Elsewhere (12 page)

"Now do you see?" asks Owen gently.

"Now do I see what?"

"It isn't any good to talk to the living, Liz. You think you're helping, but you only make matters worse."

Suddenly, Liz turns on Owen. "This is all your fault!" she says.

"My fault?"

"I might have made Alvy understand if you hadn't pulled me away before I was finished explaining!" Liz takes a step closer to Owen. "In fact, I want you to take me back now!"

"As if I'm really going to do that. Honestly. What nerve."

"If you won't help me, I'll do it myself!" Liz runs to the side of the tugboat. Owen chases after her, restraining her from diving overboard.

"LET ME GO!" she says. But Owen is stronger than Liz, and she has already had a long day. All at once, Liz feels very tired.

"I'm sorry," says Owen. "I'm really sorry, but this is the way it has to be."

"Why?" asks Liz. "Why does it have to be this way?" "

Because the living have to get on with their lives, and the dead have to get on with their lives, too."

Liz shakes her head.

Owen removes his sunglasses, revealing sympathetic dark eyes framed in long dark lashes. "If it matters," says Owen, "I know how you feel. I died young, too."

Liz looks at Owen's face. Without his sunglasses, she determines he is only a little older than her, probably around seventeen or eighteen. "How old were you when you got here?"

Owen pauses. "Twenty-six."

Twenty-six, Liz thinks bitterly. There is a world of difference between twenty-six and fifteen.

Twenty-six does things that fifteen only dreams of. When Liz finally speaks, it is in the melancholy voice of a person much older than her years. "I'm fifteen years old, Mr. Welles. I will never turn sixteen, and before long, I'll be fourteen again. I won't go to the prom, or college, or Europe, or anywhere else. I won't ever get a Massachusetts driver's license or a high school diploma. I won't ever live with anyone who's not my grandmother. I don't think you know how I feel."

"You're right," Owen says softly. "I only meant it's difficult for all of us to get on with our lives."

"I am getting on with my life," Liz says. "I just had this one thing I needed to do. I doubt it would have made any difference to anyone except me, but I needed to do it."

"What was it?" Owen asks.

"Why should I tell you?"

"It's for the report I have to file," Owen says. Of course, this is only partially true.

Liz sighs. "If you must know, there was this sweater, a sea green cashmere one, hidden beneath the floorboards of my closet. It was a birthday present for my dad. The color, it matched his eyes."

"A sweater?" Owen is incredulous.

"What's wrong with a sweater?" Liz demands.

"No offense, but most people who bother to make the trip to the Well have more important things to do." Owen shakes his head.

"It was important to me," Liz insists.

"I mean, like life-or-death sorts of things. The location of buried bodies, the name of a murderer, wills, money. You get my drift."

"Sorry, but nothing of much importance ever happened to me," Liz says. "I'm just a girl who forgot to look both ways before she crossed the street."

A foghorn sounds, indicating that the tugboat has reached the marina.

"So, am I in trouble?" Liz tries to keep her voice light.

"As it was only your first offense, mainly all you get is a warning. It goes without saying that I have to tell your acclimation counselor. Yours is Aldous Ghent, correct?"

Liz nods.

"Good man, Ghent is. For the next six weeks, you're banned from any Observation Decks, and I have to confiscate your diving gear during that time."

"Fine," Liz says haughtily. "I can go, then?"

"If you go down to the Well again, there will be serious consequences. I wouldn't want to see you get into any trouble, Miss Hall."

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.

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

4) Mypocket watch

Liz reads over her list. Seeing it all written down, she isn't sure what to make of it. Do I throw it out, or do I try to get everything back? Can you possibly do a combination of both?

Or, Liz thinks, was Betty just playing with her?

Liz has her answer. She laughs and throws the list away.

