The Everafter (15 page)

T
HE FIRST THING
I
REALIZE
about the misty Gabe is that I miss being able to reach out and touch him. And, I know this sounds superficial, but I miss the way he looks. I mean, he was
hot
and now he’s just mist. I know…I know…this is the kind of thing that keeps me attached to life and makes me a decidedly unenlightened spirit.

But it’s true. And I have to admit it.

The second thing I realize about him is that he’s glowing with happiness to see me.

The third thing I realize—with a tremendous amount of relief—is that he isn’t reading my mind in the same way Tammy did. Either he doesn’t have the ability that she does,
or…maybe he respects my privacy more.

“I still love you,” he says right away. I’m glad that came before anything else he might communicate to me.

“And I still love you,” I tell him. “How long have you been waiting for me to figure out how to reach you?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

Maybe. I mean, a girl doesn’t want her boyfriend to be better at
every
thing than she is, does she? “I don’t know,” I tell him.

“It doesn’t matter to me. I’d wait as long as I needed to for you.”

“Have you been to the Everafter? This place that Tammy tells me is so great?”

“No. I’ve heard about it, though.”

“From who?”

“My father. I met him in one of the moments of my life. Like I am with you now.”

“Oh…I’m sorry. About your dad dying, I mean….”

There’s a smile in Gabe’s glow. “Maddy, there’s nothing to be sorry about. I can see him whenever I want. I lost a Star Wars action figure, a Luke Skywalker, when I was seven. Dad lost some change at the same time.”

“You are lucky, then. I mean…I haven’t run into my family anywhere. I’d like to be able to talk to them in…this form. But so far I haven’t encountered an object that takes me to a moment when any of them also lost something.”

“Oh, I think you’ll run into them somewhere.”

“I hope so. You know what the weirdest feeling about that is?”

“What?”

“Knowing somewhere in all this crazy time they’re already dead. Even when they’re alive, they’re dead, right? I mean, that’s the way it is with us. We’re dead but visiting this moment where we’re also alive, so we’re both alive and dead in the same moment. The same thing is happening to all the people we knew and loved. Time’s all wrinkled up on itself, like a Kleenex that’s been all smushed together. It touches itself in all these different places.”

As reassuring as this is, I hope that my family isn’t stuck somewhere on the edge of the Kleenex, in a place that doesn’t fold back onto any of the creases I’m occupying.

“You’ll see your family again, Maddy. I’m sure of it.”

He’s a mind reader, too? What am I, the joke of the Universe? The only ghost in the Great Expanse who doesn’t know
anything
about navigating the spiritual experience? “You can read minds, too. Just like Tammy.” It’s an accusation. I can’t help it. I feel a little betrayed.

“Huh?”

I explain to him what happened when I visited Tammy at the slumber party. He seems surprised. “Well, I suppose it makes as much sense as everything else I’ve discovered since I died,” he admits. “But I haven’t learned to do that
yet. I wasn’t reading your mind. I was reading
you
.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maddy, how much time did we spend together? I
know
you. You’re always worried about whether the people you love will be there for you when you need them. You’re always afraid something will tear them away from you.”

“Well, I was right, wasn’t I? I mean,
here
I am, and my family’s
not
here, are they?”

“I’m here.”

That’s
so
Gabe. Just two simple words, but they mean everything to me.

“Besides, who knows exactly what we’ll find in the Everafter? Dad says that when you’re there, you’re with everyone you ever loved, that they become space and you fall into them. You’ll become them, and they’ll become you.
Every
one is there, according to him, even if they’re not dead yet, because they’re, well, already dead somewhere.”

Who knew Gabe’s dad could be so poetic? I bet he’s lounging around in the Everafter with Emily Dickinson and my mother. They’re having great debates about the meaning of death and loss.

While
becoming
one another, of course.

Not that I’m bitter or anything. “So if the Everafter’s that great, why haven’t you gone there yet? Can’t you get there?”

“I don’t know. I think I could. But I don’t want to go yet.
I’m waiting for you. And you aren’t ready.”

“Tammy thinks it’s because I don’t know how I died. She thinks that’s keeping me tied here. She also thinks you can help me figure out what happened to me.
Do
you know how I died?”

“Yes.”

“How come you know and I don’t?” I demand. I might be sounding a little like, well, a spoiled five-year-old.

“Your back was turned. Mine wasn’t.”

I’m so surprised by this statement that my mist seems to scatter in several directions. I’m in danger of dispersing into an Expanding Universe. Gabe’s mist surrounds me and keeps me centered enough to fold back in on myself.

