Chapter Thirty-Six

Sierra stood at the window in Mr. Prodan’s library after school. A soft rain soaked up the sounds of traffic on the main road half a block away. Ribbons of water ran down the glass, blurring the plants outside into patches of greens and purples and reds, like a Monet painting.

Mr. Prodan came in, a book in his hand. “I have found an old reader in Romanian from my school days. I thought you might enjoy it.”

Sierra forced a thank-you smile and took the book.

“If you do not want the book, you may say so.”

Sierra flipped it open. “It’s great, Mr. Prodan. Really.”

He took a seat. “Then it is not the book.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, but I think you do. I am comfortable with your sadness, Sierra. You do not need to smile for me.”

Sierra felt the shakes start inside. She didn’t need this. “I’m not sad. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I do not worry about you because I have to. To my mind, we are friends, and I count it a privilege to share the burden of your sadness. Or your anger.”

“I’m not angry.”

She turned back to the window so she could get away from his all-too-knowing eyes. They were what had drawn her to him last fall—those eyes that looked like they’d seen it all, understood it all. But how could it be a privilege to share someone else’s sadness? There was already too much sadness. No one wanted to borrow another person’s.

She kept her back to him, hoping he would go into the kitchen and do what he always did—cook. But he didn’t. She stayed at the window, looking out at the gray mist and splotches of wet flowers until her legs got tired and her back ached.

The quiet inside, the quiet outside, weighed on her. It was almost five when she turned to see him asleep with a book in his hand. She took the book and placed it back on the shelf. He held his injured hands at an odd angle in his sleep, his thumbs perpendicular to his other fingers, his palms impossibly flat.

 

The next day Sierra fought her way against the tide of students on her way to fourth period. Carlos hurried through the double doors and stopped in front of her.

“Hey, Sierra.” He shifted his books, and he looked so sad and gentle she thought she might break into a hundred thousand pieces.

She gave him a quiet hello and pushed past, trying to pretend he was just some guy in the hall. At her locker, she swiveled her combination lock open. People shouted to each other, locker doors banged. She could pretend, but Carlos wasn’t some guy.

Before she even got the locker door half open Jazzy leaned against it, causing it to slam shut. “How does it feel to be on top of the gossip food chain?”

Sierra gave Jazzy an even look. Eye contact. Make eye contact—it was something she had to remind herself of constantly. And gossip? She and Carlos were hardly worth talking about.

“You don’t even know, huh?”

Sierra shook her head. “Know what?”

“No one told you about Mr. Foster?”

“What about him?”

“He’s gone.”

“Yeah? Gone where?”

“Girl, you don’t keep your ears open, do you? He got himself fired over a week ago. Got himself fired over you.”

“Jazzy, what are you talking about?”

“He left his class to hang by themselves, no teacher or anything, and they fired him. He’s gone, girl.”

Every muscle froze in place. Jazzy had to be wrong. Mr. Foster was the best teacher at the school. Everyone knew that. “They wouldn’t fire him for protecting a student.”

“Ya-huh. Bella de la Cruz works in the office fifth period, and she heard it all, even if the door was closed. Word is, the principal asked why he left in the middle of his class, and he said he ‘wasn’t at liberty to say.’” She used finger quotes. “But everyone knows why he left. He left ’cause he heard you fighting off Loose-Hands Emilio.”

A terrible buzzing went off in her head. Sierra had asked Mr. Foster—begged him—not to tell anyone right away. Her stomach dropped. He hadn’t told the principal what happened that day. Which meant one thing: she got him fired.

Sierra forced open her locker, pulled out her history book, and slammed the door shut. “See you, Jazzy.”

She strode down the hall with her book under her arm. Jazzy trailed behind, probably wanting to know the scoop on Sierra’s reaction.

Sierra rolled her shoulders. Well, she didn’t have one. She scrubbed the heel of her hand across her face, erasing the strain. She flashed a smile Jazzy’s way and kept walking. She kept walking right past her fourth-period class, losing Jazzy, down the stairs, past Officer Wilkins, who was talking sports with a couple of boys, and then out the front doors, into the misting rain.

She passed her apartment complex and kept walking. She wasn’t going home. No matter what she did, she was a burden to people. Mr. Foster, Carlos, Mom, Mr. Prodan—all of them were doing everything they could so fragile Sierra didn’t have to face anything bad.

A car sped by, splattering her jeans, and she moved farther from the road.

“Por qué te abates, alma mía, y te turbas dentro de mí,” she whispered. Why are you so downcast, my soul? Why so disturbed within me?

She knew the psalm in English, French, Spanish, Romanian, and Hebrew. Just for fun, she’d taught herself to say it in a few languages she didn’t even know. But in any language, it was the same. Downcast was downcast.

She let her stupid smile go. It wasn’t hers anyway.

She lifted her face to the rain, so soft and cool. She didn’t know where she was going. All she knew was she would scream if she had to spend another afternoon at Mr. Prodan’s with him watching her, worrying over her.

 

April paced the living room. Sierra was out there somewhere. It was drawing close to midnight, and she was out there. The drumming rain beat the refrain for her. The drizzle had turned into pattering drops and then into sheets of driving rain a couple of hours ago.

Yes, Sierra had done this before, but it didn’t make it any easier. It made it worse. Luca sat on her sofa, drinking cold coffee. She’d drunk several cups herself when she got home, but couldn’t stomach the thought of another sip.

Please be somewhere inside. Please be dry and safe.

If only she could be out there searching for Sierra herself, but the police insisted that she should be at home in case Sierra returned. At the knock, she flew to the door.

“It will be Nicu,” Luca reminded her. “He said he would come after he checked for Sierra in the streets around the school and the neighborhood.”

