The Everafter (13 page)

age 17

It’s a beautiful fall day. Perfect for sitting outside the school to eat lunch. The leaves are all golden and orange, and a breeze is teasing them out of their branches so they fall swirling around my feet under the picnic table.

Too bad I can’t enjoy the day’s beauty. I’m miserable.

Miserable because I’m feeling lonely without Gabe. We still haven’t said anything to each other since the fight about my car accident.

Miserable because Sandra didn’t even come to school today. She must be that overwhelmed by the choice she has to make.

Miserable because I didn’t manage to finish my physics homework and it’s due in twenty minutes.

Miserable because my sister went into labor this morning, but my parents wouldn’t let me go to the hospital with her. They insisted I should go to school, since first babies take such a long time to enter the world.

Can’t say I blame babies for that. Who’d really want to enter this messed-up experience called life?

I’m so intent on all this that I don’t realize at first that I’ve been playing with my necklace…the one that Gabe gave me last summer. It’s silver, and in the center, it has block letters that spell out
FOREVER
.

Yeah. So much for that. We aren’t even talking right now.

Tears blur my eyes. Then I’m startled by a soft touch on my shoulder. I jump and whirl around, gasping.

Gabe.

He holds up his hands in a classic “I’m innocent” gesture. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he says.

“You didn’t,” I say, so desperate to be nice to him that it takes me a second to realize how
obviously
that’s not true. “I mean,” I stutter, “I mean, you did, but I’m glad you did.”

We just gaze at each other for the longest time. Then he finally says, “Did you get number eleven?” He nods his head toward my physics homework. “I worked on that one for about a half hour last night and never did get it to come out right.”

Great. Just great. And I have, what, twenty minutes to finish the whole assignment? But physics homework isn’t what I want to be thinking about.

“I’m sorry. I mean, about that whole…fight. I shouldn’t have thrown that ring at you. I guess I was way shook up by that accident.” Okay, I don’t think that’s
actually
why I did it, but hey, I’ll use just about any fair excuse right now.

“I know,” he says. “I should have been cooler about the whole thing, too. All my frustration with the thing between you and Dana just hit crisis point.”

He straddles the bench next to me, dumping his backpack onto the picnic table. “I’ve been trying for a week now to figure out what to say to you.”

“Me too.”

“It’s just that…Maddy, I love you. I do. And I don’t understand why you don’t know it.”

“Well, it’s just that—”

“Don’t,” he interrupts. He holds a finger against my lips. His touch is so gentle, so cherishing that I know, somehow, that everything will be all right. “I know it would be easier for you if I just didn’t have anything to do with Dana. But can’t you understand she was a major part of my life for two years? I feel like you’re asking me to throw away that time…completely. To write it off. I want to move forward with you, but I don’t want to give up my past. And even though I know Dana can be a complete pain sometimes, I
can’t believe that I’d spend two years going out with someone who’s the kind of monster you keep trying to convince me Dana is.”

I look down at my physics homework. The wind is catching the edge of it, flipping up the bottom half. Only my cardboard container of uneaten french fries is holding it down. At the moment, it’s easier to look at that paper than it is to meet Gabe’s gaze. I feel so much…shame. Everything he’s saying makes sense. But I don’t know how to respond to it, because I still feel an intense fear of something, but I don’t know what is. I’m not imagining bogeymen here. There’s a real monster out there somewhere, and it’s as likely to be Dana as anyone else.

And yet what if she is just a normal girl? What if she didn’t purposefully cause that accident? Then who killed my cat?

“I’m not sure what to say, Gabe. I love you, too. I’ve been miserable without you the last week. I don’t want to put you in a bad spot.”

He puts his index finger under my chin and lifts it up. Then he kisses the corner of my mouth. It’s a soft kiss, like the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings, and I want more. I turn to face him and, putting my arms around him, lean in for a real kiss. Something greater than either of us seems to infuse that kiss with power.

“I’m sorry, Gabe,” I say when we finish kissing. I’m
being deliberately vague because the truth is, I actually don’t know what I’m sorry for. Maybe everything. And nothing. At the same time.

