I’d only ever been to church for a funeral. My gram’s, when I was eight. What a mean old bat. While most kids’ grandmas made cookies and lemonade, mine made moonshine and rolled tobacco. She even took me on weekly field trips to a drive-through liquor store. My mama wasn’t much better.
I peeked into Mama’s bedroom, which was only slightly larger than mine. Avoiding her bedroom mirror, which I’d been doing since I thought I’d seen Hunter lurking in mine, I stepped into her room. She was passed out on her double-sized mattress with a large brown stain and no sheets. The mess in her room was almost as awful as the thought of Keisha and Hunter somehow being ghosts. I shuddered and picked up a pair of her dirty jeans. I hadn’t done any laundry since the accident. I guess I wouldn’t get much slack. It had to be done and Mama was in no shape to do it.
A few years ago I might’ve worried she was dead, but now I knew what passed-out drunk looked like—and she was it. Sound asleep, she was still in the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn when a neighbor brought her to see me in the hospital the night of the accident. An empty bottle of whiskey was rolled up next to her. Maybe that had caused the stain. But probably not. It wasn’t like Mama to waste any booze.
She wasn’t so bad before Daddy left. Back then she’d only have a couple drinks with him at night. She’d been okay. She’d even come to parent orientation when I started middle school. But that’d all changed three years ago when Daddy left us.
I sighed, pulled a blanket off the floor, and held it to my nose. It smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and strongly of whiskey. I tossed it into the unused clothes hamper, then pulled another blanket from Mama’s tiny closet. I smelled that one: laundry detergent and lavender. Good, clean smells. I put the blanket over her and tucked it under her chin. She made a small noise and her lips flickered into a smile.
My heart lurched. I never saw Mama smile anymore. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. I shook my head. It irked me she couldn’t even get it together for Hunter and Keisha’s funerals. She’d known Keisha since we were in kindergarten, and Hunter since middle school. She’d taken me and Keisha to the park when we were younger, and chaperoned my first date with Hunter. I half-smiled at the memory. We’d had some fun times. Now all she did was go and collect welfare; that was about the only thing she was good for anymore.
After locking up the trailer, I trudged the quarter mile to St. Phillip’s alone. My little black dress was riding up my thighs and pissing me off with every step. At least I had a decent pair of black flats since my heels were ruined when we went to see that damned tree. Ruined right along with everything else in my life that night. I sighed. Without Hunter, I didn’t have a best friend. I didn’t have an escape plan from this town. And, more urgently, I didn’t have a ride. I’d flat-out refused to go with Dylan. Despite having to walk everywhere in the dang summer heat without A/C, it didn’t bother me much. I wasn’t really up to getting into another car anytime soon anyhow.
Leaves rustled and a bird chirped overhead as I rounded the corner to Third Street. Hunter didn’t go to church. Keisha was Baptist. How the funerals had come to be in our neighborhood Catholic church was a mystery to me. Some rich folks from the church had probably offered to pay for the funerals.
The church parking lot was already full, like the entire town had decided to come and say their goodbyes. Likely most of them just wanted to say they were part of the whole horrific thing. There wasn’t much excitement in Harland; the accident had been something. I shivered, Hunter’s burned and bloody face still fresh in my mind.
My hands trembled when I reached the door, my heart screaming at me not to go in. I told my heart to shut up, then opened the glass front door and went inside to a press of bodies and the smell of perfume and sweat and tears. I gagged and my world went all woozy.
I steadied myself on a table covered with church flyers. All of the chatter buzzed like a fly around my brain and I swallowed my partially digested Jimmy Dean breakfast biscuit back down. That’s when I made the mistake of peering into the sanctuary.
Two coffins. Hunter’s and Keisha’s. Both wood. Both closed. They had to be closed. From what I’d heard, the bodies were so badly burned they’d had a hard time identifying them.
The room got blurry and I felt myself dropping.
Someone reached in and grabbed me, just before I hit the floor. Dylan. I smelled him before I saw him. Abercrombie. I loved that scent. Just not on him.
