy of an Olympic competition. I waited until he had slipped into the water before I spoke again.
"Do you know who they are?" I asked. They had to be locals. Surely no tourists would be out jumping off cliffs when it was this cold outside.
"The La Push gang," Jacob answered. He made a disgusted sound at the back of his throat.
"Gang?" I asked, giving Jacob a skeptical look. La Push wasn't exactly your typical hotbed for gang related activity. Josie laughed at my expression.
"Not like that," Jacob explained. "I swear, they're like hall monitors gone bad. They don't start fights, they keep the peace." He snorted. "There was this guy from up somewhere by the Makah rez, big guy, too, scary-looking. Word got around that he was selling meth to kids, and Sam Uley and his disciples ran him off our land. They're all about our land and tribe pride. It's getting ridiculous. The worst part is that the council takes them seriously. Embry said that the council actually meets with Sam." He shook his head, a bitter expression crossing his features.
"Leah Clearwater says they call themselves 'protectors' . . . or something stupid like that," Josie added.
We watched as the final diver threw himself over the edge, sliding into a perfect diving figure as he cut into the water below. Beside me, Jacob's arms were crossed, his expression dark.
"You don't sound like you agree with the council," I noted.
"Does it show?" Jacob asked sarcastically.
"They don't sound like a typical gang."
"They're annoying," Jacob said, his eyes looking off into the distance. "They're always showing off. Like the cliff thing. They act like . . . like tough guys. I was hanging out at the store with Embry and Quil once, last semester, and Sam came by with his followers, Jared and Paul. Quil said something—you know how he's got a big mouth—and it pissed Paul off. His eyes got all dark, and he sort of smiled—no, he showed his teeth, but he didn't smile—and it was like he was so mad he was shaking or something, but Sam put his hand against Paul's chest and shook his head. Paul looked at him for a minute and calmed down. Honestly, it was like Sam was holding him back—like Paul was going to tear us up if Sam didn't stop him." He groaned and turned to face us. "It was like a bad western. You know, Sam's a pretty big guy. He's twenty, but Paul's just sixteen, too, shorter than me and not as beefy as Quil. I think any one of us could take him."
I could remember it now, although I was trying not to—the dark night so many months ago, the trio of men standing in the shadows of my mother's living room. It was a hazy memory, mixed with other images that I didn't want to think about. Had that been Sam's gang?
"Sam's twenty?" How old were the others, I wondered, if Paul was only sixteen? Twenty seemed a little old to be spending so much time around guys who were still in high school.
"Yeah, he was supposed to go to college, but he stayed." Josie said. I could still feel the tension in Jacob's stance. "It was weird. No one gave him any crap about it, either. The whole council was constantly nagging Rachel to make sure she was still going to college, to make sure she wasn't going to turn down her scholarship. She hadn't even said anything about turning it down, but they didn't let up until she'd left for her first semester. But Sam Uley? Nobody made him go. He can do no wrong."
I heard the shuffle of gravel as Jacob took a few steps away. I thought, at first, that he might be heading back to the car, but he was walking farther along the road, away from the two of us, like he needed a moment to himself. He stopped and stared out at the distant waves.
"What's going on?" I asked after a moment.
"It's the way they treat Jake. It creeps us out." She glanced toward her brother, clearly wondering if she was saying too much. He wasn't so far away that he couldn't hear us, but he made no move to stop her, so after a moment she continued. "The tribal council is supposed to be made up of equals, but if there was a leader, it would be our dad. We've never been able to figure out why his opinion counts so much more than anyone else's or why people treat him the way they do. It's got something to do with our grandfather and his father."
"Wasn't your great-grandfather the last chief or something?" I asked, trying to remember back to the nights when we'd sat around bonfires listening to Billy's stories.
"Yeah, good ole' Ephraim Black. Maybe that's why they still listen to Dad. I guess that'll be Jake one day, too, but no one's ever treated him like he was special. No one singles him out the way they do with Dad. At least not until now."
"What do you mean?"
"It's Sam," she answered, looking over at her brother with troubled eyes. "He looks at Jake like he's waiting for something . . . like he wants him to join his stupid gang, and he only does it to him. Even before the other guys joined, he never . . . watched them the way he watches Jake. It's weird."
"But they can't force him to join," I said, raising my voice a little to make sure it carried to where Jacob was standing.
"Of course not." But her words were followed with a sigh, and her eyes were still troubled. It felt like there was something else bothering her.
"What are you not telling me?"
"It's Embry," she said after a moment. "He's been avoiding us lately. Avoiding everyone."
"Embry?" I thought back to Quil's visit a few days earlier. It had seemed like something was off that day, but no one had volunteered any information, and I hadn't wanted to pry. Was something wrong with Embry?
"He missed some school, but when Jake or Quil tried to see him, he was never home. When he came back, he looked . . . he looked freaked out. Terrified. We all tried to get him to tell us what was wrong, but he wouldn't talk to anybody, not even the guys. Then, out of nowhere, Embry started hanging out with Sam and the rest of them. He was out there with them today."
I looked back toward the empty cliff. Embry had been there? No wonder Jacob had been watching them so intently. Beside me, I heard the crunch of gravel as Jacob made his way back toward us.
"That's the way it was with Paul," he explained. "Just exactly the same. He wasn't friends with Sam at all. Then he stopped coming to school for a few weeks, and when he came back, suddenly Sam . . . owned him. I don't know what it means. I can't figure it out, and I feel like I have to because Embry's my friend, and now Sam's looking at me . . ." He trailed off, shaking his head.
"Have you talked to Billy?" I asked. Josie scoffed, and I turned toward her.
"Yes, not that it did any good."
"What do you mean?"
"It's nothing you need to worry about now, Jacob," her brother said, sarcasm dripping from his tone as he tried to mimic Billy's voice. "In a few years, if you don't . . . well, I'll explain later." He shook his head. "What am I supposed to get from that? Is he trying to say it's some stupid puberty, coming-of-age thing? This is something else. Something wrong."
He turned his gaze back toward the Pacific, and I decided it was best to give him a moment. I glanced toward Josie. Her jaw was set, determined. A dark, unsettling suspicion slithered into my thoughts.
"What about you?" I asked softly. "Do they . . . look at you?" Josie just shook her head.
"It's like I'm not even there," she whispered. "I guess I should be relieved by that, but what about Jake? It's like Dad doesn't even care."
I reached down to take her hand. I felt like I should do something, say something, but I didn't know what.
"Well, I guess you could always come live with us," I offered. "Josie could sleep on the sofa. Maybe we could get Jake an air mattress or something . . . a really big one." I was trying to make a joke, to lighten the mood. It must have worked at least a little because Jacob was smiling faintly when he turned to face us.
"Thanks," he said quietly, starting back toward the car. Josie and I followed.
"Then again," I added, "if you don't stop growing, we may have to get two air mattresses, lay them end to end . . ."
He was close enough to punch me lightly on the arm. The faint smile was still there—he was still troubled, but the storm had passed, at least for now.
"You don't really want us to move in," Jacob said as Josie climbed into the back seat. "Only one bathroom at your place, and I know from experience that Josie will never let any of the rest of us use it."
"Hey!"
We were all laughing as Jacob pulled back out onto the gravel road. The mood had shifted, but I knew Jacob's worries still remained, following along behind the car like a shadow.
I wondered how long it would be before they caught up to him.