A Psalm for Lost Girls by Katie Bayerl

Author:Katie Bayerl
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2016-12-09T16:58:01+00:00

17.

I ring the doorbell and wait. The Hyundai is parked out front, so I know Danny’s home, though he hasn’t answered my texts. I feel strangely off balance without all that hair, the base of my neck exposed to the elements for the first time in years. I cut off more than I meant to, right above the shoulders, shorter even than how Tess wore hers yet close enough that I spooked myself in the bathroom mirror earlier.

I push a pair of her sunglasses onto the crown of my head to keep my curls at bay and press the doorbell again.

After the fourth or fifth ring, Danny appears. He’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday, his face puffy with sleep. He doesn’t say anything when he sees me, doesn’t even open the outer door.

“Dr. Gillis caved,” I say through the screen.

Danny yawns, staring past me to the trickle of cars on the street.

“The Langone claim is dead without him—for now, anyway. My mother’s pretty upset.”

“Congratulations. You must feel great.”

“Yeah,” I say, “great.” But I don’t feel great. Not at all. I feel miserable. Lonely.

Be a big girl, Cal. Just say it. Tell him you’re sorry. I feel Tess nudging me forward.

I pull air into my chest and lift my head. “Look, I didn’t really mean what I said about you and my sister yesterday. I was being an asshole.”

“Yup.” Danny’s eyes are still too dark, still a little bit stabby, but at least they’re on me now. I don’t flinch or look away. I want him to know that I mean it: I’m really, truly sorry.

“Why did you say it?” he says. “Why do you get like that?”

I thump the stoop with my toe. “I don’t know.”

That’s the truth. I’ve always been a little too quick to react. A live wire like your grandfather, Ma used to say. (Maybe just more alive, said Tess.) But lately it’s a thousand times worse. Feelings surge up so fast, a riptide that yanks me under without warning. And now here I am, shipwrecked, reaching for the one person stranded out here with me.

“I’m not like them, Callie. I never cared about the saint stuff.”

“I know that.” My finger hooks a hole in the screen. “Tess knew it too.”

It wasn’t sainthood that drew them together. It was something else. Something in Tess that isn’t in me. Sometimes I wish I knew what that missing ingredient was, the thing that made people love my sister so intensely. Then again, maybe I’m better off not knowing. Maybe it’s not just one thing. Maybe it’s everything.

Danny moves his hand to the door handle, but he doesn’t open it. Not yet. He wants more. What? I push my sneaker into the door frame. “I thought we could go see Father Macedo. He’s getting more claims.”

“Like, miracles?”

I lift a shoulder. “My mom thinks maybe. She says Ana’s just the beginning.”

A fresh wave of nausea washes over me. Four months ago I watched, helpless, as those whirling lights carried her away.

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