Instructions for the End of the World (6 page)

On day four, he announces to me that we're making a trip to the grocery store. My sister stays behind while my dad and I get into his truck and ride in the same uncomfortable silence that has hovered between us for the past two days like a bad smell. But in the small space of the truck's cab, I can't stand it anymore.

“Where did Mom go?” I ask, the question barely squeaking out.

Dad's grip on the steering wheel tightens, and he stares straight ahead. “I don't know.”

It's exactly what I was hoping he would not say.

“But didn't she say anything about where she was going, or when she's coming back?”

“No.”

“What about her cell phone?” I say, but I already know it's turned off, because I've tried calling it from Izzy's phone.

“She left it at the house.”

“Oh.” That was typical Mom. She'd never adapted to the habit of taking her phone with her everywhere, and half the time she let the battery go dead, too, and then never noticed that it wasn't ringing.

“Have you tried calling any of her family?”

“A couple of times, but they haven't returned my calls.”

“That seems like where she would go, don't you think?”

To this, he says nothing, and again I try to imagine my mom at this moment, where she is and what she's doing. I come up blank.

I have only ever imagined her being our mom the second grade teacher, doing mom and teacher things, living to take care of us and her students. Even the idea that she had dreams outside of this world just seemed like a vague concept, no more comprehensible or interesting than a calculus equation.

“You don't think she could be, like, hurt or something, do you?”

Silence again.

“Dad? This is serious. What if she wrecked her car, or got lost, or…”

Or what? I don't know.

“The police would have called if anything happened to her. She doesn't want to be found, is what I figure.”

“But why?” I say stupidly.

I know exactly why she's left. I guess I just want to hear him say it.

“I don't know,” he answers, his tone flat enough to let me know that this subject is finished.

My dad never admits he doesn't know something, and something about my world shifts a little when those words exit his mouth. I understand for the first time just how shaky the ground is beneath my feet. One thing I've always been able to count on is my dad's absolute self-assuredness, and the other is the fact of my parents being together.

I have no doubt that Dad loves Mom. His way of loving her might not be what she wants, but he still does. I'm sure of it. I'm not so sure, looking back, how she feels about him, though. I come up blank.

Out the window, pine forest blurs by. We again pass the large redwood sign with copper lettering that reads
SADHANA VILLAGE AND SPIRITUAL RETREAT CENTER.

“What do they do at that Sadhana place?” I ask.

“They're a bunch of pagan wacko earth worshippers.”

I glance over at him, at his jagged profile as he glares ahead at the road. He still keeps his dark hair in a buzz cut, even though he's retired now. He hadn't been planning to retire—it happened all of a sudden, without any explanation—and his haircut always gives me the feeling that he's going to put on his uniform and go back to work any day now. Then I look away again before he can catch me watching him.

How do you know who they are?
is what I want to ask.

But what I say is, “Is it like a church or something?”

“It's probably a group of hippies using the words
spiritual retreat
as a front for a pot-growing farm.”

I think of Wolf, the guy from the woods—not for the first time. He is so unsettling and odd, and no matter how hard my brain tries, there is not a category it can fit him into. He's the opposite of me that way, I think, because I fit perfectly into the categories I'm supposed to: obedient Asian daughter, straight-A nerd, expert marksman (thanks to my father's training), boring good girl.

I know how people see me as I sit obedient and silent in class, rarely raising my hand to give answers, always getting the answers right when asked. I know I am a stereotype to kids I've gone to school with, and it hasn't really bothered me.

“Let me make something clear,” Dad says. “We're not on an army post anymore. People come in every shade of crazy out here in the civilian world, and it's your job to keep yourself separate, keep the outside world from getting in, you understand?”

“Who am I supposed to be friends with?”

“You don't need friends. You've got your sister, and that's plenty.”

I roll my eyes at the trees outside the passenger window. The idea of Izzy being pals with me is so ridiculous that I wonder if our father has ever actually
met
my sister. I mean, I know he has, but
has
he?

“I'm not really Izzy's type of person,” I say.

“Don't talk back. You and Izzy are family, and there's no such thing as not being each other's
type of person
when you're talking about your flesh and blood. You hear me?”

I stifle a sigh. “Yes, sir.”

I have heard all this before, in various forms. It was stupid of me to start such a conversation, knowing it would lead straight to nowhere. Maybe because Izzy is so much more girlie than I am, he sees her as this incomprehensible and fragile creature, in need of a bodyguard.

He doesn't know her at all.

*   *   *

When we get back from the grocery store, I help Dad unload enough food to last at least a month. He works in grim silence, and I wonder if he'd been hoping to come home and find Mom back. In the kitchen, he has already assigned cabinets for each type of food, to be lined up in careful rows, so I do my best to put everything exactly in its place.

When I have nothing left but a giant bag of dried rice and no empty canisters in which to empty it, I look for Dad to ask him what he wants me to do with it. I know from past experience not to let it sit in a pantry and get infested with moths. After searching the house, I find him in his newly set-up office. He is flipping through the pages of a binder on his desk, then pausing to write something on a page.

“Um,” I say to get his attention. “What should I do with the rice?”

He frowns up at me as if he hasn't understood the question, and the vague look in his eyes sends a jolt of fear through me. He never looks anything but self-assured. Now, though, he seems a little frail, and older than I've ever thought of him. I can see streaks of gray at his temples that I've never noticed before, and there are deep lines around his mouth and eyes.

I think of the way he's changed in recent years, the way his opinions have gotten more extreme, his actions less predictable, and I suppress a shudder.

“I'm going to be gone for a while,” he says. “You'll be in charge here until I come back.”

