Instructions for the End of the World by Jamie Kain Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    â€œWhere 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.
    â€œBut didn’t she say anything about where she was going, or when she’s coming back?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhat about her cell phone?” I say, but I already know it’s turned off, because I’ve tried calling it from Izzy’s phone.
    â€œShe left it at the house.”
    â€œOh.” 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.
    â€œHave you tried calling any of her family?”
    â€œA couple of times, but they haven’t returned my calls.”
    â€œThat 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.
    â€œYou don’t think she could be, like, hurt or something, do you?”
    Silence again.
    â€œDad? This is serious. What if she wrecked her car, or got lost, or…”
    Or what? I don’t know.
    â€œThe police would have called if anything happened to her. She doesn’t want to be found, is what I figure.”
    â€œBut why?” I say stupidly.
    I know exactly why she’s left. I guess I just want to hear him say it.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œWhat do they do at that Sadhana place?” I ask.
    â€œThey’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?”
    â€œIt’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