He leans his forehead against mine. I like the feel of his skin.

“I hope we don’t ever fight again,” I say.

He smiles wickedly. “The making-up part is pretty nice.”

I grin.

He kisses me again.

Don’t ask me why, but I remember the whole physics thing right then. Not that Gabe isn’t the kind of kisser who can drive mundane thoughts of physics assignments right out of my head…because he is. But I’m pretty wound up today…everything from Kristen’s baby to Sandra’s problems are pounding at my consciousness. And for some bizarre reason, it’s the physics assignment that wins the anxiety war.

“I don’t suppose you want to help me with my physics,” I say.

Another wicked grin. “I thought I
was
helping you with physics.”

“Different form of physics. That one doesn’t help my grade any in Mr. Martin’s class.”

He sighs. “Okay.” He opens up his backpack and starts to pull out his book.

“Want to come with me after school today to check on Sandra?” I ask. I fill him in on how she’s been struggling the last week to make this important decision. “Her father wants to move by early next week, so she’s really stressed about what she’s going to do.”

Gabe whistles in commiseration. “Sure, I’ll go over there with you.”

“Oh, and Kristen went into labor this morning,” I tell him.

“Hey, well, at least that’s good news. Any word?”

“Not yet. I called my mom at the beginning of lunch, and she said the hospital sent Kristen home to wait it out a bit more. I heard that some first babies can take more than twenty-four hours to arrive, so I guess that means she’ll give birth in the middle of the night or something.”

“Hmm…October thirtieth seems like a good birthday to me.”

“Yeah. Or the thirty-first if it’s after midnight. Both are pretty good.”

“Halloween baby.”

I laugh. “Don’t say that. It makes my niece—or nephew—sound like Satan’s spawn.”

“The ancient Celts believed that during this time of year the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead thinned so that spirits could enter our world. Kind of a cool time to be born, actually.”

“Hey,” I protest, “you’re poaching! Samhain and ancient Celtic legend and folklore…that’s all stuff we cover in AP English. That’s my area.” Okay, so I hadn’t actually remembered Samhain and the Celtic folklore associated with Halloween until Gabe brought it up, but so what? He can’t be smarter than I am about
everything,
can he? “You stick with physics and calculus and stuff like that.”

He laughs. As he opens his book and pulls his assignment from it, he pushes aside my carton of french fries a little too quickly. The wind whisks away my half-done homework. “Aahh,” I say, trying to leap up from the picnic table. My left foot gets stuck under Gabe’s leg and I start to lose my balance. Laughing, Gabe grabs my arm to keep me from nose-diving into the table but makes the mistake of letting go of his own homework.

The wind seems to mock both of us as it picks up his paper and sends it fleeing in a different direction from mine. We each run off, laughing, in search of our homework.

I
HAVE A STRANGE SENSE
about that moment with Gabe at the picnic table. It’s somehow essential. I don’t know why it is, but it’s the centerpiece of the puzzle of my existence. If I could just figure out what pieces are supposed to be attached to it, maybe I could…

Wait…I do know one of the reasons that moment is so essential.

Gabe is there.

I mean, the dead Gabe. I could feel his presence there just like I did when we lost our keys. It makes sense that he’d be there, too. After all, he also lost his homework when we were sitting at the picnic table.

I suppose it should be comforting to have him there—to have the company. But it’s not.

Because Gabe’s there, but I can’t reach him.

I go in search of my physics homework. Is it still here? It should be. I remember now that we never found our homework. But one failing grade in physics…well, it just didn’t seem that important after we’d gotten back together.

That’s all I remember about that day, though. And it’s…so near the end. I
do
know that.

Kristen was in labor that day, and I never found out whether the baby was a boy or girl. I’m sure of that. If I’d ever known who that baby was, it would have changed me somehow, become part of me. I mean, Kristen’s my
sister.
There’s a connection there that can’t be broken, even by this death thing. I’m convinced I’d have the same connection to her child.

