The Distance Between Lost and Found (27 page)

Even her eyelids stay shut. She can see light through them. Bright, fluorescent light. Not the sun.

The smell hits her next: antiseptic and ammonia and detergent and . . . her mother's perfume. The notes waft toward her, carried on an air-conditioned breeze, and she breathes it in. It smells like fake flowers and sugar and safety.

Her mom is here.

She forces her eyes open. It feels like pulling apart sticky adhesive. But she needs to see.

A few blinks, and the hospital room comes into focus. A table to her left. A bathroom beyond that. A TV mounted on the wall directly ahead of her, near the ceiling. It's showing an infomercial on mute. And to the right, folded awkwardly in a reclining chair, is her mom. Asleep. Head dropped down onto her chest, mouth open. She's wearing her old gardening sweatshirt and the high-waisted pleated jeans Hallelujah hates. Socks that don't match. Her house slippers. No makeup. Gray hair in a loose ponytail.

She looks like she got dressed in a hurry.

Hallelujah feels a surge of relief so strong it's like her heart stops for a second. “Mom,” she croaks. It's barely more than an exhalation. It scrapes her raw throat. Still, she tries again: “Mom. Mom.”

Her mother stirs in the chair. She yawns. Shifts position. And her eyes blink open and connect with Hallelujah's. She freezes. Then smiles. Then starts crying.

“Oh, Hallelujah! Oh, baby, you're awake!” She's out of the recliner and at the bedside in a second. She runs one hand along Hallelujah's cheek. Wipes her own wet cheeks with the other hand. “I am so glad to see those eyes! How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Hallelujah says. “And thirsty.”

“Of course you are. The IV doesn't help with the dry mouth, does it?” Her mom picks up a cup of water with a pink bendy straw and holds it for Hallelujah to sip. It's harder than she expected. Not even her mouth muscles want to work. “When I was in the hospital all those times, before you,” her mom goes on, looking out the window at the dark outside, “all I wanted was water, water, water.”

It gives Hallelujah a chill, this reminder that she was her parents' last hope for a child, the first joy after a string of sadnesses. “Am I okay?” she asks.

“You'll be just fine. They want to get lots of nutrients and fluids in you before we take you home. You sprained your ankle, too. Pretty bad.”

That surprises Hallelujah. “My ankle doesn't hurt,” she says. “Not anymore.”

A wry smile from her mom. “Well, sweetheart, that'll be the pain meds.”

“Oh.” Hallelujah sits up a little higher in bed. “Where's Dad?”

“I sent him home to get you a change of clothes. He'll be back soon.”

“Good.” Something else is nagging at Hallelujah. But she's so tired, almost ready to go back to sleep again . . . And then it comes to her. “Jonah and Rachel—did they get them out? Are they okay? Are they here too?” The urgency hits her as a vise squeezing the air from her lungs.

“They got here last night. A couple hours after you, since the rangers and the paramedics had to hike in and find them and carry them back out to where the ambulances were. They took Jonah right to surgery to sew up his leg.”

“And?” Hallelujah asks, still breathless.

“And they sewed him up and now he's doing the same thing you are: resting and getting IV liquids. He'll be fine too. I talked with Vera at the nurses' station. Can you believe Vera still works here? She was old when I was a brand-new night nurse.”

Hallelujah nods, impatient. The vise has let up a little, but it's still there. “And Rachel?”

“Vera said Rachel was real dehydrated. And still sick to her stomach, poor girl. They're testing her to see what's making her so sick.”

That reminds Hallelujah of something. Something important. She frowns, waits, lets the thought bubble to the surface. “Creek water. Rachel drank creek water. You have to tell the doctors.”

“I will,” her mom says. She leans over to kiss Hallelujah on the forehead. “Oh, Hallelujah. I was so worried. We both were. When they said you were missing—and I thought of you all alone out there—” She breaks off, swallowing. Her eyes are full again.

“I know, Mom.” Hallelujah smiles, trying to reassure her. “But I wasn't alone.”

“Of course not. God was taking care of you that whole time.”

The way she says it bugs Hallelujah. It's the certainty. How does she know? How can any of them know? Hallelujah may be on speaking terms with God again, but that doesn't mean she's ready to give him all the credit for something that she worked really, really hard to accomplish.

