A dead man had been found in Canada. He had bled to death in a freight car filled with grain and ruined the entire shipment. There was no identification on the body, but there were several distinguishing features. There was a tattoo of a snake on a leg that had been amputated below the knee on the left side.
In the man’s pocket were six prescription pain pills. And the plastic wrappers from packets of saltine crackers.
The dead body was kept in the city morgue for seventy-two hours, but then it was transferred to a county facility. Thirty days later a crematorium that had a contract with the city disposed of the remains.
Clarence Border was listed as a John Doe. No one ever came forward to claim the ashes, and the unmarked plastic bag was tossed when a cleaning crew organized a storage room. Despite legislation guaranteeing all members of society dignity in death, the cardboard box marked John Doe ended up in a municipal dump.
They were all going out for Thai food. It was Bobby’s birthday, and how do you say no to someone who organizes his own party?
Emily turned on the hot water and waited the usual amount of time before stepping into the shower. But once the spray hit her legs, she knew.
Destiny.
The girl took the longest time bathing of anyone in the house. And that meant if you had to follow her, it was hopeless.
Emily decided to stay under the cold water. It was certainly a way to know she was alive. And at this point, everything that reinforced that feeling was a good thing.
There was a kind of surrender in understanding how fragile and fleeting her very existence could be.
A teenage girl who Emily barely knew had saved her life.
She now understood that the hero of her own life could at one point have been her sworn enemy. That made the whole world a more complicated place.
The day that Sam and Riddle’s father had appeared was just starting to fade away. She didn’t see the man behind doors or in the shadows of dark windows. But she carried a fear and apprehension she knew hadn’t been there before.
She was going to overcome that. She promised herself. She just needed time. And distractions. And having Destiny Verbeck living in the room above their garage provided that. Daily.
Emily dried off with a shiver and minutes later slipped her feet into her new heels. They looked good, but Emily always found that new shoes hurt at first.
And so, she decided, did some new people. Even ones you wanted around. Even ones who had saved your life.
Sam and Bobby sat in the Bells’ living room, waiting. The two girls were late. Bobby was talking about things they would do together in the future. Something about Sam playing his guitar in coffee shops.
Sam was only half listening as his mind wandered. He had let his father go. Now he could think about problems like what to get Emily for her birthday or how to sort out his class schedule in the fall. If you aren’t worried about the future, he decided, maybe ideas replaced anxiety.
Sam heard the back door open and Destiny come in. She was wearing some kind of military uniform. She had on a blue jacket, blue pants, and black boots. The two boys gave each other a sideways look.
“This is the uniform of a French policewoman. What do you think?”
Bobby searched for the right words, but ended up saying, “I’ve seen French maid costumes. I guess those are different.”
Sam jumped in. “You look nice.”
Destiny didn’t seem to hear either of them. “I’m not wearing it to school or anything. I’m just thinking that if I end up one day being on the police force, I should know what the outfit’s like.”
Bobby cleared his throat. “I think they call them uniforms. Not outfits. And are you planning on being a police officer in France?”
They all heard a voice and turned as Emily came downstairs.
“Happy Birthday, Bobby. Let’s go get Thai food.”
Destiny grabbed Bobby’s arm. “Spicy? Right?”
Bobby nodded. “But not too spicy.”
Sam waited till Emily got closer and then whispered to her: “She’s really going to high school with you guys?”
Emily whispered back, “We’ll see. My mom said it could happen.”
Sam only shook his head. He reached down and scratched the dog behind the ear. He called out good-bye to Riddle and Jared, who were looking at a book on farmed fish. And then, while everyone went outside, he stuck his head in the kitchen to say good-bye to Debbie and Tim Bell.
Sam headed out the door knowing one thing for certain now. He’d spent a lot of time thinking he was cursed. But that was wrong. He’d made it through. He was the lucky one.
Sam slipped his fingers through Emily’s, and they walked to where Bobby and Destiny were waiting at the end of the driveway.
The bricks on the pathway were set on an angle. They were uneven—chipped and worn from both wear and the wet Oregon weather. But as Sam went forward they were smooth under his feet.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Andrea Spooner at Little, Brown was my editor, which means that this book is hers as well as mine. I thank her for being so smart, thorough, and kind. At Andrea’s side is Deirdre Jones, who is going to one day (soon) be Andrea. I’m so lucky to have both of them in my life.
Amy Berkower is my agent and my friend, and if she hadn’t gone into publishing, she would have been the head of the United Nations. I’m grateful she went to work at Writers House and ended up running the show with Simon Lipskar.
Ken Wright is my former agent and is now in charge of Viking Children’s Books. He may think he’s gotten rid of me, but he hasn’t. Ever.
Tim Ellis first inspired me to write about these characters.
Alisa Allen is the woman who has my back at all times.
Lewin Wertheimer and Henry Murray led the trip that started all this.