I wanted to push away that smell. Push away those arms, the same arms that had held me back from the truck that awful night. But he wasn’t letting go. Maybe I really didn’t want him to. “Hey, take it easy. I’ve got you.” Dylan sat me in a nearby chair. My vision twisted and I gulped down air, trying not to throw up.
“Is she alright?” A Hispanic man in black robes with a white collar came over to us, concern clear on his face.
“I’m fine.” I answered before Dylan could. I made my eyes focus. “It’s just a lot to take in, is all.”
Dylan frowned and glanced over to where his mama, with her caked-on mascara and fake concern, hovered near Hunter’s and Keisha’s parents. Keisha’s folks, her aunt and uncle, a handful of cousins, and a few friends from school were the only dark faces in a sea of white. Most people acted like color didn’t matter anymore—at least on the surface. It had never mattered a hill of beans to me. But the truth was we still had black churches and white churches in Harland. And St. Phillip’s was definitely a white one.
Still, I was glad they were here. They were good people, Keisha’s mom and dad. Keisha’s daddy was the first successful black baker our town had ever seen. Didn’t matter what color he was, people loved his cookies and cakes and bread. His love for baking and good food brought people together. He had respect. But more than anything, I loved them because they’d always been kind to me. They had me over every holiday. They made sure I had good meals and got Christmas gifts. And, of course, Keisha’s daddy helped me out when Mama didn’t remember my birthday. Every year I had a nice birthday cake.
Hunter’s mama cackled, making Keisha’s parents give her uncomfortable smiles. That woman was a known gossip; she could talk a raccoon right out of a tree if she wanted. Gossip or not, at least she was here. That was better than I could say for Dylan’s daddy or my mama. Dylan’s daddy might have been the primary donor for the funerals, but if he was, I knew his charity wasn’t ’cause he cared. All he wanted was to look good to folks in town—to appear charitable. It was definitely better that Mr. Anderson wasn’t here. He wasn’t a nice man.
Keisha never went over to Dylan’s house. She’d said his daddy was the most racist man she’d ever met. And that was saying something—since the black folks in town generally lived on one side of the train tracks and the whites lived on the other. The only place we overlapped was in the trailer park where I lived. There, color didn’t matter. Life in the trailer park was more about survival than race. God only knew how Dylan’s parents reacted when they’d found out he was dating Keisha. They were probably glad she was dead.
I sucked back a sob. It was so unfair. All of it. They should be alive. We should all be graduating together next year.
“I’m Father Eduardo Alvarez.” The priest’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. He extended his hand to Dylan, then to me. He glanced at the fresh scabs and yellowing bruises on my knees and face, and at Dylan’s black eye. He had to know who we were. Our last year’s high school pictures were plastered all over the newspaper: the living and the dead.
Dylan nodded and said something I didn’t catch.
Father Alvarez smiled. “I’ll be officiating the funerals for Hunter and Keisha.”
A sort of sick feeling washed over me and I leaned forward, head over my knees, and tried not to puke. Oh. My. Gosh. Hunter’s funeral. Keisha’s. My pulse raced and sweat broke out all over my face.
Robed all in black, Father Alvarez squatted in front of me and put his hand on my shoulder. “God is infinitely merciful. They are at peace.”
I looked up at him then, real quick. Was he kidding or did he really believe that? His eyes were serious. And he wasn’t that old. Younger than I’d imagine a priest to be. Probably only in his forties. “How do you know?”
Dylan stiffened beside me. A silent warning not to mention the images we’d seen on his camera.
“God keeps all created things in existence.” The father smiled kindly.
“Hunter didn’t go to church,” I said before I could stop myself. I wished he had. I wished I had. Maybe I’d feel less frightened about where Hunter and Keisha were now if I’d spent time in church. Maybe I’d feel less trapped in this situation. Shoot, I didn’t know what happened after we died. Did we go to heaven or hell? Was God even real? Or did we just fade away into nothingness? I shivered. I didn’t want that. There had to be more to life than just drifting off and being gone. Besides, I know what I saw in those pictures and in the mirror. Somehow Hunter was still here. Somehow his spirit had survived. Unless my head was playing tricks with me.
