The Geography of Lost Things Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  THE CHAOS OF STANDING STILL

  * “Absorbing from first page to last, Brody’s novel gradually unveils Ryn’s complicated history and celebrates her most profound moments of truth.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Jessica Brody has made me believe that getting stuck in an airport overnight would be the most fantastic thing in the world. I fell hard for this story of love, loss, friendship, and bad airport food.”

  —MORGAN MATSON, New York Times bestselling author of The Unexpected Everything

  “A beautiful and deftly told story of letting go and starting over. The Chaos of Standing Still is laugh-out-loud funny, deeply stirring, and of course wonderfully swoony. You’ll love it.”

  —JULIE BUXBAUM, New York Times bestselling author of Tell Me Three Things

  “Even those who haven’t experienced a devastating loss like Ryn’s will relate to her struggle: feeling stuck between moving on and holding on. Ryn’s one-year/one-night journey to find her new normal is funny, insightful, empowering, and filled with heart.”

  —TAMARA IRELAND STONE, New York Times bestselling author of Every Last Word

  FOR MY DAD

  A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

  —Jean de La Fontaine

  Salvage (verb): to save something valuable from damage, destruction, or loss.

  —Cambridge Dictionary

  THE ENVELOPE

  By the time the messenger arrived at our front door, Jackson had already been dead two weeks. I stared at the large yellow envelope in the man’s hand, completely blank apart from my name, scrawled crookedly across the center. I recognized the familiar careless handwriting from years of sporadic birthday cards and notes scribbled on Post-its.

  I’m sorry. I have to do this.

  I almost closed the door in the messenger’s face. I almost told him to go back to wherever he had come from. He was running a fool’s errand.

  Because I was so convinced there was nothing Jackson could have left me that would ever matter. That would ever erase what he did to me and my mom. Nothing that could possibly change my life. For better or for worse.

  As it turned out, I was wrong.

  THURSDAY

  ’Cause in this place,

  this holy space,

  solace waits

  and love negotiates

  —“Sleep,” from the album

  Anarchy in a Cup by Fear Epidemic

  Written by Nolan Cook, Slate Miller,

  Chris McCaden, and Adam French

  Released April 17, 1998

  4:05 P.M.

  RUSSELLVILLE, CA

  INVENTORY: (0)

  I stand on the front porch, watching Mom shove her overnight bag into the cluttered back seat of Rosie’s sedan. I suppose I could blame Rosie for getting Mom the job in the first place, but that would be petty and childish. We need the money. I know that. Mom knows that. Even Rosie knows that.

  It’s why Mom is disappearing to Sacramento for a week to serve fancy appetizers to even fancier people, leaving me to finish packing up the house by myself.

  Graduation is coming up! How will you be spending Senior Week?

  A Hitting up every party in town.

  B On a beach in Mexico.

  C Trying to fit your entire life into a box.

  Not that I really have anything better to do.

  Sure, there’ll be parties. My best friend, June, already told me she was having one tomorrow night. But it’s definitely not what I had planned for the week between the last day of high school and graduation. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure what I had planned.

  I just didn’t expect this.

  I didn’t expect Mom to give up so easily.

  I didn’t expect to be the one still fighting.

  Mom comes back to the porch to hug me good-bye. She takes in my crossed arms and the permanent scowl that hasn’t left my face since she came home last week with what she called “the keys to our new life.”

  She really should have worked in advertising instead of food service.

  “Don’t worry,” Mom says. “I’ll be back in time for the moving truck.”

  “I could ask Pam for an advance on my paycheck,” I tell her.

  Still fighting.

  Mom sighs. “We’ve been through this. You know it’s not enough.”

  “Maybe if we sell the car—”

  “Ali, give it up. It’s over.”

  “But—” I try to argue.

  “But we’ve been through all the buts. A thousand times. There are no more buts left.”

  “There has to be.”

  Mom brushes a strand of curly brown hair from my face. She’s already getting blurry through the tears that are forming in my eyes. I hastily gather up my unruly hair and secure it with the rubber band I always keep around my wrist.

  “I think you’ll like living in Harvest Grove,” Mom says. “They have a pool. And a gym. All the apartments come with new carpeting. No more of that ugly brown shag.”

  “I like the ugly brown shag.”

  Mom chuckles. “That’s just because you’ve never seen nice carpet before. Plus, you’ll have a great place to come home to when you visit me from UC Davis next year.”

  I swallow down the giant lump that has just formed in my throat.

  You got a full scholarship to the college of your dreams! What do you do?

  A Start shopping for dorm room furniture.

  B Spend the entire summer obsessing over the course catalog.

  C Hide the letter in your backpack and “accidentally” forget to tell your mother you never accepted the offer.

  “Mom,” I say, my voice cracking. “Don’t do this. Don’t let them take it. We have to fight.”

  “We’ve been fighting!” Mom’s voice rises and then immediately falls again. “Ali. I’m done. Done fighting. Done trying to get out from under his mistakes. This gives us a fresh start. Please try to understand that I need one.”

  My gaze falls to the ground. Because I can’t look at her when she says stuff like that. Because how do you argue with that? Because she’s right.

