Page 28

Not long after Detective Weston leaves, Dad’s truck skids into the driveway. This time, no one bothers to send Melissa and me away.

“What did she say?”

Dad asks after Mom lets him in.

“She said Scott Locke was poking around, inquiring about opening an investigation into the memorial fund.”

“Shit!”

Dad says. “He emailed me last night.”

“Why?”

Mom’s panic bounces off the walls.

“He asked about the fund. He wanted to see records of money spent.”

Mom puts her hands to her throat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I knew it would only upset you. And anyway, as I wrote to him, I’m under no obligation to disclose anything to him.”

“That’s what Peggy said,”

Melissa adds.

Dad whistles, which is something he does when he’s nervous. “There’s something else.”

He pulls out his phone and plays a voicemail message. “This is Nick Flores. I’m not sure if you remember me. I did that story several years ago that included your daughter . I’m going to be back in town in a few days and I was hoping to follow up on some things, maybe ask you some more questions. I’ll try again when I get there. Take care, bye.”

As he hangs up, Mom’s legs buckle. I go to catch her but Dad gets there first. “It’s already starting,” she says.

Even Dad looks shaken. “Maybe it’s a coincidence.”

“Or maybe Scott Locke called a journalist,” Mom says.

“Why would he do that?”

Dad asks. “I understand that me going to church or reaching out to Father Mercer is perhaps unusual, but it’s hardly newsworthy, and anyhow, how would Scott even know?”

“Father Mercer might’ve told him,”

Mom says. “That family gives a lot of money to the church.”

“But I didn’t tell Father Mercer anything specific. Just that a miracle happened. I knew he wouldn’t believe—couldn’t believe—until he saw it with his own two eyes.”

Dad slumps into the old easy chair, putting his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Gloria. I should not have made such a momentous decision unilaterally. I was just so overjoyed. I didn’t think it through.”

“It wasn’t you,”

I say in a quiet voice.

“What wasn’t me?”

“I mean that maybe it wasn’t Father Mercer who tipped off Scott Locke or the reporter. It was maybe me.”

“You?”

Mom asks. “How?”

“I kind of messaged Casey from Melissa’s account. Looking for Calvin.”

“!”

Melissa exclaims. It’s the most upset I’ve seen her.

“Why on earth would you do that?”

Mom snaps. She’s already mad. And I haven’t even told her the next part.

“I did that because when I went to see Calvin, he freaked out.”

“You went to see Calvin?”

Mom roars, and then she and Dad are both shouting at once in concert about what a terrible, terrible idea that was. After they’ve finished their duet of disappointment, Dad turns to Melissa.

“Did you know about this?”

he accuses.

Melissa braids her fingers together, nods.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

Mom demands.

“ asked me not to. And I didn’t think she’d reach out to Casey.”

“I was trying to get in touch with Calvin so I could invite him to your birthday.”

I turn toward Melissa. “I wanted to fix the party I wrecked.”

“What party?”

“The spy party you were supposed to have for your tenth birthday. Where we were all going to have secret identities and had to figure out who was who. I was so shitty to you about it. So mean. And then I ruined it.”

“You didn’t ruin my party!”

Melissa says.

“I did. I’ve ruined so many things.”

I look at Mom and Dad. I think of Calvin and his possible gun. Of Pauline. I ruined them with my death. “I thought if I could fix things with Calvin and with your party then maybe me coming back would make sense. Maybe I’d start to feel more . . . normal. Maybe Mom and Dad would get back together.” I turn to Mom. “Maybe then you could love me again.”

Mom stands there for a moment, her face closed off like a statue. And then a tear leaks out. Followed by another and another until the tears are a torrent waterfalling down her face. “I have never stopped loving you,”

Mom says in a shuddery voice. “Not for one single second. Sometimes I wish I could. Maybe it would hurt less. But as long as I draw breath, I will love you.”

“Then why are you so mad that I’m back?” I cry.

“Because I’m terrified to believe it’s you. Because how can it be you even if it seems to be you and if it’s not you—and it can’t be you, can it?—then I’ll have to lose you all over again. And I don’t know if I could survive that. I barely survived losing you once.”

And then the dam bursts and Mom is sobbing and instead of waiting for her to embrace me, I go to her. Mom lets me hug her and then she pushes me away and for a second I think she’s going to reject me again but she doesn’t. She just inspects me, and though I have no memory of being born, I have the sense she looked at me this way then, too, like she was meeting someone she already knew.

After a moment, she yanks me toward her, squeezing me. I can’t say that I feel it, really feel it, but the cold that’s set in my bones since I got back lifts. I feel, if not the warmth of her body, the warmth of her love. And then Dad is hugging Mom and Melissa is hugging me and we are all hugging each other.

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

“I don’t know,”

Mom says. She’s drying her eyes and zipping up her resolve. I can see her vertebrae stacking, growing taller, stronger. “But we will figure it out. Together. We will figure it out as a family.”

Casey

One Day Before

Casey was getting dressed for a late-night hookup with the latest swipe-right guy when her phone rang. Usually the only person who called her at this hour was her mom, slurring drunk, complaining about her father’s latest affair. It had gotten to the point where Casey stopped answering.

But the name that flashed on her screen shocked her. It was one she hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Yes,”

she replied, drawing out the hiss of the word to buy herself time, to calm her pounding heart.

“It’s Calvin,”

he said, adding, “Judd,” as if there were so many Calvins in her life.

“Calvin, long time,”

she said. The singsong in her voice tasted artificial, like the kind of fake sugar that left an aftertaste and gave you cancer. “What’s up?”

