For the rest of the week, I tried to retreat back inside the lines that marked out the borders of my life. To keep my questions hidden and my focus on all the things Gran expected. With the weight of the whole semester bearing down on me like a backpack of bricks, it wasn’t that hard. My days were spent cramming in classes where the weary teachers were even more ready for summer than the students. And then school blurred into study at home, where I hunched over my books, stockpiling all the details, hoping I’d remember the themes of the Iliad and the Pythagorean theorem and the stages of the water cycle while wondering when I would ever use that information again anyway.
Finals started Monday, along with a soggy week’s worth of rain. And every day on my drive to school, I lectured myself, waiting for reality to return and whisper between the slosh and squeak of my windshield wipers. Jaz’s words had been just that—random words about characters in books. They had nothing to do with me, nothing to do with the sense of lostness that had haunted me all my life. Like Gran said. Water under the bridge.
But every night of that waiting week, I dreamed the same dream.
Dreamed of the brassy deserts from The Horse and His Boy. Dreamed that I was running, feet slipping on the scratchy sand, sweat stinging my eyes. My steps buried themselves in the frustratingly soft ground, but I kept my gaze fixed on the distant Narnian mountains beyond the desert.
The mountains where a father was waiting for me to come home.
Now, looking back, I think those dreams were a sign. A sign that the belonging was starting to call me, that the moon was tugging the tide, that the pattern was pulling together between the stars and the streets and the story.
But I kept the dreams hidden too, tucked them in the same private drawer in my heart where my questions lived, and I put my head down and got through finals. I made all A’s. I don’t sound excited about that because I wasn’t, and Gran wasn’t either. I mean, she was happy, but she wasn’t surprised. I’d gotten straight A’s since fifth grade, my first year at Gran’s house, because once I moved in with her, I didn’t have to miss school every other day because of Mom and all her—well, all of that.
But you know what I think? I think when you do something remarkable, there are only two times people notice: the first time you do it, and the first time you don’t do it.
And sometimes I think when you do a thing long enough, you get trapped in its shape. You know why I think that? Because people didn’t call me the student who made straight A’s. They called me the straight-A student.
See that difference?
Anyway, finals were over, and all my predictable A’s were marching down my transcript, and then it was the day of graduation.
Gran made a big deal about graduation. She kept talking while we were in the car on the way to the stadium, all about how hard I’d worked and what a monumental occasion—her words—this was. The last time I’d seen her so exuberant was last fall, when this famous Baptist preacher—I can’t remember his name—came to our little church for a revival. “I’m so proud of you, dear. You’ve worked hard. You should celebrate this moment.”
“Thank you, Gran.” Nod and smile. The way she expected. I stared at the little plastic package they’d given me at the campus bookstore, the one with my cap and gown folded up inside. Purple and white. Cedar Wood colors.
“Summa cum laude? That’s quite an accomplishment.”
Accomplishment is a heavy word. Don’t believe me? Let it get draped around your neck two or three times. Or a dozen. Pretty soon, you know what? All people see is that big fat word.
At least Cedar Wood had done away with naming valedictorians the year before.
Gran found just the kind of parking space she liked—front of the lot, end of a row—which put her in an even better mood. We headed toward the locker rooms, where everyone was supposed to get ready, but they were already crowded with guys pretending to punch each other and making fun of the mortarboards, and girls nervously finishing make-up and clumping together for selfies upon selfies. Gran led me into the hallway, and I shrugged into my gown over the dress I’d worn while she marshaled my hair into bobby-pinned submission under my cap before giving me one last perfumed hug and slipping out to find a seat.
After a stupidly long time, a few harried-looking adults called us all into the halls and began sorting us by last name, sending each group to a section of the metal folding chairs set up on the football field. The sun burst upon us as we walked out from under the protective dome into the juicy scent of the freshly mown turf. I found myself sitting midway up the sidelines between a guy and a girl whose names I didn’t remember.