So
exactly
what did happen that day?

My physics homework is waiting for me, so I return…and return and return….

But learn nothing.

Frustrated, I start flinging myself randomly back into all the moments of my life that I still have access to.

But nothing’s changed in any of those moments. It’s all still the same.

Until about my tenth time returning to the picnic table scene….

age 17

I’m so intent on my misery, I don’t notice at first that I’ve been playing with my necklace…the one Gabe gave me last summer. It’s silver, and at the center it has block letters that say
FOREVER
.

Yeah…so much for that. We aren’t even talking now.

Tears blur my eyes, and I look down to see the words
I need to talk to you
written in strange handwriting. Definitely not mine.

How did that get on this piece of paper?

I’m startled by a soft touch on my shoulder, and I whirl around, gasping.

Gabe…

T
HE SONG OF MY LIFE
has changed again. Even though I can’t now remember what happened on my earlier trips to that picnic table, I can tell that a significant shake-up has happened. Something is fundamentally different in my world because…because Gabe left me a note on that piece of paper, and it wasn’t the living Gabe who did it. It can’t be. A ghost has been messing with that moment, and it doesn’t feel like it was me. The other ghost in that moment was Gabe.

And he wants to talk to me.

I’m thrilled and full of longing but frustrated, too. I can’t figure out how Gabe managed to leave me a note. My ghost can’t go around leaving notes for other people. The
only change I’ve ever managed to make to my life in a revisit is finding an object.

For a moment, I’m envious. Why does Gabe get to be a more advanced spirit than I am?

Maybe it’s because he was better at physics than I was. Maybe it takes some kind of understanding that I don’t have of quantum mechanics…all that simultaneous-communication-and-observation-of-subatomic-particles-changing-reality stuff.

Maybe. But probably not. He always did figure out life faster than I did (well, except when it came to his dad and the whole drinking thing). I shouldn’t be surprised that he managed to figure out death faster, too.

So what’s he doing differently than I am? I try to recall how my journeys back to life began. They started with the sweatshirt. Then there was the bracelet…which I found. Can’t go back there to find the answer.

At least not the way I’m used to going back to moments.

But I can
remember
that moment. I have a nagging feeling that something was different about that visit than about the many others I’ve made since then. What was it?

Then it comes to me.

Ohmygod. It’s been so obvious the whole time.

And I’ve missed it.

I don’t have to
be
me when I’m experiencing those
moments. I can stay separate from myself…like I did the first few times I returned to my life. On my original visit to the sweatshirt moment, I stayed back and watched for a few minutes. I did the same thing when I used the bracelet. It was only when I pushed myself too close to, well, myself, that I was drawn back into the experience. Drawn like a magnet to a lodestone. I could have kept my distance. But I liked living too much. So every time I returned to a moment of my life, I
lived
it again instead of observing it.

For the first time ever in
Is,
I laugh. At least, I think that’s what I’m doing. It’s like every subatomic particle in my being is dancing with delight.

My mother was right. About everything.

The whole object attachment thing?

Right. Even in death, I’ve still been attached to those objects.

The whole you-have-trouble-with-change speech she gave me when I started middle school?

Right again. I haven’t been able to let go of life.

My mother knows me so well that she even knows who I am when I’m dead.

It’s time to experiment with observing instead of living. Who knows what will happen?

I know just the right experience to start with.

K
EEP BACK…KEEP BACK
,
I remind myself. If I want to watch this all happening, I have to keep my distance from that baby in the bouncy seat on the kitchen floor. It’s difficult to do. There is a natural pull drawing me closer. I have to work hard to resist it, but, surprisingly, the longer I do, the easier it gets.

The force dragging me tapers off enough for me to notice what’s actually going on. I’m cooing at my mom, who is across the room standing at the sink. She’s not paying enough attention to me, so I coo louder. She notices the sounds, turns, and comes to get the baby me. As I get a good look at her, my first thought is,
Ohmygod…it’s
Mom, and she looks
so
young.