Was God with her during her epic hike yesterday? Maybe. But it was her feet on the ground. Her pain and her sweat and her determination.

When she first woke up and saw her mom there, Hallelujah felt nothing but happiness and relief. She made it. She's going home. Now, she remembers the distance between her and her parents. Between what they believe and what she's struggling with. How much has been left unsaid for the last six months. And they don't even know there's a problem.

It's time to start changing that. She has to speak up. She has to be honest. “I didn't mean God,” Hallelujah says. “I meant I wasn't alone because Jonah and Rachel were there. We took care of each other.”

Her mom blinks. She looks surprised. “I'm sure you did. Of course you did.”

Hallelujah repeats, firmly, “We saved each other.”

They're both quiet for a second. Then, because she can't help it, Hallelujah yawns.

“You go on back to sleep now, baby,” her mom says. “Just rest. We'll talk more later. And we'll take you home.” She strokes Hallelujah's hair. The last thing Hallelujah hears before she dozes off is her mom murmuring, over and over, “Just rest. Just rest.”

T
HE NEXT TIME
H
ALLELUJAH WAKES UP, IT
'
S LIGHT OUTSIDE
. Dawn has come and gone, leaving a bright, sunny day in its wake. Hallelujah's window looks out over a parking lot, but she can see the mountains in the distance. She wonders if they're her mountains. She thinks she might always wonder, when she looks off toward the Smokies, which one they spent the night on top of, and where Jonah caught the fish, and where she and Rachel hid from that last storm. She still doesn't know how far they walked.

“She's awake!” It's Hallelujah's dad. He's now occupying the armchair, watching ESPN at low volume. He swings around, throws the remote on the bed, and jumps up. “Your mother says she talked to you a little, around four a.m. You couldn't have waited for me to get back?”

“Sorry, Dad,” Hallelujah says.

To her surprise, he's gone teary-eyed. He's blinking and clearing his throat like that will make the tears magically evaporate. He leans in and wraps her in a hug. “I was . . . I was real worried, Hallelujah,” he says. “I won't lie. But God came through for us on this one. He really did.”

She feels that flash of irritation again. The assumption that God did everything and she did nothing. Can't her parents at least say that God did something and she also did something? That she deserves some of the credit?

Her dad still has her hugged in close. Her face is pressed into his shirt. She's starting to feel suffocated, so she wriggles loose. “Sorry, Dad. I couldn't breathe.”

He nods. She watches as he collects all the emotion that just welled up and buries it back where it usually lives. “Want me to find your mother? She went down the hall to talk to Jonah's mom. Jonah and Rachel are doing real well, by the way. Though they have to stay here a day or two longer.”

Hallelujah's stomach rumbles. The only thing she remembers eating in almost forty-eight hours is that banana yesterday. And she puked that up. “Can you find out if I'm allowed to eat yet? I'm starving.”

Her dad looks happy to have a job to do. “You got it. Don't get into any trouble while I'm gone.” He says it like a joke, but she's heard those words meant completely seriously too many times to laugh, or even to respond. She lifts a hand in a small wave, and her dad leaves.

The room is quiet now except for the murmurs of the sportscasters on the TV. Hallelujah uses the remote attached to her bed to switch it off. She sits there for a second, staring out the window. It's not really quiet. Turning off the TV just highlighted all the other sounds: the hum of the hospital's air conditioner, the beeping of patient monitors, the wheels of a cart going by outside, the chatter from the nurses' station.

She misses the birds. And the breeze in the trees. The sound of rain on leaves.

Rain. She has to go to the bathroom. She wonders if she should wait for someone to help her. No; she hiked miles and miles by herself, with no food or water, which means she can totally make it the few feet to the bathroom and back. Besides, with the meds, she can't feel her sprained ankle at all. She throws back the blanket. Her bare legs look small and weak against the sheets, but she swings them around to hang off the side of the bed anyway. Her feet dangle. They tingle as blood flows down into them. Her left ankle is wrapped tight, immobilized with metal strips on both sides. She balances her weight on her arms and slides down until her right foot hits the tile floor.