“Hey.” The guy was slouched back in the chair, his gown flapped irreverently open over his wrinkled khaki pants. His mortarboard was slightly off center. “I guess this is it, huh?”
“I guess so.” The sun was still pelting down, breathing heat on the shimmering air, on my dark gown, on the shiny metal chairs.
The girl to my right leaned forward. “What a day, right? Four years, and it’s finally here.”
I forced my face into an expression I hoped was compatible with her enthusiasm. “Yeah. For sure.”
“What are you doing after graduation?”
Not that question. Not the question I’d been getting from professors and Gran and even random people at church for the last six months. The question that was absolutely the reason I wasn’t happy to be graduating today.
“Um—” My scalp was starting to itch where sweat prickled under the mortarboard. I faked another smile. “Not sure yet. Probably college somewhere. I’m still considering a few options.”
That reply had worked on Gran’s church friends, but neither of these students looked fooled. “Cool.” The guy nodded politely. “I’ve got a job lined up already. Working for my dad’s HVAC business.”
Must be nice, to have parents who’d paved a trail to follow. “That’s good.” I glanced at the girl. Maybe she didn’t have a plan either. Maybe we could both admit that neither one of us knew what we were supposed—
“I’m already enrolled at the University of Ohio.” She crossed her stiletto-shod feet at the ankles. “I’m getting my degree in sociology.”
Okay, then.
She glanced across me, her gaze connecting with the guy. “So, Dalton, what did you think about—”
They knew each other. Of course they did. I leaned back and tried to ignore it all. The bobby pins poking uncomfortably under the cap, the sweat prickling beneath my gown, the conversation volleying back and forth while I huddled invisible between the sentences.
It was a long ceremony. Long enough that I had plenty of time to sweat and fret while inside jokes flew back and forth over my head from two kids I didn’t know. There were a lot of addresses that no one could really hear because one of the microphones kept doing that screechy nails-on-a-chalkboard thing microphones do. At one point we had to stand and flip our tassels. Mine almost fell off, but no one noticed. Of course no one noticed. Then we filed down to walk across the stage one at a time. Yep. One at a time.
And the graduating class had 309 students. Do you know how long it takes to work all the way down the alphabet to M when you are dealing with 309 students?
It was a lot of standing and waiting and squinting in the noon glare and feeling sweat crawl down my back under my dress and my stupid gown, which was too thin to even keep the sun off. And then, finally, they said my name.
“Jenna Monroe.”
And I was walking across the stage to take my diploma.
The ultimate monumental occasion, remember? It should have been as happy as the first Saturday of spring break. So I don’t really know how to explain that as I walked across the stage, a truth that was the opposite of happy slapped me square across the face.
All I had ever been at this school—all I had let myself be—was just what I was now: a name on a list.
I looked like every other student there, but I was no more a part of the crowd than an island is part of the ocean. And for four years of dutifully attending classes, hurrying head-down along the hallways, and trashing the student activity handouts, I’d locked myself away on dry land.
The principal tucked his double chin and thrust a diploma cover into my hand. “We are proud of you, Jenna.”
The words were as lukewarm as the patter of polite applause from the kids directly behind me.
“Emma Mulligan.” The weary-sounding voice of the emcee droned the next name before I was even off the stage.
The other half of the alphabet, and then one last singing of the school song—I’d never learned the words—and we were done. Just like that. Four years at the place, and now it was over, and in a crowd of 308 other identically dressed kids, I was alone.
I shuffled along with the flow of folks, snatches of conversation buzzing and snipping all around me, into the gymnasium. It wasn’t until I saw the vending machine that I knew how thirsty I was, but I’d left my purse—with my money and phone—in Gran’s car. I worked my way through the spiderweb of the crowd and leaned against the wall, out of everyone’s way, watching all the packed-in people who knew everyone except me. Gran had told me over and over to wait for her in the gym after the ceremony. As if without a specified meeting place, I’d be sucked into some post-graduation vortex.