  I know she’s right.

  And yet, everything about this feels wrong.

  “I’ll see you in a week.” Mom kisses me on the forehead before I can come up with any more useless protests. And then, she’s gone. By the time I look up again, Rosie’s car is already halfway down the driveway.

  I turn and head into the house, navigating through the maze of cardboard boxes. I’m surprised there are so many. I didn’t think we had that much stuff. Mom and I share a love of decluttering. We’re always finding excuses to throw things away, or donate them to Goodwill.

  But I guess everyone accumulates things. Even us.

  I walk into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. As it brews, I head to the desk in the living room where Mom keeps all the paperwork for the house. Bills, bank statements, legal documents. All meticulously organized in hanging file folders in a drawer. I find the folder I’m looking for and flip it open to the first document inside. I skim over all the fake niceties. The “Dear Ms. Collins, we regret to inform you . . .” Like they’re simply writing to tell us that the pillow shams we ordered are out of stock.

  I scroll down to the bottom. To the giant black box surrounding the words TOTAL AMOUNT OVERDUE and the deadline FRIDAY, MAY 29.

  A week from tomorrow.

  I sigh and shut my eyes tight.

  She’s right. It’s not enough. Even if we sold the car and the furniture and Pam was able to give me the biggest advance ever offered to an employee in the history of the pet boarding industry, it wouldn’t be enough
.

  I glance around the living room. At the walls that won’t be our walls. At the carpet that won’t be our carpet. At the boxes that will be emptied somewhere else. Stuff stuffed into new cabinets. New drawers.

  No, not stuffed.

  Never stuffed.

  Neatly stored. Meticulously organized. Maybe even labeled.

  I’m sure most people would look at this house and laugh at my desperation. I know it doesn’t look like much from the outside. Or the inside. The drywall has cracks in it. The paint is chipping. The bedrooms are tiny. The kitchen is tinier. The microwave hasn’t worked in more than two years. The shower stall in the one bathroom that Mom and I share leaks.

  But it’s ours.

  Mom’s and mine.

  No matter what has happened to us in the past eighteen years—no matter how many times he’s let us down—this house has been there for us. A rock beneath the trembling ground. It’s been our safe haven—our eye of so many storms. Russellville may be saturated with painful memories, but this house is where all the good ones live. The sights and sounds and smells. Mom singing in the bathroom as she gets ready for work. Rain pooling at the base of the front porch, causing us to have to jump off the last step. Pumpkin bread baking in the oven. Not only in the fall, but year-round, because Mom and I both love pumpkin.

  Where does all of that go?

  How can the bank possibly repossess things like that? How can they just suck it all up into their vaults and lock it away forever?

  The coffeepot beeps, interrupting my thoughts. I shut the folder, slip it into place, and close the drawer. I head back into the kitchen and pull one of the two coffee mugs down from the cabinet. We’ve never kept a lot of stuff in the house. Just the essentials. Two of everything. Two plates, two sets of silverware, two glasses, two coffee mugs. By the end of next week, it will all be in boxes too.

  As I pour the coffee, watching the stream of dark brown liquid fill the mug, I think about holes.

  Big, gaping holes cut into the ground.

  Holes so deep, you can’t see the top once you’re inside. And the ground keeps sinking beneath your feet. Like quicksand. Pulling you farther and farther down, until your hope of ever climbing out is gone.

  And then, of course, I think about Jackson.

  Smiling his disarming smile.

  Murmuring his empty reassurances.

  Holding a shovel.

  Neither of us were all that shocked when we learned that Jackson had died. Mom and I both knew it was coming eventually. Jackson’s lifestyle wasn’t exactly the kind you’d describe as “sustainable.” He had always lived by a code of impermanence. It’s why we never had a current address for him. Never knew where he was or when or if he would call. Never knew what kind of condition he would be in when he did.

  Mom and I didn’t even know Jackson had been sick. Which, of course, was typical. He did everything without telling us or soliciting our opinion on the matter. Apparently, that also included dying.

  For the next few hours, I blast the bubbliest music I can find on my phone, drink an obscene amount of coffee, and force myself to pack. I start with my bedroom, opening closet doors and dresser drawers and dumping as much as I can into trash bags. The fewer boxes we have to bring with us, the better.

  It feels good to throw things away. Like I’m not only making room in the cabinets, but also making room in my head. Clearing space for better and brighter things. Pushing bad, stale memories out the door.

  When the coffeepot is empty and the trash bags are full, I collapse onto the couch, take out my phone, and navigate to my favorite personality quiz website. I scroll through all of the new quizzes that have popped up since yesterday, quickly ruling out the ones for which I already know what result I’ll get.

  Which Star Wars Episode Best Describes Your Last Relationship?

  Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

  How Stubborn Are You?

  Very.

  What Do Your Summer Plans Say About Your Life?

  That I have no life.

  Finally, I find one that looks interesting—Which Classic Novel Character Would You Most Likely Have as a BFF?—and start answering the questions.

