Elsewhere(37)

Liz nods.

As she is walking to the bus stop, she thinks about Alvy and her father and all the trouble she caused for her family. Heartsick and slightly damp, she realizes that Owen Welles was probably right. He must think I'm so stupid, Liz says to herself.

Of course, Owen Welles thinks nothing of the kind.

The people who worked for the bureau were, more often than not, those who had the most trouble accepting their own deaths. Although these individuals had great empathy for the lawbreakers, they understood all too well the need to be firm with the first-time Contacter. It was a dangerous thing to slip into casual Contact with the living.

So it is somewhat unusual that Owen Welles finds himself wondering about that sea green cashmere sweater. He isn't sure why. He supposes it is because Liz's request was so specific.

Most people who visited the Well needed to be stopped for their own good, or they would become obsessed with people on Earth. Somehow, this didn't seem to be the case with Liz.

What would it have hurt, really, for her father to get that sweater? Owen asks himself. It might have made things a little easier for parents who had oudived their child and a lovely girl who had died too young.

A Piece of String

In times of stress Liz would instinctively stroke the stitches over her ear, and the evening's journey to the Well had certainly ended up being stressful. That night in bed, Liz discovers that her stitches are gone. For the first time in months, Liz sobs and sobs.

She supposes they must have fallen out during the dive probably some combination of the intense pressure and all the water. Liz feels desperate that her last piece of Earth is gone forever.

She even considers taking another dive to search for the string. She quickly dismisses the idea.

First, she is forbidden from diving, and second, even if she weren't forbidden from diving, the string (actually a polyester thread) is less than three inches long and one-sixteenth of an inch thick. It would be insanity to try to find it.

Liz runs her pinky across the scar where the string used to be. She can barely feel it. She knows the scar will soon be gone, too. And when that happens, it will be like she was never on Earth at all.

Liz laughs. All these tears over a piece of string, and all this drama over a sweater. Her life came down to a spool of thread. Now that she thinks about it, she isn't completely sure whenshe lost the stitches. Since starting her avocation, she hadn't needed to touch them so much. Actually, she can't even remember the last time she touched them before tonight. They might have been gone for a while (what if they had been the dissolving kind?), and maybe she hadn't even noticed? Liz laughs again.

At the sound of Liz's laughter, Betty pokes her head into Liz's room. "Is something funny? I could use a good joke."

"I was arrested," Liz says with a laugh.

Betty starts to laugh and then stops. She turns on Liz's bedroom light. "You're not serious."

"I am. Illegal dive to the Well. I was trying to Contact Dad." Liz shrugs.

"Liz!"

"Don't worry, Betty, I learned my lesson. It totally wasn't worth the trip," Liz says. "I'll tell you the whole story."

Betty sits on Liz's bed. After Liz is finished, Betty says, "People drown out there, you know. No one ever finds them. They just lie on the bottom of the ocean, half dead."

"You don't have to worry about me drowning, because I'm never going back," Liz says firmly.

"The worst part of it is that Alvy's final memory will be me lying to him and getting him in trouble. If he wasn't going to find the sweater anyway, I just wish I'd said, 'Hey, Alvy, you're a great brother, and I love you.' "

"He knows that, Liz," Betty replies.

Liz reaches for her stitches, but of course they aren't there. "Betty," Liz asks, "how do you stop missing Earth?"

"You don't," Betty replies.

"So it's hopeless?" Liz sighs.

"Now I didn't say that, did I?" Betty admonishes Liz. "Here's what you do. Make a list of all the things you really miss about Earth. Think really hard. It can't just be a bunch of names, either.

Because those are people you miss, and we have plenty of people here, too."

"Yes, so I make a list. Then what?"

"Then either you throw the list away and accept that you're never going to have those things again, or you go about getting everything back."

"How do I get anything back?" Liz asks.

"I wish I knew," Betty says.

"Well, how long should the list be?"

"Oh, I'd limit yourself to three or four things. Five tops."

"You're just making this up as you go along, aren't you?"

"You asked my advice, remember!" Betty says. "And now we both ought to go to sleep."

Betty walks to the door, stopping to turn off Liz's bedroom light.

"Hey, Betty?" Liz calls out. "Thank you." "For what, doll?"

"For . . ." Liz's voice trails off. "You're really not bad at this whole grandmother thing, after all," Liz whispers.

The next day at work, Liz makes her list.

The Things I Miss Most from Earth by Elizabeth M. Hall 1) Bagels & lox with Mom, Dad, & Alvy on Sunday morning 2) The Feeling that Something Good Might Be Right around the Corner 3) Various smells: the sweet cookie smell of Mom, the acrid, stingy, soapy smell of Dad, the yeasty breadlike smell of Alvy