For a moment, Liz considers her pocket watch. It was strange that she had barely thought of her watch since coming to Elsewhere. The watch had been her father's before it was hers, and for years she had coveted it. Two lovers in a gondola were etched on the front, and her father's initials, A.S.H., were engraved on the inside. The watch made a peculiarly pleasing ticking sound, almost like a very low bell, and the silver was so frequently polished it was the color of the moon.

On her thirteenth birthday, her dad had said she was old enough to have the watch and he had given it to her. He made her promise to always clean and maintain it. About a month before she died, the watch had stopped, and she still feels guilty about not getting it repaired. She hates to imagine her father finding it broken and thinking that Liz hadn't cared about it at all.

Owen Welles was born to a college professor mother and a painter father in New York City. His parents were consistently delighted by their only child, a smiling, verbal, good-looking boy.

Owen's childhood passed easily and without trauma. When he was thirteen, he met the redhaired Emily Reilly, also thirteen. Emily was quite literally the girl next door. Owen lived in Apartment 7C, Emily in 7D. Owen and Emily shared a bedroom wall, and they would tap Morse code to each other late at night when they were both supposed to be asleep. It wasn't long before Owen went the way of many a boy next door: he fell in love with Emily. A series of proms and other photo opportunities followed, leading right up to high school graduation.

Following graduation, Emily went to college in Massachusetts, while Owen stayed for college in New York City. After four years of exorbitant long-distance bills, they were married at twentytwo.

In a bout of traditionalism that surprised everyone concerned, Emily even took Owen's last name.

Emily Reilly became Emily Welles.

To save money, Owen and Emily moved to Brooklyn. Emily went to medical school, and Owen became a firefighter. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be a firefighter forever, but he liked his work and was good at it.

In the year Owen turned twenty-six, he was killed fighting the most routine fire in the world. An eighty-one-year-old woman left a burner on; her four cats were trapped in the apartment. Owen located the first three cats easily, but the fourth, a young white torn called Koshka, eluded him.

Unaware of the fire, the cat had fallen asleep in a closet. Owen didn't find Koshka until the next morning. The cat was happily licking his paws at the foot of Owen's bunk on the Nile. Both he and Koshka had been asphyxiated. "I'm thirsty," the cat meowed. Unfortunately, Owen did not speak Catus.

Owen did not take his death well. It is much harder to die when one is in love.

Because of Emily, he did everything he could to get back to Earth. He tried to take the boat back, but he was discovered before it left the seaport.

He wasn't the first person to become addicted to the binoculars at the Observation Deck.

Exhausting an enormous supply of borrowed coins, Owen would watch Emily until his eyes glazed over.

He attempted the illegal deep-sea dive to the Well a record 117 times. He sometimes managed to communicate with Emily, but mainly he drove her insane. She missed Owen intensely, and his semiregular visits only made things worse. Emily dropped out of medical school. She just stayed at home, waiting for Owen to come back. Eventually, Owen realized what he was doing to her, and he knew he had to stop. He didn't want to be responsible for ruining her life. Because of Owen's experience with illegal Contact, he seemed a natural to work for the Bureau.

Now seventeen years old, Owen had worked at the bureau for nine years. Owen didn't have many friends and had only a few relatives he rarely saw. Once a week (never more, never less), he allowed himself to watch Emily from the binoculars. Every Thursday night he saw Emily grow older as he grew younger. At thirty-five years old, Emily was now a burn specialist. (She went back to medical school the fall after Owen's death.) She never remarried and still wore her wedding band. Owen wore a wedding band, too. He had bought a new one on Elsewhere to replace the one he had left behind on Earth.

At a certain point Owen realized that he would probably never see Emily again. He had done the math. In all probability, by the time Emily reached Elsewhere, Owen would be back on Earth. He had learned to live with this fact, but even ten years down the road, the only person for him was Emily Reilly.

When people asked him if he was married, Owen told them he was. This statement seemed like a lie and the truth at the same time. Not surprisingly, Owen often felt like a fraud. How could he advise other people to do what he had never been able to do himself? When he met a person like Liz, he was particularly ashamed. In his opinion, she legitimately wanted to move on and he had hindered her in that process. Owen felt the need to make amends.