“You
saw
it happen?”

“Yes. And I wish I hadn’t.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it, then?” I ask. “Afterward, we can float off together into the sunset, or the clouds, or whatever we float off into to get to the Everafter.”

We swirl without communicating for a moment. Finally, Gabe says, “I think you’ll need to see it for yourself. Even if I wish I hadn’t seen it, I think you need to.”

“Have you ever been back to that real moment?”

“Yeah. A few times. I never want to go again.”

“How’d you get there?”

“The necklace. The one you’re playing with over there. The one I gave you as a present.”

I look over to where the living Gabe and I are sitting at a picnic table talking.

Oh, yeah. Guess I kind of forgot about them. I mean, us.

I was busy paying attention to the other us.

Gabe continues, “I think it’s been with me in
Everywhere
this whole time.”

“
Everywhere?
What’s that?” I ask, but then I suddenly know what he’s talking about. “Oh.
Everywhere
. That must be what I call
Is
.”

“Yeah,
Everywhere
is kind of an…
Is
.”

“Yeah, except lately I’ve started thinking of it as
Am,
because, you know, while I’m there, I just kind of am…well,
everywhere,
I guess.” My brain is starting to get tangled. “So why would my necklace have been in
Everywhere
with you?” I ask.

“I happened to be holding it just before…I mean, I dropped it a second before we died. I guess that counts as me losing it.”

We.
We died. He died with me? I suspected as much, but hearing it is still distressing.

“So how am I supposed to get back to that final moment of our lives? I need to have lost an object in that final moment in order to get back to it.”

“You did lose something. It’s just not exactly an object.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your life. You lost it there. That gives you free entry, my dad says. I’ve never tried to do it. I have the necklace with me in
Everywhere,
so I’ve never needed to find my lost life there.”

?!?!

Have I wasted all this time revisiting my life when all along I had access to finding out how I died? Just by finding my “life” in
Is?

“And how—exactly—am I supposed to find my life in
Is?
” I ask. “I have no idea what it even looks like. Is this some kind of Peter Pan thing? You know…find your shadowy life and sew it back on so it can’t get away again?”

Gabe’s presence is smiling all around me. “Maybe it is. Who knows? But I’m sure you’ll figure it all out. Maybe it has something to do with that whole ‘am’ thing you were talking about. Try thinking something, you know, like ‘I am my life.’”

“It’s worth a try. Will you come back to the moment of our death with me?” Facing this alone is terrifying. Besides, now that I’ve found Gabe again, I don’t want to be without him for a single second. Even as I’m asking the question, though, I can tell from the feeling emanating off of him that he’s going to say no.

“My ghost will just be a distraction to you while you’re trying to see what’s happening. Besides, I’ve already been there, and I don’t think I can bear to watch it all again.
Remember you won’t be totally without me. The living me will still be there.”

“And after I’ve seen what happened? Will you meet me back here?”

“Of course.”

I realize I might just as well get on with this whole thing so I can come back and see Gabe again.

And then move on with him to the Everafter.

“I love you,” I tell Gabe.

“I love you, too,” he says.

And then I return myself to
Am
.

A
M
ROCKS ME BACK AND FORTH
like a baby. I feel my soulbeat pounding against the bubble of space I inhabit here. I concentrate on the feeling of it, the comfort of knowing that the energy that is me still stretches its wings, longs to expand.

I am my life
, I think, and instantly something indefinable emerges within all the energy that is me. It’s not at all like Peter Pan’s shadow, which struggled for its freedom. That something is happy to be a part of me. It dances and jumps, filling me with a giddy tingling. We float through the
Am
of
Is
on the way to find…

G
ABE AND
I
ARE STEPPING
out of his father’s car. We’re at Sandra’s house. It’s odd watching action I’d rather be feeling. I know—but only from a strange distance—what the pavement of the driveway must feel like under my feet. The temptation to become me is greater when there’s no spirit Gabe or spirit Tammy to distract me.

“This clasp is broken,” the living me says to Gabe. I’m looking down at the
FOREVER
necklace he gave me, trying to bend the clasp ring farther open so I can refit the chain link onto the end of it. Of course I stumble over a rock in the driveway. I’ve never been good at walking and trying to do something else at the same time.

Gabe reaches out and steadies me. I look up at him and kiss him. “Would you see if you can fix this? I don’t want to lose it,” I say, handing the necklace to him.

