Chapters (22)
If I’m honest, I think those words have set up home deep under the ocean of my consciousness ever since. Ever since, I’ve known I needed to do whatever I could for my sister; to turn my volume down if things were too loud for her.
I try not to be too happy now.
It’s quiet in the RV, except for the rumbling of the road. For a long time, Ellie and I stay together, close and silent. Ellie’s eyes are closed again. My brain literally can’t imagine looking around and seeing only pointlessness. There are always too many exciting things possible in a day for it to be pointless. I want to know what to say, how to respond, but I don’t.
Ruth would know what to say, I think.
Ruth would understand.
Sometime in the middle of the night I wake up. I blink a few times until I realize there’s blue light coming from somewhere below me.
Ruth’s awake too, and on her phone.
Silently as possible, I climb down from my loft. When I sit on the side of her nook, there’s a creaking sound, and she jumps.
“Oh geez, Olivia, you scared me,” she says. Then she gives a smile. A very tired smile.
I want so badly to give her that meaningful something from my conversation with Ellie, but that something is deeper than words, and I don’t know how.
“Sorry,” I say. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“What else is new,” she says.
In the light from her phone, I look again at her shelf. The tattoo, the feather, the program, now a ticket stub from the aquarium.
“Hey, maybe we could add all that stuff to a new treasure box or something when we get to California,” I say. I think again about how, somehow, it’s easier to ask important questions and say impor-tant things in the middle of the night.
The screen reflects in her eyes. “Maybe,” she says. “I’m still…”
She hesitates. I wonder how much of my face she can see in the dark. I decide to prompt her forward. “Still…?”
“I’m still looking,” she says.
“Still looking?”
“Yeah. I … I used to like things.”
Maybe it’s the hope of the treasure we’re heading toward; maybe it’s being around Darcy or talking with Ellie; or maybe I’m just getting a little older, but for the first time, I think I understand what she really means.
“You’re looking for something that’s like it used to be,” I say.
She makes a sound that’s not quite a hiccup. She doesn’t say anything in response, and I sit there for a moment until I realize my hand’s on her foot.
Her voice is soggy with effort when she says, “The feather is really pretty.”