They had not spoken in person since the morning after died, when he’d indirectly accused Casey of somehow being at fault, as if finding out about Calvin would send her purposely careening into a moving car. The girl was ridiculous and swoony about Calvin, but she wasn’t that stupid. And anyway, was from a churchy family, who would think suicide was a sin. The whole accusation was so insulting that when Casey first learned Mr. Crane had gone all commando trying to pin ’s death on Calvin, it felt like some sort of cosmic justice.

Calvin didn’t answer her, making Casey do all the work, just like when they were teenagers. “I’m on my way out, so if this is a catchup—”

“Have you seen ?”

he interrupted.

Before the rational part of Casey’s brain could process the absurdity of the question, a different part, the sixteen-year-old-girl, heard it. The sting of it returned. . It had always been about .

“Have I seen ?”

she repeated, firing each word like bullets in a chamber.

“I know it sounds strange.”

“It doesn’t sound strange,”

Casey replied. “It sounds insane.”

Insane was how Casey’s father had described Calvin to the police when he’d been questioned about punching Calvin the morning after ’s death. “I wouldn’t put it past him to kill someone,”

he’d said.

Except he hadn’t, of course. Calvin had an alibi. Casey was the alibi.

“No, Officer, he did not knock his girlfriend off her bike, because at the precise time of ’s death, Calvin was screwing her best friend.”

That wasn’t exactly how Casey had put it, but the gist of it was the same. The detective’s lip had quivered as she’d written it down on her little pad, the disgust emanating off her like radiation. Fuck her. Fuck Calvin. Fuck them all. But at least the detective had kept it quiet. Calvin was cleared and life went on and that might’ve been the end of it had ’s dad not gone so completely bonkers, with stupid billboards and newspaper ads and private eyes until Calvin’s mother very publicly spilled exactly where Calvin had been the day that died. The Locke family’s carefully cultivated reputation was trashed after that. Casey, the grieving best friend, became the boyfriend-stealing slut. It never seemed to occur to people that you could be both.

All this had happened during her junior year of college, when high school felt like ancient history, but that hadn’t stopped all her friends at home from dropping her, or her own father from suggesting she not come home for the summer break. “Better to stay away until things settle down,” he said.

Honestly, they’d all done her a favor. That podunk town was in her rearview mirror and she was never going back. And she hadn’t. She’d graduated from college with a marketing degree, gotten a well-paying job at a pharmaceutical company, rented a high-rise apartment with a view of the city, and gone out to nice dinners with friends who had never heard the names Crane or Calvin Judd. Aside from her parents—who she saw for their annual vacations to Europe—she had severed all links to her high school self, and honestly, if she could cut ties with her parents, she would.

“I know it sounds insane,”

Calvin said. “But I saw .”

“You saw ?”

“Twice. She came to the bar and I swear I just saw her out my window.”

“Jesus, Calvin, isn’t like the first rule of drug dealing not to sample the inventory?

She didn’t believe him, obviously. She was a rational human being. But that didn’t mean that this didn’t awaken something she had shoved in the far reaches of her mental closet. Seven years dead and he was still pining for her. Still wanted her.

“Have you heard from her?”

he asked. “I can’t go to her family. You’re the only other person I could think of.”

So she was a consolation prize, again. Sloppy seconds, even now. All the tendons in her neck tightened, like a spring about to snap. She took a deep breath, sharpened her knife, and in a quiet, almost reassuring voice, went in for the kill. “I have not seen ,”

Casey told Calvin. “Because she is dead and I think you should know that I did actually tell her about us. That afternoon just before she died. She ran off crying and rode her bike home and I texted you to come fuck me and you did.”

None of it was true but in that moment, she wished it were.

She hung up the phone and blocked his number and erased him from her contacts. And for good measure, she purged every other contact from home. It felt so good, taking control like that. She should’ve done this years ago.

A text came in from the guy she was supposed to meet, asking Where are you? She blocked him, too, unliked him on the app. Unliked all the other guys she was half dating. None of them deserved her.

She moved over to the social media app she’d once spent hours a day on but had avoided after some of her so-called friends from high school dropped her. As if they were so perfect, as if their shit didn’t stink. She searched for Alexa’s profile. Alexa hadn’t blocked her. She’d done something worse: sent her the most sanctimonious message saying that Casey had desecrated ’s memory. Then she’d barely communicated with Casey, save for the occasional birthday wish, as if Casey was some charity case.

Unfollow. Casey stabbed at her keyboard, severing the relationship with Alexa once and for all. Fuck her and all those other self-righteous fair-weather friends. Unfollow, Casey pounded the button with relish. Unfollow, unfollow, unfollow. Why hadn’t she done this years ago? It felt so good, like getting rid of clothes you didn’t wear anymore. Clear out the closet to buy more stuff, better stuff.

And that was when she saw it. A message from Melissa Crane. She had not heard from ’s weird little sister since the funeral. Nor had she expected to. Casey couldn’t stand that kid, and she had sensed the feeling was mutual, which always pissed Casey off because that dork Missy wasn’t cool enough to dislike Casey. But here she was, after seven years, reaching out to Casey, and asking about how to get in touch with Calvin.

A wave of nausea rose up in her so suddenly, she didn’t have time to get to the bathroom and was forced to retch into a plastic shopping bag. Calvin calling asking about . Melissa writing asking about Calvin. Her heart started to pound and black spots skated across her vision the way they had that day in the parking lot when Alexa told her was dead. She was scared, and there was only one person she could think of who might make it better.

She picked up the phone. She called her father.