Now that I’m here, I remember all this. But how did a simple trip to Sandra’s house after school wind up being the final scene of my life? It doesn’t make sense. I start trying to run through everything I remember about living the experience, only to discover that I’m missing important things as they’re playing out in front of me.

So much for trying to remember. Gabe and I are already halfway into the house. I have to go all Casper and swish my way through the door while it’s still open.

“What’s wrong?” I’m asking Sandra. Dressed in old jeans and a ratty sweatshirt, she’s standing in front of us, blocking the hallway to keep us from going any farther into the house. There’s a strange silence invading everything. A scary one.

But the look on Sandra’s face is even scarier. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The living me knows that it’s a frightening expression, but the misty me recognizes its depth of desperation in a way I never could have when I was living. There’s something dying behind those green eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I ask Sandra.

Gabe is alarmed enough at her expression that he’s put his arm around her shoulders and is trying to lead her to the living room. “Go get Sandra a glass of water, why
don’t you?” he says to me.

I move toward the kitchen, but Sandra starts crying. “No,” she says. “You’ve got to leave, Maddy. My mom is completely losing it.”

“Where’s your dad?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to reach him for a few hours now. He left for work this morning, but he’s not there now, and his cell is turned off. I’ve just never seen my mom quite like this before.”

Gabe has managed to push her gently into the living room and has settled her onto the couch.

“Where’s your mom right now?” I ask.

“Upstairs. Look, you guys, you need to go.”

“Is she threatening to kill herself again, Sandra? Maybe you should call the police if she is. I mean, we can’t really handle that, you know?”

“Just go, please.”

“You have to come with me, Sandra. I can’t leave you here.”

“I can’t go with you.”

“Yes, you can. And you know what? Today I came up with a brilliant solution to your problem. You can come live with us for the rest of the school year. I know my parents will let you. My mom thinks you’re great. And she knows how crazy your mom is. She won’t want you to stay here. And she’ll understand how important it is not to have
to leave school your senior year. It’s a great solution. Gets you away from your mom but lets you stay close enough to check on her.”

“Maddy, whatever. I’ll talk to you about it later, okay? Just go right now.” She stands up and leads us back toward the front door.

Sandra keeps glancing over her shoulder, but the living me doesn’t pay any attention to where Sandra’s looking. I’m so busy trying to convince her to leave with me that I don’t notice Mrs. Simpson coming down the stairs.

But the misty me sees her, sees the horrible expression on Mrs. Simpson’s face. She’s never liked me, and the look on her face now tells me she’s moved beyond dislike. The current of her hatred is an undertow, ready to pull all of us into the depths of a furious ocean.

Mrs. Simpson keeps moving down the stairs. Both her hands are behind her back. She follows us toward the door with frighteningly soft and purposeful steps. Her lips are moving, but I can’t hear what she’s saying because the living me is pleading so loudly with Sandra.

I mist myself closer to Mrs. Simpson and hear her mumbling, “You won’t take her away from me. You won’t take her away from me. That’s what you’ve always wanted. But I won’t let you do it.”

She’s pulling one of her arms from behind her back. She has a gun in her hand. A ray of sunlight coming from the
open front door catches the flat black side of the metal barrel. The reflected beam of light gleams with an incongruent beauty. Mrs. Simpson raises her arm, pointing the gun at my back as I stand with Sandra by the door.

The gun’s trigger is gold. It stands out against the deathly black of the rest of the gun. I’ve never before felt threatened by anything gold-colored, and yet I understand what is about to happen. My life will end.

Mrs. Simpson brings her second arm around to the front, using a two-handed grip on the gun. I want to shout at myself, tell myself to run, save my life. I don’t have time to think about whether I should change the past. I have to do it. I have to save myself and Gabe.

Only it’s not that simple.

Gabe has turned and sees Mrs. Simpson. He’s wearing an expression of utter shock, whispering, “Jesus Christ.” I can tell what he’s about to do, and I have to stop him. I can’t seem to save us both. I don’t have time to think…it’s all happening so fast.

Gabe drops the necklace and lunges at Mrs. Simpson. She sees him coming and swings her arms around to point the gun at him. The only thing I have time to do is use all my energy to push back against the gun, to move its muzzle so it isn’t pointing at Gabe anymore. The gun is in wild movement as a shot is fired. The shot whizzes toward me, where I’m standing next to Sandra at the door. Alive.

For only a fraction of a second longer.

Everything goes blank. Dead. Even the spirit me is not allowed to see what happens next.

Thank God.

I wouldn’t be able to bear seeing the expression on Sandra’s face as she realizes her mother has killed me.