I pulled the fake-leather diploma cover out from under my arm, running my finger along the embossed Cedar Wood emblem. The spine cracked slightly as I opened it, and some thin white item fluttered out. A single typed memo.
Your official diploma will be mailed at the end of June. Please handle any outstanding financial amounts prior to that date.
Well, Gran had paid my tuition like clockwork each month. No outstanding financial matters for me. But I’d really left the school with nothing, hadn’t I? No diploma. No plan. Definitely no friends.
How had I gone through four years with absolutely nothing to show for it except another dreaded accomplishment?
I bit my lip and slapped the cover closed, because I don’t cry in public, but right as I was thinking I might break that rule, I suddenly heard my name. And not in the dull monotone of the emcee but in a way that made it actually sound like my name instead of just the sum of five letters.
“Jenna! Hey, Jenna! What’s up?”
Jaz was nudging through the crowd toward me, her crazy braids swinging from beneath her cap. “We made it!” She grabbed me in one of those squeeze-the-wind-out-of-you hugs. “Aren’t you excited?”
I ducked out of the embrace and took a step back. “Yeah. Definitely.” I blinked at the artwork she’d created all over her mortarboard. Puffy letters spelling out the year and tiny cutouts of motivational quotes and drawings of—rocks?
“Of course, they would have to pick the hottest day.” She laughed and swiped at her forehead. Her gown was unzipped, revealing a Cedar Wood tank top and cutoff denim shorts. That was what she’d worn to graduation?
“I’m looking for Kason. You seen him anywhere?”
“I don’t think so.” Which sounded lame, but I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know what her brother looked like.
“Oh well, he’s around.” She shrugged. “I forgot my cell in the car, and now I might never find him. Hey, you coming to the graduation party tonight?”
Another opportunity to watch more kids talk around and over me. “Probably not.”
“Aww, too bad. I’m looking forward to it.”
What would Jaz do at a party like that? Probably eat too much cake and be the first for karaoke.
“Did you talk to your grandma about the road trip?”
She pushed back her braids, and for the first time, I noticed a small purple tattoo on her temple. A line drawing of some sort. “Uh—you guys still planning that?”
“Oh, a hundred percent. Blake’s made out the itinerary. In fact—” She slid her hand into her pocket, then rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah. That’s right. No phone. Well, anyway, we’re basically going south through Missouri and Texas, then to Albuquerque because there’s this awesome astronomy area Kason wants to visit. Then we’re going up to Moab—Utah, you know—and then through the mountains to California and hit the coast just in time for the solar eclipse.” She rubbed her hands together. “So? Come with us!”
Going on a trip like that—one whose itinerary had already made me dizzy—sounded as impossible as finding my way to Narnia. And way less fun. “Um…I still haven’t had a chance to talk to my grandma.”
“Okay, well, I’ll text you the route to look at, okay? And then call me, let me know.” Jaz scanned the crowd. “Think that might be Kason. See you around!”
She whirled off, and as chaotic as she was, somehow the air around me felt even emptier with her gone. I realized again just how thirsty I was. Maybe I should have asked Jaz if she had any change. Although Gran always said it was a sin to borrow money. The last thing I needed was for Gran or God or both to be mad at me.
And speaking of, where was Gran? Why hadn’t she found me by now? Maybe the vortex had come for her instead of me.
“Jenna Monroe?”
A woman’s voice, soft with uncertainty. I turned to see a mom-looking lady in a summery dress, clutching something in her hands. But nothing about her face was familiar. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Jenna.” What looked like sadness overbalanced her smile. “Look at you. All grown up! I’m sure you don’t remember me—”
Why do adults start every conversation that way?
She held out her hand, rings catching the light. “I’m Madelyn Ingers. Your mother and I were best friends in high school. You were just a little thing last time I saw you, though.”
Some long-buried memory unfolded its creased wings as I took her hand, and I could see her blurry younger self—longer hair and more makeup, but her. “Didn’t you visit us a couple of times?”