It's a shock. The cold. The weight. Being upright. Her knee almost buckles.

She stays up through sheer stubbornness.

She limps forward a step, and then another, using her IV pole for balance, holding her hospital gown closed behind her. Her legs feel like they belong to someone else. Like she's controlling them on puppet strings. But she's making progress toward the bathroom. Another three steps and she's at the doorway. She closes the door feeling almost as satisfied as when she found the road yesterday.

When she comes out of the bathroom, her mom is sitting on the bed. “You should've waited,” she says.

“I wanted to do it myself.”

Another long moment of silence between them. Her mom just looks at her. She studies her in a way she hasn't before. Like Hallelujah looks different, beyond being scratched up and bruised and thinner. After a second, her mom pats the bed beside her. Hallelujah hobbles over and climbs in.

“Your father went to see about getting you an early lunch.”

Hallelujah's stomach growls again. “Great.” She pauses. “As long as it's not fish. Or energy bars. Or bananas. Or dandelions.”

“Dandelions?”

“Yeah. We ate a bunch on . . . one of the nights.” She pauses, and her mom looks at her like she wants to hear more.

Hallelujah almost starts talking. The more she thinks about opening up to her parents, the more she wants to. Needs to. Every minute back with them is a reminder that they don't know anything about what she's been feeling. She never told them.

But at the same time, she knows that she needs to think about what to tell and how to tell it. So she changes the subject. “When can I see Jonah and Rachel?”

“I checked before I came back here. They're both still passed out. No visitors until this afternoon.”

Hallelujah feels her face fall. “Oh.”

“You'll see them before we go. And you'll have quite a few other people to talk to, in the next couple days. There's a bunch of reporters in the lobby. I told them you wouldn't be discharged until tonight or tomorrow, but they don't want to miss you leaving the hospital. And your father got a call from one of the morning shows. They want to have us on next week! All three of you, if Jonah and Rachel are healthy enough. And one of the park rangers said they'd be in touch to get your account of what happened out there, while it's still fresh. What did he call it—‘debriefing,' that's right. Oh, and I need to call Rich and Jill, let them know you're doing fine. They were out with the search party every day. And some other people from church want to stop by this afternoon. . . .”

Hallelujah lets her mom talk. She leans back into her pillow, imagining all of the times she'll have to talk about what happened out there in the mountains. Not just to the people her mom is listing. At church. At school. She didn't think about it before, but she's going to be kind of famous. She and Jonah and Rachel are front-page news. Morning-show news.

A week ago, the thought of that much attention would've given her hives. Now, she knows she'll get through it, because she's been through worse. Sure, she's tired just listening to her mom, just thinking about what's ahead. But at the same time, she's okay.

And given how things used to be, okay is pretty great.

S
HE EATS A LITTLE BIT OF LUNCH, WITH BOTH PARENTS AND A
nurse watching her. It's weird, having three pairs of eyes staring while she tries to swallow just one more bite of mashed potatoes. And eventually, too soon, “just one more bite” threatens to bring everything else up, and she puts the fork down. “I'm done.”

“Are you sure?” her mom asks.

“You should finish your plate,” her dad says.

“I'm done,” Hallelujah repeats. Her stomach feels packed. A swollen balloon. She barely ate a third of what was brought. “Thank you,” she adds as the nurse takes the tray.

When they're alone, Hallelujah's mom helps her change into the pajamas her dad brought from home. They're ones she never wears—pink floral-print flannel pants and a matching top. A Christmas present from her great-aunt. They make her look about eight years old. But they're soft, and they're clean, and they beat a hospital gown any day.

Back in bed, Hallelujah looks from parent to parent. Her dad sits in the recliner. Flips on the TV. But he keeps glancing back toward her, as if to make sure she's still there. Her mom flutters around the room, straightening things that don't need straightening. Also with her eyes on Hallelujah.

The tiny room and the TV and the fluttering and the eyes are making Hallelujah feel claustrophobic. She looks out the window, toward the mountains, missing space and sky and air that didn't taste like chemicals. Then she feels guilty for missing all of that. She's lucky to be here. To be alive. And her parents have been through hell.