And so, Owen takes a dive into the Well, his first dive for a personal reason in many years.

He peers over the Well's edge and quickly locates Liz's house in Medford, Massachusetts. Owen finds Alvy, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of apple juice.

Because Owen has made so many dives before, he is quite sophisticated at making Contact.

Consequently, when Owen speaks through the Well, only one faucet comes on at Liz's old house.

"Hello," says Owen.

Alvy sighs. "You've got the wrong house. The only dead person I know is my sister, Lizzie."

"I know Liz, too."

"Yeah," says Alvy, "if you see her, tell her I'm mad. I didn't find anything in the closet, and I got in big trouble."

"You were in the wrong closet," says Owen. "It's under the floorboards in Liz'scloset."

Alvy sets down his glass. "Say, who are you anyway?"

"I guess you could say I'm a friend of Liz's. She's sorry she got you in trouble, by the way."

"Well, tell her I miss her," Alvy says. "She was a pretty good sister, most of the time. Oh, and tell her Happy Thanksgiving, too."

Liz's father enters the kitchen. He turns off the faucet. "Why did you leave this running again?"

Liz's father asks Alvy.

"It just came on by itself," Alvy replies. "And Dad? Please don't get mad, but I have to show you something in Liz's closet."

Owen stays to watch Alvy lead Liz's father up the stairs. He watches as Alvy opens a loose floorboard on the left side. He watches Alvy pull out a foil-wrapped box with a card on the front that reads, to dad.

When Owen surfaces an hour later, his colleagues from the bureau are waiting for him.

"I just thought you'd like to know he got the sweater." Owen stands awkwardly in front of Liz's desk at work the night before Thanksgiving. Although Thanksgiving isn't an official holiday in Elsewhere, many Americans still celebrate it anyway.

"You went to the Well for me?"

"Your brother . . . Alvy, is it?"

Liz nods.

"Alvy says 'Happy Thanksgiving.' " Owen turns to leave.

"Wait." Liz grabs Owen's arm. "Wait a minute, you can't just go!" Liz pulls Owen into a hug.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Owen says gruffly.

"Did he like the sweater?" Liz asks.

"He loved it. It matched his eyes just like you said it would." As Owen says this, he realizes the sweater matched Liz's eyes also.

Liz sits down in her desk chair. "I really don't know how to thank you."

"It's just part of my job."

"It's part of your job to give my dad a sweater?"

"Well, not technically," Owen admits.

"What else did Alvy say?"

"He said you were a good sister. Actually, he said you were a good sister most of the time."

Liz laughs and grabs Owen by the hand. "Come to Thanksgiving dinner at my house. Well, it's Betty's house and my house. Betty's my grandmother."

"I ..." Owen looks away.

"Of course," Liz says, "this late, you probably have other plans."

Owen thinks a moment. He never has other plans. He typically eschews holidays like Thanksgiving, holidays spent among other people's loved ones. Even after ten years, making other plans somehow feels like betraying Emily. Normally, Owen eats alone at a diner with a holiday special. "It's a strange thing about Thanksgiving," Owen says finally. "I mean, why do so many of us still celebrate it over here anyway? Is it just habit? Are we just doing it because we always have?"

"Listen, you don't have to come if "

Owen interrupts her. "And people barely think about the whole Pilgrims-and-Indians thing over there, and it really has absolutely nothing to do with anything over here. And yet right around Thanksgiving, despite myself, I always get that Thanksgiving feeling and want to make amends and eat pie. It's conditioned in me. Why is that?"

"I know what you mean. This last September, I still wanted to buy school supplies even though I don't go to school anymore," Liz says. "Although, it's a little different with Thanksgiving. I think it's just something you can do to be like the people back home. Or to be close to the people back home. You eat pie because you know they're eating pie."

Owen nods. All this talk of pie has suddenly put Owen in the mood for just that. "So," he says casually, "what time should I get there?"