His words take a while to sink in, and I stare dumbly, unsure what to say.

He glances up at me from the binder, looking tired and distracted. “Well? Any questions?”

“Where are you going?”

“To find your mother.”

“For how long?”

“For however long it takes to find her.”

“So … me and Izzy are staying here?”

We don't even have phone or Internet service yet. It's all part of Dad's plan to live off the grid, but his envisioned solar power panels are nowhere near being installed. At least he bothered to turn on the electricity with the local power company for the time being. I guess I should be thankful for that.

“That's right. You've got enough food to last you, and I'll leave you with some cash and the hunting rifle.”

“But—” slips out of my mouth before I can stop myself. It's my father's least favorite word.

He gives me a sharp look. “You'll be fine,” he says, but I can't tell if he's trying to convince me or himself.

Questions crowd my thoughts, but before I can form any of them into words, my dad snaps shut the black binder and holds it out to me. I can see now it's the household binder, which contains every detail he considers necessary for the proper running of our family. It's a strange document he created for my mom, my sister, and I years ago, which we never look at unless forced to but that he refers to at any opportunity.

I take the binder, the weight of it awkward in my hands, and clutch it to my chest as if I am drowning and it will keep me afloat.

Me and Izzy alone in this broken-down house, in the middle of nowhere, does not sound like a good idea. But this is another one of his challenges, I know. He wants me to prove I can do it. He wants me to show that I can survive, no matter what the circumstances.

I stare out the window beyond his desk, as if I might find some answers there, written in the sky. I can think of a million reasons him leaving us here to go look for Mom is a bad idea, but then, I know he can't just sit around waiting, either. It's not his style.

“Where will you look?” I finally ask.

“That's not for you to worry about.” He squints at me as if I'm slow-witted.

More questions occur, like how will we get in touch if something happens? Dad doesn't have a cell phone, because he believes they're unnecessary crutches and make it too easy for the government to track our every move, and being the good daughter I am, I opted not to get one, either. Izzy has a cell phone, but the reception here only works occasionally, if she goes and stands outside in the driveway, and even then it's weak and spotty.

“You two keep working through the chore list,” he says. “With any luck I'll be back in a few days or a week.”

With any luck. I try to imagine keeping Izzy out of trouble for a whole week. I guess it's possible, since we live so far from everything, but how will I survive a week alone with her?

Or more than a week?

I can't let myself ponder that.

My father is not the kind of man you argue with when you are his daughter. He is so sure of his own rightness that any voice to suggest otherwise is as comprehensible and convincing to him as a fly buzzing around his head. It is no more than an irritant to be swatted away, or preferably, crushed.

I have known this for as long as I can remember, though it's only recently become an idea I can put into words.

“Where's Isabel?” he says, brushing past the desk and picking up, I notice only now, a suitcase that has been sitting next to the door.

“In her room, I think.”

“Isabel,” he yells into the hallway. “Get down here.”

Izzy comes slinking down the stairs, her feet clad in purple thong sandals, her denim shorts and tank top just this side of too skimpy on her newly curvy body to pass Dad's approval.

She blinks at us but says nothing.

“I'm going to look for your mother. Your sister's in charge while I'm gone. You're to do whatever she says, you understand?”

Izzy's mouth opens, her expression horrified. “What?”

“You heard me. I don't want any sass.”

“I want to go too,” she says.

“You're staying here to get the house fixed up. You've got a chore list to work through so when your mother and I get back everything's ready for her.”

I can't imagine what he means by getting the house fixed up. Are we supposed to ignore the stains on the walls and ceiling, the broken, duct-taped windows, the creepy haunted house vibe, and just set up housekeeping as if this place is normal? Or are we supposed to pull out our nonexistent handyman skills and fix everything?

He explains nothing. Instead he says, “All right then,” and walks down the hall and out the front door, suitcase in hand.

Izzy and I follow behind, dumbstruck.

I stand on the front porch and watch him drive away, his truck leaving a cloud of dust on the parched gravel road, and I keep thinking he will change his mind, realize how crazy it is to leave two teenage girls alone in the wilderness for however long he's going to be gone. But then, when has he ever changed his mind about anything?

Pretty much never.

I turn and see the expression on Izzy's face. Already, I suspect, she is imagining the vast possibilities for trouble she can get into with her newfound freedom.

“We're staying right here,” I say, which is kind of ridiculous, since we don't have a car to go anywhere and we're probably five miles from town.

Where would we even go?

She shrugs. “Suit yourself, but if we're here alone? I'm going to find out what people do for fun around here.”

“No, you're not. You're going to stay here like Dad said and help me.”

I realize I sound like the biggest dork on earth, but what else am I going to say?

The truth is, I really have no idea how to control Izzy. For her entire life, she's been this hurricane force I have to live with, always wary of what havoc she might wreak.

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

“Not whatever. If you don't do what Dad said, I'll be sure to let him know exactly how you behaved while he was gone.”

“You tell Dad and I'll make sure you live to regret it,” she says in a fake-sweet voice, then turns and walks back inside.

For the first time, I miss Mom. We are not the closest mother and daughter pair, and I know I disappoint her by taking my father's side, but still. How could she have left us here like this, with no explanation, no good-bye—nothing?

My fingers itch for my journal and a pen, because I want to write out this riddle, put it on paper, where I can arrange and rearrange my thoughts until they start to make sense. I guess I got the writing habit from my dad, the doomsday author, though he doesn't even know I keep a personal journal, aside from the survival skills notebook he makes me keep. It's my one rebellion, the only place I can say what I want without his approval.