“Yes.” She glanced down and fumbled with whatever it was she held. “I was trying to—trying to reach your mom. I sometimes thought—” She sighed, held my eyes with a gaze like an apology. “We were so close—I saw things before her mother did, and I tried—well, I just wish things had turned out differently.”
I didn’t know what to do with the guilt in her eyes. “Uh, well, yes, ma’am. I do too.” I studied her more closely—the friendly lines at the corners of her eyes, the threads of gray in her hair. The age my mom would have been if she hadn’t chased oblivion all the way to the bottom of the pill bottles. If she hadn’t played fast and loose with the ends of her life. If she hadn’t traded everything for nothing and taken her last breath with the pills shrieking through her system.
“Anyway.” Mrs. Ingers still looked hesitant. As if every word were a step on shaky ground. “I didn’t know you went to this school, much less that you were graduating, until my nephew mentioned something about you the other day. Maybe you know him? Adam Farr?”
Adam was her nephew? “Oh—yes, ma’am.”
“So I thought I would bring this to you.” She inhaled as if preparing to leap from a diving board and held out the envelope. “I found it a few weeks back, when I was cleaning out some old things, and—well, it should be yours.”
The name on the front sprang at me.
EVA.
My mother’s name.
I stared at Mrs. Ingers, and she must have seen the questions in my eyes. “Jenna—it’s from your father.”
My heart gave a great lurch, as if it had just been shoved onto some other plane of reality. “My—”
Her hands were moving nervously now, fingers twirling rings. “TJ.”
“TJ? That was—his name?” Answers were coming faster than I was ready for them. I leaned back against the wall so the room could stop spinning and grabbed at the first question that rose from the whirlwind. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Ingers shook her head. “I only met him once.”
“What was he like?”
“Like—” The corners of her mouth softened just a little. “Like a strong wind, I think. A little on the wild side, or maybe a lot. I think your grandmother always believed he pulled your mom that way, although—well, I’m not sure. She made her own choices. But he was very handsome. And he had burning red hair.” She paused long enough to give her next words meaning. “Like yours.”
I touched my hair, pieces clicking into place. “So—what—”
“His parents were missionaries, of some sort. They worked in different inner-city ministries, I think.” She waved her hand vaguely. “Anyway, they moved somewhere out west. He mailed this back to your mom, but he sent it to my address. I think he had learned by then that your grandmother—well, I think he just wanted to make sure she got it.”
The envelope was lumpy—more than paper was inside. The seal was still unbroken. “Why didn’t Mom ever get this?”
Mrs. Ingers blinked hard. “By then, she’d already left your grandmother behind, and she was—spiraling. She didn’t talk to me anymore. I saw her a couple years later—I went to visit her when she was in rehab the first time. That’s when I found out about you too. I took this to her, but she didn’t want it. Told me to throw it away.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Ingers sighed. “I asked myself that question about every decision she made from that summer on. I don’t know.”
“So—his name was TJ?”
“His initials, I think. Or maybe a nickname. That’s all I know.” She stepped back, suddenly seeming in a hurry. As if she’d lighted the fuse on the memories and had to run before the explosion came. “Anyway, congratulations, Jenna.” A sort of ache crept into her words. “Your mom would be proud of you.”
With that, she turned and pushed toward the nearest EXIT sign. Three swishes of her dress, and she’d escaped into the summer day.
And in what was supposed to be the first moments of my future, I found myself instead holding all that was left of my past.
***
I don’t remember what I told Gran when she finally found me in the crowd. Or the replies I made to her conversation in the car going home. All I remember is gripping my diploma cover and feeling the secret I’d quickly stuffed inside it. A secret so flammable I half-expected it to burn a hole right through the fake leather.
Secrets were sinful. What was I doing?
