Lost and Found

by Orson Scott Card

After all, thought Ezekiel, the man’s doctorate was only an EdD, not a PhD. No language requirement. Ezekiel figured it was the educational equivalent of a Certificate of Participation.

To Father’s credit, he didn’t ask about GRUT. He didn’t ask if Ezekiel “liked” it, he didn’t ask if it was “helping,” he didn’t even ask Ezekiel if he actually stayed and took part or just hitched a ride home.

maybe this year I’ll go trick-or-treating.” “Totally your call,” said Dad. “Till you’re sixteen, and then it’s just disgusting to go begging for candy.” “Didn’t know that rule, Dad,” said Ezekiel. “Now trick-or-treating at sixteen sounds really enticing.” “Your call,” said Father. “Look like a pathetic, greedy teenage moron if you want, but only if you actually dress in a full-fledged costume so it looks like you tried.”

I can almost tolerate one butcher or one customer at a time. Church doesn’t work that way, you have to be nice to everybody who talks to you, so I stopped going. But I believe in God.”

maybe this conversation was too hard for him, especially with Ezekiel in brat mode. It was hard for Ezekiel, too. But they were both strong guys. If either of them ducked out of this conversation now, they’d never have it again.

Ezekiel realized something then. “You’re really trying to be a good dad.” Dad just sat there looking at him. “Not just trying,” Ezekiel corrected. “You are a good dad. But, like, you mean to be. You think about it.”

And at that moment, as tears streamed down Father’s face for the first time in, like, ever, Ezekiel understood something that had never really crossed his mind before. “You’re broken, too,” Ezekiel said. “Maybe,” said Father, pulling himself together. “But mostly, Son, I’m lost.”

go to bed, fall asleep later than you should, so you can wake up next morning earlier than you wish.

You have a way with words.

like the bumper sticker says, you gotta be yourself, everybody else is taken.”

The house didn’t seem particularly rich or poor. It was right in line with the neighborhood, which is what zoning laws were designed to achieve.

The girl has huge boobs and she isn’t wearing a bra. No way she’s going to sprint barefoot down a sidewalk. She’d blacken her eyes and maybe break her nose within ten steps.”

“I wonder what they do with the cedilla in façade,” said Ezekiel. “I think that, like almost every sane American, they never think about it, they almost never say it, and they certainly never write it down.”

“Don’t apologize until after you fail,” said Shank. “It’s a good rule. Because what if you don’t fail? They’ll still remember you apologizing. How does that help?”

Ezekiel had been to the Build-a-Bear Workshop in Greensboro, but that was when Mother was still alive. He had not let her buy him a bear because they creeped him out, being hollow and empty till you stuffed them.

whether you could be in love without actually knowing it and without having this uncontrollable desire to put your mouth on another person’s mouth.

“I went to the cops,” said Ezekiel. “Were you ever behind a locked door?” asked Father mildly.

“You and Mom looked at the world through the same set of binoculars,” said Ezekiel. “As much as that’s possible, yes, we did,” said Dad. “Whereas they looked at each other with a microscope,” said Ezekiel.

Other kids got curfews. Ezekiel didn’t mind having a weird father. It made Ezekiel feel as though his own weirdness was hereditary and inescapable.

“It means that I trust you and you can trust me. It means that if something goes wrong for you I help as much as I can. It means that if you’re not where you’re expected, I look for you. It means that if good stuff happens I’m happy for you. It means that no matter what you say to me I still care about you. It means that when nobody else will tell you shit that you have to know, even if you’ll hate hearing it, I’m the one to say it.”

It = Friendship

“Also sleepy.” “You can sleep in church,” said Father. “It’s a sign that you’re growing up, if you sleep in church.”

Even if you haven’t grown up enough to have your own faith, trust in mine and go to church with me.”

Being a dad kind of sucks, because he loves his daughter and he missed her but now that she’s back, it’s the mommy that she reaches for.

there was no way he could give vent to them without looking like a homeless schizophrenic or a pretentious dude with a cellphone earplug.

“If you’re planning to be able to make some woman happy someday, Ezekiel, maybe you should have some idea of what they care about and how they think.”

Maybe that’s what it means to be friends, real friends. You own each other a little. You feel responsible. Protective. You care if your friend is in danger.

“Oh, I am most definitely an officious pinhead—when it’s useful,” said Shank. “I teach the course in Officious Pinheadery at Quantico.

she suggested to Joseph that they might do a little hanky. Or panky, the book of Genesis isn’t clear.

“It sounds like you were really eloquent.” “I wasn’t. But it’s the lawyer who gets paid for eloquence, not me.”

I’m not sure you understand what money even is,” said Father. “The little thin ones are dimes, and they’re one-tenth as worthless as pennies,” said Ezekiel. “Going to high school is really paying off for you.”

maybe that’s how you got entrusted with bigger jobs—by flawlessly executing the scutwork assignments you were given when you were new in the Bureau.

“Shank drove you,” said Ezekiel. “And I didn’t even have to sit in the back like a perp or a governor,” said Beth. “I like your juxtaposition of categories,” said Father.

These people know the moment of catharsis when it comes, thought Ezekiel. They know what it means to have somebody kill the bogeyman, the monster under the bed, the troll that invades back porches and steals away little children.

If you have a dream about him, you just reach into that dream and turn him into Humpty-Dumpty, lying there in pieces that nobody can fix.”

This is actually part of a proven behavior therapy approach to treating Dream Anxiety Disorder a.k.a. nightmares.

it was still a grave matter to take another life, even the life of a deeply evil man.

I don’t dream at all.” “Everybody dreams.” “If I do, I don’t remember it, which is the same as not having it.”

the past is like gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. When bad stuff first happens, it’s like when the gum is sticking to everything—the road, the sidewalk. And you can’t wear that shoe into the house because it will get all involved in the carpet and the bathroom rug, but when you try to scrape it off on the edge of the sidewalk or the edge of the porch, or you try to rub it off in the grass, it won’t come off. So you have to just live with it. You walk along, your foot trying to stick with every step, but gradually as the gum gets dirtier and dries out more and more, it loses its stickiness. And eventually, without ever actually removing it, you forget the gum is there. Except maybe on a hot day the gum gets soft and a little sticky again, and you think, Oh, yeah, gum on my shoe.”

A metaphor for past pain

I wasn’t going to let the big thick wad of supersticky gum on my shoe trip me up or slow me down.”

“But it never crossed my mind because I was ashamed.” “Innocent and yet ashamed,” said Beth. “When people treat you like you’re guilty, then you feel the shame just as if you were. Shame is what other people force on you.

“Lonely people need rescuing, anyway.” “There’s nothing but lonely people in this world,” said Beth. “Even people who think they’re not lonely, they’re aching with loneliness or the fear of being lonely.

He’d have to ask Dad about this. Did Mom ever annoy him? Can you be really close to somebody and still they drive you crazy?