It was Nick.

She had so prayed it would be Sierra, but of course, Sierra wouldn’t knock. As Nick filled the doorway, she knew he was the next best thing. Just seeing him before her sliced her fear in half.

He shrugged off his slicker and hung it on a chair.

Nick glanced at the wall of Hebrew and Greek tiles, the lamps April brightened the apartment with, then at his father. She started to warm him a cup of coffee, but he cut her off. “I don’t need anything, April. I’m going right back out.”

He waited for her attention. “I’ve looked everywhere I can think of. I need to know, April: did anything happen to upset her recently? Emilio again?”

April looked back at Luca, then to the slip of paper on the kitchen counter with Joe Wheeler’s number on it. Nick followed her gaze, frowning.

April linked her hands. Why were the words so hard to say?

Across the room, Luca opened his hands and inspected them. With a matter-of-fact voice, he said, “Sierra learned only a few weeks ago that her father’s death was not an accident, but a suicide.”

April wrapped her arms around herself. Luca looked at her, asking her permission after the fact. It was only right. She’d made him spill his secrets. But it wasn’t so easy when the truth exposed was your own.

Nick’s eyes darkened, not with condemnation, but with pity. And maybe a dash of disappointment. For all the stark honesty they’d shared last week, she’d failed to share that detail with him.

Nick took a deep breath. “Okay. What places have you looked already?”

April looked to the ceiling, as if it would provide answers.

Luca filled in for her. “Carlos is searching for her. But the places she most likely would go—bookstores and museums—will be closed for the night.”

“What about places she might associate with her dad?” Nick said softly.

April shook her head. “Carlos asked around the Rice campus. I can’t think of other places she would associate with him. Gary wasn’t from Houston. Sierra never lived here with him.”

“Where was he from?”

“Near Wichita. I called the bus stations and airlines. Nothing. And she wouldn’t have enough money to go far anyway.”

April dropped her arms only to wrap them around her again. She looked from Luca to Nick. No one mentioned that the temperature had dropped with nightfall or that if the rain continued, the bayous would almost certainly flood. Please, please, let her be inside somewhere safe. But the dark idea blipped on the edges of her thoughts that if she prayed it, God would certainly ignore it. Whatever Joe said, whatever her pastor said, a decade and more of heartfelt prayers that had gone unheeded led her to the only conclusion: God might perform miracles for other people, but He didn’t answer her prayers.

Nick hesitated. “What about Emilio? Has anyone checked to see where he is?”

“The police visited him. He was home playing video games.”

“The police are looking?” Nick asked.

“They’re looking. Everyone’s looking.” April tried to bring a smile to her mouth. If she believed enough, if she hoped enough, if she even looked like she hoped enough, maybe her little girl would come home.

“Don’t, April.” He came close, reached out toward her face, but then dropped his hand. “Don’t smile for me tonight. I don’t need it.”

“I need it!” Her voice broke, and she turned away. “I need to believe she’s coming home.”

He came behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. She let his strong hands give her comfort. But when the tears started, she ran for the bathroom.

After a while, she braced herself with her hands on the bathroom sink. She washed her face with cold water and, with a shaking hand, ran a brush through her hair. For Sierra’s sake, she had to be strong.

When she came out, Nick stood at the window, pulling the curtains back to look at the courtyard. He focused on something in the middle, or on something that wasn’t there at all. Seeing Nick with such concentration on his face gave her a small notch of hope.

He dropped the curtains and rapped his knuckles on the wall, as if some decision had been made. Striding to her, he took her hands in his. “Sierra’s upset and confused, but she wants life, April. I see that desire in her.” He stopped for her to take that in.

April gripped his hands for dear life. She glanced at Luca for confirmation. He nodded. Was it true? Sierra seemed to have such a tenuous hold on life. That’s why the secret had persisted, because April was afraid to believe Sierra would hold on when she could hardly force herself to go through the motions of her days as it was.

Nick gave her hands a final squeeze. “I’m going to look for her. I’ll call you.”

The door swung shut with a gust, and he was gone. She looked down at her hands. He’d squeezed them so hard they ached to the bone.

All night she paced, going from her bedroom to the kitchen, the living room to Sierra’s room. She smoothed Sierra’s blanket, set up her stuffed kangaroo, and arranged her books on her desk, as if she could ensure Sierra’s return by keeping the room in order. Nick and Carlos called in from time to time, but neither had anything to report.

Luca found her standing in front of the muted TV in the wee hours watching the news. She was terrified of what she might see, but it soon became apparent it was a replay from the ten o’clock hour. The only current news scrolled across the bottom—temperatures dropping below forty and a rising count of rainfall.

“Come, April. Sit with me,” Luca said.

They sat on the sofa. There was nothing to say, but he held her hand, and that was something. Soon enough, though, she couldn’t help herself. She got up and began to pace again.

With the heavy cloud cover, it was almost eight before any light made it to the window. April’s eyes burned. Her neck throbbed. And Sierra was still missing.

She turned around to see Luca on the sofa, eyes closed. She thought he’d fallen asleep and leaned to cover him with an afghan. But he opened his eyes, and she saw his folded hands. He wasn’t sleeping. He was praying.

Grateful someone had the faith to pray, she went to splash more cold water on her face and check the TV again. The rain count showed over ten inches in twelve hours. An image popped up of I-10 with more water flowing down its lanes than the Brazos River.

She dropped to her knees to follow Luca’s example. She folded her hands, closed her eyes, and tried one more time. O Lord, hear my prayer. If you never hear another prayer from me again, hear this one.

On TV, an eighteen-wheeler careened on the water like a drunken ship. Then the camera feed switched to Buffalo Bayou, swollen past its banks and lapping over the bridge.