By the time we arrived back home, I was sweating more than I had during the ceremony, but fortunately Gran didn’t seem to notice. She put the car in park and frowned at the two symmetrical hedges that marched like squared-off caterpillars down the front walk. “The hedges are getting leggy again. I think I’ll get some pruning in before dinner.”
Dinner was at five o’clock. Always five o’clock.
“Okay.” I kept my head down, studying the plastic packaging into which I’d crammed my gown. I’d tried to fold it neatly.
But once you open some things, you can’t put them back where they came from.
I followed Gran into the house. Her routine was such that I could repeat it in my sleep:
Remove shoes.
Hang purse on hook by door.
Adjust purse slightly if hanging crooked.
Close door.
Tug knob to make sure door is closed.
Glance at grandfather clock.
Take a deep breath and say…
“Well, here we are.” Gran glanced down at her starched slacks. “I’m going to change and start on the pruning.”
“All right.”
“Oh, and Jenna?”
I’d already managed to flee halfway up the stairs. I froze. “Yes, ma’am?”
“If you don’t have anything else to do this afternoon, you might look through those applications.”
My college possibilities, but I couldn’t begin to focus on the messy stack of next steps sitting on the corner of my desk. I swallowed. “Okay.”
I took the rest of the steps two at a time and then tumbled into the little upstairs bedroom. I closed the door and leaned against it, glancing around my sanctuary.
The plain oak furniture had much predated my move in. My books were stacked in orderly ranks on the shelf, my clothes tucked out of sight in the closet. The one personal touch was the retro bulletin board by the door. I’d bought it at a flea market with babysitting money the summer I turned fifteen. Now I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually looked at it.
I took a step closer and glanced at the contents. A faded reminder about something from school. A sticker I’d received for perfect attendance. A calendar still showing February.
I sighed and dropped the plastic bulge of gown and cap on my desk. Gran hated clutter. I’d have to put it away later.
I pulled the letter from the diploma cover. The undisturbed seal held a sanctity I shrank from breaching. Which was ridiculous. Here I’d begged for answers, and now, the minute they landed in my lap, I was ready to run the other way.
The dress felt even more uncomfortable now than it had during the ceremony. I set the envelope on my bed and changed into my favorite jean shorts—long enough to satisfy Gran’s modesty standards—and a T-shirt from the vacation Bible school I’d helped with last summer. I returned to my bed and ran my finger over the bold, scratchy handwriting on the front.
My father’s handwriting.
And I knew exactly what Gran would tell me to do with this envelope.
The door scraped shut downstairs. I glanced out the window to see Gran marching toward the hedges, her straw hat pushed back and her pruning shears in hand. She might be out there for hours now, snipping off any sprout bold enough to lift its head. Winning battles by simply eclipsing them.
Rarely did my thoughts run so close to rebellion, and guilt sizzled within me. Gran had been good to me—more than good. Without her, I’d no doubt have been shuffled among foster homes and orphanages. Raising her granddaughter hadn’t been part of her plans, yet when the need had arisen, she’d redrawn the map of her life without complaint.
But the handwriting was calling me. A beckoning hand. Leading me across the deserts toward the father I never knew.
I closed my eyes and for a random moment wondered what Jaz would do.
And then I snapped the seal that had been waiting for eighteen years.
Immediately something small and shiny tumbled into my lap with a jingle, and I jerked as if a snake had sprung from the envelope, my guilty conscience magnifying the startle.
Wait. Was it—jewelry?
The thin gold chain was cool between my fingers. I studied the pendant that dangled from the delicate links—some kind of dark, irregularly shaped glass. Or stone, maybe.
Had this been a gift for my mother?
Still clutching the jewelry, I reached back into the envelope and extracted a single sheet of paper. The same bold handwriting—handwriting that didn’t care what anyone thought—zipped across the lines.
Hey, Eva,
Only two days in Albuquerque, and I already miss you so much. Seems like forever ago we were driving down by the river or sneaking into the club to see Imagine Dragons perform. Remember that?
