A Million Miles Away (4 page)

“Can I help you, Officer?”

“Is this the home of Michelle Maxfield?”

Her mother took a second to answer, the shape of her body so small in the door, next to the policeman. “Yes,” she said.

Kelsey’s dad reached for his daughter, found her hand.

“You may want to take a seat. There’s been an accident.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The day of Michelle’s funeral, cars lined the road in front of the Maxfield house. People moved in and out, standing on the front porch staring into space, watching oak leaves fall and collect on the yard. A pile of coats gathered in the front hall.

Inside, Kelsey moved through the crowd, holding the hand of her six-year-old cousin, Tabatha. Kelsey’s classmates and friends, Michelle’s friends, their relatives—all muted their conversations as she passed.

This funeral field of mutters and quiet music was the most activity her house had seen in a week. She and her mother and father had slept in shifts, three or four hours at a time, giving one another quiet hugs in the hallway if they were to pass, before returning to sleep.

Kelsey hadn’t looked any of her friends in the eyes. She hadn’t really spoken to anyone that day, either, except to Tabatha, for some reason. But her parents had asked her to do this.

Tabbie was wearing shiny buckled shoes and a black velvet dress. She didn’t quite understand what was going on, just that Michelle was gone, and that she should be sad. Kelsey caught glances of her practicing an exaggerated frown, her little cheeks turning red from the effort.

Kelsey stopped at the fireplace, one jade Buddha on each side of her head, her hair pulled up in its typical, tight bun. She had changed out of her dress into black jeans and a gray sweater.

“Everyone,” Kelsey said, still holding her cousin’s hand. “I’m supposed to tell you that there are food and drinks ready in the kitchen.” Their eyes stayed on her, waiting. “Thanks,” she added.

A few people, mostly students that hadn’t even known Michelle that well, trickled toward the food.

Kelsey had never been to a funeral before. She had only ever seen them in movies. She thought everyone would be in tears. Instead, only a few people were crying—not counting a couple of babies, who didn’t know why. She wasn’t one of them. She thought there was going to be a coffin lowered into the ground, and that it would be raining and gray. Instead, they had all stood outside the funeral home on the bright, cold day with Michelle’s burnt remains in a gilded tin, like a take-out box.

She thought she would have a moment with the body, bending over Michelle’s waxy face looking up at the ceiling forever.

Instead, once they confirmed her identity with the coroner, her parents had decided not to look at her sister again. She had only had a few cuts. After the Volvo had veered off K-10 on her way home from the airport, the bleeding had mostly been internal, the doctors said.

Kelsey thought she would weep and moan and clench her fists, like her mother had done when she first heard the news, like she had been cut open.

But she couldn’t do any of that. Even if she wanted to, Kelsey couldn’t feel a thing.

She took a seat, putting Tabbie on her lap, wrapping her arms around the little girl’s velvety body.

Kelsey heard someone, probably a teacher or an aunt, say, “What a beautiful photo they chose for the memorial.”

It was her school photo from last year. Michelle had hated that picture. Her mermaid hair had covered the straps of her tank top, and everyone had made fun of her for looking naked. But there weren’t a whole lot of photos to choose from; most of the ones their mom and dad had around the house were of Kelsey and Michelle together.

Facing each other, blowing bubbles in the backyard.

At Christmas, holding up their presents.

Wearing matching hideous dresses for their first middle school dance, back when they were really into dressing alike.

And the one they took when they were fifteen, Michelle’s hair dyed purple and Kelsey’s bleached blonde: standing on the newly built porch in the summer, giving “rock-on” signs with their hands, their tongues out.

Prints of these photos were scattered on a white tablecloth, with a book and a pen for people to write messages.

Michelle
, one of the messages read in the loopy handwriting of the art teacher at Lawrence High,
Your spirit and enormous talent will never be replaced.

Michele
, said another one, her name misspelled in chicken scratch,
You were my favorite wandering soul.

Kelsey recognized her grandma’s cursive.
You’re with the angels now.

“Bunch of bullshit, right?” Davis sat next to her in pleated pants, filling the air with the smell of mint. Kelsey covered Tabbie’s ears.

“I guess,” she said.

“You don’t have to be here if this is too much,” Davis said. He scooted close, putting an arm around her.

“Yes, I do,” she replied.

“You can do whatever you want.” Whatever she wanted, he said. Like it was her birthday or something. He leaned in close to her to kiss her lips, but Kelsey turned away.

“Hey,” a voice said above her. The word went down at the end, as words said to Kelsey did a lot lately. Gillian and Ingrid stood in front of them, mascara streaked under Gillian’s almond-shaped eyes, Ingrid’s blonde hair looking unwashed.

“I brought your homework,” Gillian said. “It’s just history and calc. Mr. Schulz said not to worry about Geography.”

Ingrid sniffed, her jaw clenched. “Screw that. Screw school, Kels. You come back whenever you want to. We will be waiting for you.” Her voice started to shake. “We won’t do any new dances until you come back. We won’t choreograph anything, because you are our captain, and we’re not going to—”

“Ingrid,” Kelsey said. “It’s okay.”

Gillian put her hand on Ingrid’s back, and they smiled close-lipped smiles down to her. They told her to call them anytime.

“Well,” Davis said jauntily. “What now? You want some inedible food?”

“No, thanks.”

For the first time in Kelsey’s dad’s life, she imagined, he hadn’t been up for cooking. Her mother didn’t care much, either. One of the aunts had gotten tasteless crackers and cold lunch meat from Dillons.

Kelsey spotted two of Michelle’s ex-boyfriends talking to each other, the film student and the Brazilian. She felt like vomiting, but she didn’t have the energy for that.

“I have an idea,” Davis said, brightening.