And I want to acknowledge the following people for supporting my writing throughout the years: Geoffrey Sanford, Bob Wallerstein, Irby Smith, Dan Parada, Nadine Schiff, Joe Roth, Roger Birnbaum, John Stainton, Jan and Trish de Bont, Neal Allen, Karen Glass, Ron Burkle, Martha Luttrell, Bill Dear, Tim Goldberg, Norman Lear, Jerry Kay, Kate Juergens, Lee Smith, Darius Anderson, David Thomson, Ralf Bode, Leo Geffner, David Buelow, Matt Wallerstein, Paula Mazur, Kimberly Beck Clark, Ron Levin, Jason Clark, Rob Minkoff, David Dworski, Steve Rabineau, and Amy Holden Jones.
I write slumped with my laptop on the bed. I’m not napping, or at least not all of the time. Max, Calvin, and Gary, just call my name. I’ll be there.
HOLLY GOLDBERG SLOAN was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and spent her childhood living in California, the Netherlands, Istanbul, Washington, DC, and Oregon. She is the author of the acclaimed I’ll Be There and Counting by 7s and has written and directed a number of successful family feature films, including Angels in the Outfield, The Big Green, and Made in America. The mother of two sons, Holly lives with her husband in Santa Monica, California.
Everyone whose path you cross has the power to change you.
Read the beginning of Sam and Emily’s story in the following selection from
Now Available
Sam’s father, Clarence Border, heard voices.
But they were voices of people who were up at odd hours and who lived exclusively inside his head. They were voices of people whose jobs were primarily to warn of danger—sometimes real but mostly imagined.
When you first met Clarence Border, you understood you were talking to someone who was anxious. His thin body seemed to crackle with energy. His fingers fluttered at his sides when he spoke, moving like he was playing an invisible piano that must have been located on the tops of his bony thighs.
It wasn’t that he twitched. He was more in control than that. It was that he was hardwired to run in the b
link of an eye.
And to take you with him.
Clarence was a good-looking man. He had a full head of dark hair and a strong jaw. When he was dressed in his always clean black jeans, you couldn’t see that on the inside of his left leg, curled around the calf, was a tattoo of a black snake. He’d given it to himself, and it looked like it.
Clarence stood over six feet tall, and you could tell in a single glance that he knew how to throw a punch—and that it wouldn’t take much to get him to do it.
His voice was deep and steady, and you’d think that would be a good thing, but then his fingers would start moving and it was like he was getting a message from some far-off place, not from circuitry in his frontal lobe that just didn’t seem to work right.
There are many ways Sam’s father’s life could have played out. He could have stayed in Alaska, living near the old cabin where he was born, hunting and fishing and on occasion taking something that wasn’t his and selling it to get by. But he’d gotten caught trying to unload an outboard motor to an off-duty patrolman.
The arrest uncovered a string of other misdeeds, and Clarence found himself at the age of twenty-two in prison for three years. When he was released, he left the state, and the only thing he knew, truly deep in his heart, was that he’d never go back to living behind bars.
Which was not to say that he was going to live a life of virtue. Far from it. Clarence Border’s vow wasn’t one of decency. It was a vow of preservation and desperation. He’d do anything, to anyone, to keep one step ahead of the government.
For a time, life in Montana, which was where Sam was born, was without major incident. Clarence had met Shelly at the Buttrey Food & Drug store. She appeared in the aisle just as he was preparing to slip a box of cheese-flavored Goldfish crackers into the back of his bulky winter coat.
Shelly was ten years older than he was, and he could tell right away that she liked him. Since she was wearing a name tag, he just needed her phone number. She gave it to him without his even asking.
Six weeks later, Shelly was pregnant with Sam and she was living with Clarence above her parents’ garage. He worked odd jobs under the watchful eye of her family, and while the whole arrangement didn’t actually work, it wasn’t yet a colossal failure.
Shelly’s father, Donn, was an electrician. If he’d had more opportunity, he’d have been an engineer. He understood not just wiring and current and all things mechanical—he also understood operating systems.
The first time Donn met Clarence Border, he knew that his daughter had hooked up with a man who had a busted mainframe. He tried to warn her early in the game, but Shelly was pregnant before anything could be done.
Donn then took a different approach. He’d teach the shifty snake a profession. As the months wore on, a new plan took shape. If he couldn’t make Clarence understand electricity, Donn could electrocute him and probably get away with it.
But the snake struck first.
The voices in his head couldn’t be ignored, and the morning of the bite they told Clarence that he’d need to be righteous when someone had done him wrong.
Donn wouldn’t let Clarence smoke cigarettes when they were in the truck, and when they got to the Weiss Sand and Gravel Company, there was a No Smoking sign in the work area.
Clarence seethed as he unloaded their tools. Someone would pay for the way he was feeling.
Shelly’s father was up on the roof attaching a new transformer to the pole when Clarence unhooked the ground wire. The old man was cooked in a single jolt that flung his body halfway across the roof into the company’s TV dish. Smoke came off his body.
All Clarence could do was stare at the No Smoking sign and feel a sense of satisfaction.