  I’ve pretty much taken every personality quiz under the sun. I can tell you who I am in relation to every single television show, movie, book, and one-hit-wonder song. I know what my favorite doughnut flavor says about me (simple and non-fussy); what my dream vacation is (Rome); what Disney villain best represents my dark side (Ursula from The Little Mermaid); and what my best quality is based on what pizza toppings I like (selfless).

  Personality quizzes have always felt comforting to me. They sum people up, distill the complexities of human beings down to a few digestible sentences.

  Just as the quiz spits out my result—Jane Eyre—an alarm goes off on my phone, reminding me that I’m due at Chateau Marmutt, the pet hotel where I work, for my overnight shift in thirty minutes. I basically get paid to sleep in a room surrounded by dogs. It’s not a bad gig.

  I carry the full trash bags out to the bins at the end of the driveway and turn back to the house, bounding up the porch steps. But I freeze when I see the notice pinned to the door.

  Another one?

  How many of those things do they need to send us? We get it. You’re serious about it. This is not a joke.

  The deadline is stamped onto the page like a searing, red-hot brand.

  Friday, May 29.

  Pay, or else.

  Or else . . .

  Somehow Mom has come to terms with the “or else.” She almost seems to have chosen it. But I just can’t bring myself to choose that.

  I can’t bring myself to let them win. To let Jackson win. To let the world win.

  June would say it’s because I’m too competitive. It’s the excuse she always gives when she’s losing at a board game, which she almost always does.

  And maybe I am. Maybe I can’t admit defeat. But this feels like more than defeat. This isn’t Monopoly. We’re not just turning in all of our little green houses to the bank and forfeiting the game. This is real. A real house. A real family. Real memories steeped into the walls.

  The bank is foreclosing on your house! How do you react?

  A Keep packing. Can’t argue with the almighty bank.

  B Steal all the toilets and fixtures. They can have the walls, but they can’t have the towel bars!

  C Refuse to accept the inevitable.

  I rip the notice from the door, crumple it up in my hands, and toss it onto the porch. I slam the front door closed behind me and stand with my back pressed against the wall, breathing hard. My eyes squeeze shut, so I don’t have to see the boxes. The furniture. The walls. My nine-year-old self standing by the window, her face glued to the glass, wondering when he was coming back.

  Back then, it was always when. It was never if.

  The if came later.

  “Please,” I whisper to the quiet house, as though I’m trying to rally its support. As though I’m begging it to fight back too. Don’t let yourself be taken. Stand your ground. Lock your doors. Turn your floors into hot lava. Whatever it takes. Haven’t you loved us back? Haven’t we been just as much a part of you as you have been of us? Do you really want strangers living in your walls?

  I don’t expect the house to respond. But somehow it does.

  Because just then, there’s a knock on the door.

  Before Jackson died, unexpected knocks on the door usually meant one thing: he was back. The last time he came back, however, he didn’t even make it to the front door. Mom and I heard his car pulling into the driveway. We both recognized the familiar roar of that engine. It was my sixteenth birthday. We were doing the dishes after breakfast when the sound stopped us both short. We exchanged a knowing look. It was a look we reserved for moments like this. A silent vow. A reconfirming of the pact that bonded us.

  Then, without a word, we both dried our hands and headed outside, intercepting him before he could even make it
up to the front porch.

  I saw the car first. Jackson’s blue 1968 Firebird convertible glinting in the morning sun. That car was one of the only things Jackson took seriously in life. Along with a popular late-nineties post-grunge band called Fear Epidemic. He’d bought the Firebird the day he graduated from high school, approximately eleven months before I was born. It was with him the day he died. I wasn’t.

  I saw Jackson next. He was drunk—not a surprise—and he had a bleached-blond woman in a leather miniskirt hanging on his arm—also not a surprise. She appeared older than some of the others. More worn, like fruit that had been left in a dehydrator too long.

  I remember exactly what the two of them looked like standing in our driveway. They looked like strangers. They looked like washed-out remnants from another time. Artifacts dug up from the dirt.

  “Marylou,” Jackson slurred to the girl. “I’d like you to meet my daughter.”

  The woman stared at him, as though this weren’t actually her name and she was trying to decide whether or not she cared. Apparently, she didn’t. She reached out a bejeweled hand to shake mine. “Hi. You must be the famous—”

  “Ali,” I interrupted her before she had a chance to utter the name that I’d long since given up. That I could barely stand to hear spoken aloud anymore.

  “Ali,” Jackson repeated with a twinkle in his eye. “That’s right. I forgot. She doesn’t like the name I picked out for her. She goes by Ali now.”

  I fought the urge to remind him that I’d actually gone by Ali my whole life. Everyone I knew called me Ali. He was the only one who’d ever called me by that other name.

  I’m still not sure why my mom ever agreed to Jackson’s ridiculous name choice to begin with. She was probably too hopped-up on labor drugs at the time to disagree. Or maybe she was just too hopped-up on the charm of Jackson. They seemed to have similar effects on a person. They both numbed you until you couldn’t feel a thing. Until you believed that you lived in a world where pain was impossible.

  “I’m up in Fort Bragg now,” Jackson said, even though no one had asked. “Less than an hour up the California coast. Would be nice if you came to visit sometime.”