a house or a period in time. When he is gone, it will be forever and I will never get that part of my soul back. I pull the little ear buds out of my ears and run out of my room, my bare feet barely skimming down the stairs. I round the corner at the bottom of the stairs and throw myself headlong into Israel. Anyone else would pull me off of them, maybe laugh at my impetuousness, ask me what is the matter, but Israel just holds me as tightly as I hold him, as if he knows exactly my reasons. He holds me firmly, his chin resting on the top of my head (I remember dimly I forgot to wash out the caramel syrup), and he doesn’t belittle me by pulling away first. I leave a wet spot on his button down shirt from my leaking eyes. He cups my face in his hands and looks at me for a moment.
“Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Someday, that innocent expression will be a lie, I think, as I trudge back up the stairs. Someday I will wake up and he won’t be there, just like my guitar won’t be there, like Penny won’t be there, or Micki or Air Supply or toffee cream breves or Luke Dawes. What will I have when I don’t have the ones I have now? Prue will pass away eventually, even Dad will – sooner rather than later if he doesn’t stop drinking so much. Matthias and Harry are old. Meli and Will will eventually have children and possibly go a separate way than I. Will I be middle aged and traveling alone? I wish, not for the first time, that I had Rose. It is selfish, this obsessive need to be near her, and I can’t lie to myself. Of course I am worried for her, scared of what she may have been through without us by her side, not wanting her to travel alone anymore, but ultimately, I am terrified of being completely and utterly alone. I push open my cracked window to let in more of the night air; I feel stifling hot all of a sudden, and my nightgown feels more like a heavy velvet cape that traps me beneath its folds. The breeze through the window lifts the ends of my hair and I close my eyes. I can still hear the wind moving quickly through the trees below. Shhh, it tells me, hush.
********************
When I wake the next morning, I have an idea, as if sleeping has brought me clarity of mind. I will not go on the assumption that Rose is traveling alone, but rather look for other Lost who may know her. She herself may be hard to locate, but perhaps her traveling partners – if they exist – will be easier. Also, I have laundry to do and the Laundromat that I frequent isn’t far from the shelter and the soup kitchen: a good place to start if I hope to find people like me. I skip a shower and instead wash out the sticky strands of hair in the sink, throw on my cleanest clothes, and grab Israel’s car keys on my way out the door. I have only driven once and it was a bit of a disaster (Israel tried giving me a driving lesson once but I nearly hit Gladys’ cat and Is wasn’t the most patient teacher), but I am not going to walk clear across town with three basketfuls of laundry. Typically, Emme and I go together with her mother, Bea, driving because Bea spent quite a few years in her twenties in the 1960s and knows cars. But it doesn’t look that difficult really and since I’m the one who helped Israel study the driver’s manual, I know most of the rules and laws. I see the same cat now as I slide all my laundry in the backseat.
“Shoo!” I clap my hands at it and slam the door extra hard, hoping to frighten it away. It sits on the curb, washing its paws and eyeing me with its green eyes.
I have to figure out how to adjust the driver’s seat which takes a minute. Finally, I slide it up quite a ways so that my feet can reach the pedals. Gas on right, brake on left, I take a deep breath. I can’t seem to move the gear shift and then I locate the small