After that, Shelly and Clarence moved from the garage into the main house, and Shelly’s mother, consumed with grief, stopped speaking to him. He’d look back on this period as a time of focus.
When Sam was almost four and a half, Shelly got pregnant again and then, a month early, tiny Riddle was born. From the start, Riddle cried all the time. His weak sobs drove Clarence out of the house and back into the garage apartment.
The kid had colic. And some other problems. His nose ran constantly, and he squinted as if the sun were in his eyes even on rainy days. Because of his red face, Shelly named him Rudolph but he was known as Riddle from the second his father picked him up and he made his first squawk.
By the time Sam and Riddle were seven years old and two, the house had liens and the bill collectors didn’t just make calls, they paid visits.
Shelly’s mom couldn’t take it anymore, and even though she’d grown attached to the two little boys, she moved down to Louisiana to be with her deaf sister. She said she’d send money when she left, but no one had believed her. Clarence hadn’t worked in forever, and his wife finally went back to stocking the aisles at the Buttrey.
Shelly came home after an eight-hour shift on a cold, rainy day in March and the front door was wide open. The truck wasn’t in the driveway, and the garden hose by the garage was missing. Clarence had taken the two kids, some power tools, one suitcase of clothes, and her Indian Head penny collection, which had belonged to her great-uncle Jimmy.
Sam was in second grade and the star of his class, reading books for fifth graders. Ten years later, he could still picture exactly what that classroom looked like.
He’d never seen another one since.
Since they’d left Montana, Sam’s father always told the same story. His wife had died giving birth to the young one, and then he’d lost his business. Riddle always looked like he was either just getting over a cold or just coming down with one. He’d squint out at the world, and people just naturally felt bad for the whole motherless family.
Clarence said he’d been in auto parts. Not many people asked him about auto parts, and that was a good thing because he knew next to nothing about them.
He’d explain that he couldn’t pay his employees health-care insurance premiums, but he’d chosen his workers over profit. He kept it going for as long as he could, and then finally the government came and forced him into Chapter 11.
Riddle first heard the story when he was a toddler, and back then he thought it meant that his father had been trapped inside a book. But somehow the tyrant had gotten out, and that had to be why Clarence hated teachers and any kind of learning, really.
Sam and Riddle’s father believed in life experience. That’s what he told the two boys. That’s why he’d never let them go to school once they took to the road.
But they really didn’t go to school because Clarence didn’t just hate all teachers, he loathed the whole system.
The two boys had slept late for years. Now that they were older, their father didn’t bother to even try to feed them, and they always woke up hungry.
Sam and Riddle had been taught to stay out of sight during school hours because people wanted to know why two boys were wandering around doing nothing. Plus it was better to let fast-food places open and have trash build up before they headed into the world.
They made a habit of not hitting the streets until the sun was high in the sky and knew to say that they were homeschooled if anyone asked. But Sundays were different. Sundays, they could be seen at any time.
And Sundays there was music.
Sam pulled on his shoes and stared at his little brother, who was asleep on the stained mattress on the floor in the corner. Riddle’s breathing, as always, was heavy, and his permanent congestion had the wheeze of some kind of new bronchial infection.
Sam thought about trying to prop his head up higher on the pillow because sometimes that helped, but instead he took a pen off the floor and wrote in large letters on a scrap of paper:
BE BACK SOON.
Sam had seen the First Unitarian Church when they originally came to town.
Was there a Second Unitarian and a Third? Was it some kind of contest?
Because now, standing in front of the brick building on Pearl Street, he cou
ld see that this house of worship was much more upscale than what he was used to. These First Unitarians were the winners. The parking lot was mostly full and the cars were new and clean, and that wasn’t right for him.
This church was in the best part of town, and nothing about it looked desperate. He didn’t go into places like this.
The way he saw it, the less money people had, the more instruments they played and the more food they put out. And the easier they were for him to be around.
But Sam had been all over his own neighborhood and, without Riddle at his heels, he had walked faster and somehow had ventured farther than before.
Sam had heard the pipe organ playing from down the street. It was just too intriguing. And now he could see that the First Unitarian’s large wooden doors at the front were propped open.
He could get in and get out.
And maybe catch a glimpse of what was making the amazing sound.
But it wasn’t that easy.
The first problem was that no sooner had Sam entered than a man appeared from nowhere and closed the oversize doors. It sounded like the closing of an entrance to a vault.
Sam slid silently into the pew in the last row. The organ stopped playing almost immediately, and a minister appeared. He wore a robe but also a tie. He leaned into a microphone and offered up some words. Sam never heard anything these people said. Instead he studied the large space.
To Sam, a room that was clean and smelled vaguely like flowers and candles was exotic. And scary. He was now giving this place his full attention.
The walls were covered in wood that looked to him like pieces of soft leather. There was a large light fixture that hung from the ceiling up front, and it had rows of tiny candles, but they weren’t really candles. They would look better, he thought, if they weren’t fake. But then it would be impossible to light them without a huge ladder. And also they might drip down onto people, which would be painful.