My second thought is,
Lose the outfit, Mom. Totally eighties and it’
s
well into the nineties. And the hair? Definitely has to go. It’s long and curly and, well,
bushy.

Being here but not being me (at least the original me) is way weird. This is a Mom that I’ve seen in pictures but don’t actually remember. She’s leaning toward the baby me, who (by the way) stinks. I’ve never been able to stand the smell of baby. Eau de spit-up, baby powder, and plastic diaper? Yeah, no, thanks.

Smell, I notice, is a lot different for me in this hovering spiritual state. It’s not as real as when I’m living the moment. I can still smell things, but it’s like all those scents are coming from a great distance, as if they have to cross some kind of invisible boundary to get to me. That’s the way sounds seem to work, too.

Mom doesn’t care that the baby me smells so bad. She’s talking baby talk, telling me what a cute baby I am and rubbing noses. It’s a habit she didn’t get rid of until I was older, so I have a clear memory of doing a lot of nose rubbing with her.

I wonder if my spirit has any power over things in this moment. Can I, for instance, knock over that plate balancing precariously on the edge of the counter? I sort of…will it to happen.

And it does.

Mom, startled, whirls around. “Whew…” she says as she realizes there’s no immediate danger. She goes to the closet to get a broom. She cleans up the mess (I can’t help feeling proud of myself for creating it) and then goes back and picks me up, snuggling and cuddling me. “Nothing to be scared of,” she reassures me. “It was just a breeze knocking over the plate.”

Ha. Just a breeze. As Mom puts baby me back in the bouncy seat, she chucks me under the chin, then moves toward the kitchen sink where she starts peeling carrots. I miss her already. Loneliness emanates from a tiny me and, like smell and sound, floats across the boundary between us, reaching me in the form of an echo.

Baby me starts cooing again. But when Mom doesn’t respond, I begin playing with my rattle and knock it onto the floor. As it rolls under the cabinet, my crying brings Mom rushing over. She tries to hush me and then begins humming a lullaby. When neither of those work, she says, in a singsong voice, “What’s the matter with my baby? Is she wet?”

Oh, get real,
I want to tell her. I just lost my rattle. How hard is it to notice that?

Apparently, pretty hard. She picks me up, checks my diaper, realizes it isn’t messy, and then starts trying to nurse me…
nurse me?! Ohmygod…this is so sick. I have to get out of here. Now!

But how? I have to wait until my body moves a certain distance from the lost object, don’t I?

Thank God the baby me isn’t having anything to do with the whole nursing thing. I keep pulling away, and finally Mom decides to take me for a little walk down the hallway.

Released. Sent back to
Is.

Thank God. Or the Universe. Or Whatever.

For the release, but also for graduating me to a new level in the spirit world. The Universe has actually given me more power than I thought it had. I can create changes in my original life from a ghost state, too.

Except…

Maybe this zipping around in and out of life as a spirit isn’t such a cool idea after all. There are some things that we are not meant to know, understand, or see. Like my mom trying to nurse me, for example.

Besides, interfering in that moment has changed my original life again. I’m starting to feel that strange shifting of self. “It was just a silly plate I broke!” I find myself wanting to shout at the Universe.

Not that it would care, anyway.

The Universe just doesn’t make the best of companions. I long for something more than it’s giving me. I recall the note that Gabriel left at the picnic table:
I need to talk to you.

Realization tingles through me: I’ve been too focused on
how
Gabe managed to leave me that note. Too focused on his
desire to see me. I’ve been missing a possible implication of his words: Maybe we
can
talk.

I try to imagine how this would be possible. If I return to a moment that another ghost shares with me, and stay in the state I used for observation, will I encounter that other ghost?

I only know of two possible moments I share with another ghost and that I still have access to—the picnic table scene, and the Ouija board one. I consider both.

What if I’m wrong? What if I can’t communicate with a ghost?

Better to have that happen when I’m expecting to encounter Tammy than Gabe. If it doesn’t work, I’ll be less disappointed.

Where’s that hair clip?