A time machine
, was Kelsey’s first thought.
A potion
.
An eraser
. Nothing was making any sense.

“Kansas City,” he gave her a knowing smile. “Let’s get you away from all this. Let’s go to St. Louis. Let’s go to Colorado.”

Kelsey didn’t have the energy to get up from the couch, let alone take a road trip. She got a strange urge to ask Davis to smack her in the face. She wanted him to wake her up, to shake her, to tell her to crack so all of this would come pouring out of her, and then away.

A memory came to her, peaceful, of the morning before everything changed. In it, she saw Peter. Kelsey hadn’t thought of Peter once, but she supposed she should have. Did Peter know about Michelle? She couldn’t imagine that anyone would have told him the news in Afghanistan. His family probably hadn’t even met Michelle yet.

But they loved each other. He should know, and Kelsey would tell him.

Kelsey hugged Tabbie tighter to her, bouncing her on her knee.

“Can I go now?” Tabbie asked, trying to unhook Kelsey’s hands with her chubby little fingers.

“No,” Kelsey found herself saying. “Please don’t go.”

But Tabbie squirmed, slipping through her arms, and the warmth of her was suddenly gone, leaving Kelsey alone.

CHAPTER FIVE

A few weeks later, Kelsey still had not cried. Or talked. Or eaten very much. There was a part of her that had wanted to cry, but it seemed like every time she moved, someone put their hands on her internal organs and squeezed. Why did it hurt to be alive? The Maxfields’ counselor had told Kelsey that in lieu of tears, her grief must be manifesting itself physically in other ways.

To throw it in her face, Kelsey imagined, her parents had gone and volunteered their house for a support group. Mourning parents and widows and widowers and lovers sat for hours on folding chairs in their living room, drinking their coffee, nodding at one another with bags under their eyes.

“Are you going to come to grief group tonight?” her mother would ask.

“Not tonight,” she would reply. Or ever.

Kelsey could hear strings of their testimonies from downstairs whenever she emerged from her room.

“… like there’s a hole next to me in the bed, dug into the mattress. And all I want to do is fall into that hole.”

“I keep thinking I see him around town. I swear. I’m not supernatural or nothing like that.”

“… and I said, God, I know there’s a reason.”

Their frail voices made them sound as if they were the dead ones. And what was worse: her parents’ voices among them, talking about Michelle as if she were the Patron Saint of Daughters. Like they had forgotten all the fun, stupid things about Michelle that made her herself, like that time she’d spent all of her birthday money on a new, elaborate “elfin maiden” costume for the Kansas Renaissance Fair. But that’s not what support groups were about. Thanks to the slogan they all said before every meeting, Kelsey knew exactly what support groups were about.

“LEARNING TO LIVE AND LOVE AGAIN,” they chanted before they sat down. Like a bunch of zombies.

Kelsey had to get out of there. But she wasn’t going to go back to school. Not yet, at least. She found her shoes and the car keys.

As she snuck past the foyer, she noticed a postcard among the unopened mail.

At the airport in Maine
, it said.
On the plane out tomorrow. Ate a lobster sandwich. Can’t see the fall leaves through the darkness. Love, Peter.

Kelsey drove the Subaru five miles under the speed limit. Because any amount of light hurt her sleepless eyes, she had taken to wearing sunglasses at all times. She yelled along with the lyrics on the radio, and when she didn’t know them, she just yelled. Then she parked and held her breath, waiting for whatever it was she felt to go away.

The sign read
KANSAS ARMY AND ARMY RESERVE RECRUITING STATION
. It was a tiny storefront in a strip mall at the corner of Louisiana and 23rd, next to a Schlotzsky’s Deli, and it was the only trace of military Kelsey could find in Lawrence.

Inside, one chair sat across from a neat, empty desk with a bell on it. An American flag stood in the corner. The walls were pasted with posters of burly men helping each other over walls, Army Strong emblazoned across their determined faces.

Kelsey reached her hand to the bell and rang it.

No one came. There was no noise from the other room.

She rang the bell again.

“What can I do for you, young lady?” A woman with a blonde bob and an official-looking sweater vest materialized behind the desk. Kelsey jumped.

“Hi,” Kelsey said. It was strange to hear her own voice.

“Would you mind taking off your sunglasses, please?” Even as the woman sat, she still seemed tall.

Kelsey crossed her arms. “I’d rather not.”

The woman’s eyebrows knit together. “All right, then.”

The woman stared at her, waiting. “My sister died,” Kelsey said. Wow, there it was. It had just come out. Over the days since it had happened, Kelsey had never once said it aloud.

The woman pointed at the chair. “Have a seat, honey.”

Kelsey found herself sitting immediately. She wanted to lay her head on the desk for a second. Just for a second. But she remained upright.

“Was she deployed?”

“Who?”

“Your sister.”

“Oh, no. No.”

The woman folded her hands. “I’m confused.”

Kelsey hadn’t really thought this through, and the lack of sleep was no help. With the woman’s eyes on her, unmoving, Kelsey found she missed the feeling of being able to talk. Of knowing what to say. She forced herself to continue.

“Here’s the deal. My sister had a boyfriend in the army, Peter, and he doesn’t know that she… that she’s gone. He’s in Afghanistan somewhere, and I think someone should tell him.”

The woman spoke slowly, emphasizing her words. “So you came to the Army Recruiting Office?”

Kelsey could see the woman searching for her eyes behind her sunglasses.

“How else am I supposed to reach him? I don’t know his parents or any of his friends. And I was thinking maybe you could look him up and send him a letter or something. His name is Peter.”

A smile twitched on the woman’s mouth. “You said that.”

Kelsey sighed. “Can you look him up?”