My folks are real busy getting everything ready for the new church. I’m not sure what anybody needs is another little hotbed of holiness, but we’ll see. It’s going to be called the First Baptist Church of Albuquerque (real creative name, right?). It’s at 689 Becker Street. You can write me there.
Just keep your head up, Eva. Don’t let them change you. And don’t listen to what the little old church ladies say about us. They have to have something to talk about anyway, right? So let them talk about Mrs. Monroe’s prodigal daughter and the crazy missionary kid, okay?
You’ve seemed kind of lost lately, and I understand. I’ve felt that way too. Not that I can tell my folks that. They think I’m a heathen already, haha. But—I’ve been thinking. The stars here in the desert are clearer somehow. Like they’re closer. And it makes all the answers neither one of us can ever quite find seem closer too.
So, to remind you of that, I’m sending you a necklace. I bought it yesterday from a guy who’s helping my folks get the building ready for the new church—Miguel is a pretty solid dude, not like your regular church guy. Anyway, he has a jewelry shop, and when I saw this, I knew it was the one for you. The pendant is a meteorite—yes, a real one. Wear it over your heart and remember that even stars get lost sometimes, but answers are closer than we know.
And remember that I love you. Write me back, okay?
—Thad
The words were raw, real, but with a subtle beauty at the same time. As if I could hear my father’s voice through the shape of his sentences. And so much was whirling in my mind. What did my dad mean about people talking? What kinds of questions had they grappled with together? Had he ever written Mom again?
And—a meteorite? A real one?
I held the necklace in the light from the window, studying the rock more closely. Dark and shiny, like the midnight sky, and pockmarked with dents I hadn’t noticed before. I rubbed it between my fingers. Had my dad rubbed it this way? This piece of something bigger than I knew, this rock that was sent from worlds I could never imagine?
Why had Mom never opened this letter?
I studied the paper again, my eyes tracking the lines over and over, my mind searching to sort the information I’d received. Thad. That accounted for the T in TJ. The J had to be his last name.
I reached for my phone and googled first baptist church albuquerque. No results, so I tried searching the address my dad had written. Google Maps showed a strip mall at that location now. A nail salon, a video game store, a pet supply outlet, and a clothing shop, but no church.
My mind was already whirring into problem-solving mode. Somehow, I had to find out. Maybe I could talk to some of the people at the stores. Find out what had happened to the church that used to be there. Or even check with the local county offices. Property records, nonprofit registrations…
But how could I do any of that from fifteen hundred miles away?
And then suddenly the idea struck like lucid lightning.
Albuquerque. Hadn’t Jaz said—
I swiped to my texts. Sure enough, she’d sent the itinerary. And there was the blue route line, squiggling across the country, across the deserts, straight to—
Albuquerque.
Now, this is the part I’ve replayed in my head a hundred times. Watching myself, trying to figure out just exactly the pinpoint moment when I made the decision. This is what I can remember:
I was sitting there on my bed, next to my desk all loaded with ready-made futures, under a calendar still dangling limply in the past, and I had this sudden snap of clarity that I was in the present. In the now. That summer was summering right outside my window, that the horizon went far beyond the familiar bristle of pines at the edge of our suburban lot, that with a single gasp I could walk out of that suffocating house and into the life that had been waiting for me to live it.
That I had this one match-flare moment to make a choice. To stay in my world, orbiting around all that was safe and solid and sleeping.
Or to blur beyond the bounds with reckless hope. Kind of like what Gran called faith. Or what Jaz called adventure.
Kind of like—a meteorite.
Which all sounds dumb and lame and absolutely pitiful when you try to tell it. But when it happened, it was—well, the best I can describe it is, it was like gravity. Like the invisible force that pulls everything in the universe into place, and just for a moment, everything is where it belongs.
First, I slipped the golden chain around my neck, tucking the meteorite under my shirt like a secret. And then I walked out of the house, between two hedges unnaturally square, and shattered the symmetry of my grandmother’s world by telling her that I was going on a road trip across America.