“A just man—or woman—merits for himself through each good work an increase of sanctifying grace, eternal life, and heavenly glory. I’m sure your friends were just. God knew Hunter’s heart—even if Hunter didn’t go to church.”
A tear slid down my cheek, and I fought to hold back the deluge. I hoped Father Alvarez was right. I hoped God was real. And I hoped He had mercy on Hunter and Keisha and had taken them both right on up to the pearly gates where color and income didn’t matter. I hoped they weren’t really stuck here. Being alive here was bad enough.
A bell tolled overhead. “The service is about to start. I have two rows reserved for family and close friends. Please, let me see you to your seats.”
Dylan gently took my arm and helped me to my feet. We followed Father Alvarez into the sanctuary and took our seats in the front row, a massive crucifix looming above the altar not five feet from us.
Keisha’s mama and daddy were sitting close. Her mama was crying hard. Her daddy gave me a sad smile, then wrapped his arm around Keisha’s mama. Hunter’s mama dabbed at the smeared mascara on her face, but her eyes were dry. Likely as not she was drunk. That’s one thing me and Hunter had in common. Our mamas liked the booze, even if his was able to function when mine was passed out drunk.
I couldn’t stop staring at Hunter’s coffin. Imagining him in there all burned and charred and crispy. A ruined shell. He’d always been so damned sexy. Sexy and kind and young. Way too young to be dead.
The father was saying something. I could barely focus on his words, but I tried to listen to his prayer.
“Lord our God, You are always faithful and quick to show mercy. Keisha and Hunter were suddenly taken from us. Come swiftly to their aid, have mercy on them, and comfort their families and friends by the power and protection of the cross. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The word Amen echoed through the room, clinging to the air. It was a nice prayer, but all I could do was think that Keisha and Hunter were gone.
Gone.
Forever.
I couldn’t stand that Hunter wasn’t ever going to pick me up again and take me out to Mojo’s. I couldn’t stand that I’d never feel his soft lips on mine. I couldn’t stand that I wouldn’t have him to help me survive in this little town with an alcoholic mother who relied on me to pay the bills because she was too drunk to work. Hunter and I’d had an escape plan. We were supposed to move away from this town, move away from our parents, move away from all the ass-backwards people around us. But now, Hunter was gone and my plans along with him.
Tears spilled down my face, and my body shook so hard I felt like my ribs might bust out through my chest.
Dylan was crying too, but I barely paid him any mind. He’d only been with Keisha for a few months. Hunter’d been my life.
Dylan handed me a box of tissues, then put his arm around me. It was warm and comforting. I hadn’t expected that. It made me cry harder. I didn’t want to lean on Dylan. I wanted to hate him for taking us to that damned tree. I wanted to hate him for surviving. Why did he live and Hunter die? But it didn’t matter right then. I just laid my head on Dylan’s shoulder and cried and cried and cried.
That’s when I heard the scream.
It wasn’t just a regular I-saw-a-bug scream. It was a full-throated, I’m-gonna-kill-you wail. One that sent shivers to my toes, made the lights go out, and caused the whole room to fall quiet.
Through the darkness, candle flames flickering atop cross-adorned pillars, I could just make her out. Standing about three feet in front of the coffins was Keisha. Burned, but ghostly pale. And madder than hell. “Don’t you touch my Dylan,” she howled at me.
I screamed then and lunged to my feet. Tripping over Dylan, I shot out of the pew and headed for the exit.
“Kaitlyn, stop.” Oh. My God. It was Hunter’s voice.
Spinning around, I found Dylan behind me, eyes wide with fright. People were up and talking. Some were crying. People were looking around, calling for someone to check the circuit breakers.
Through the dim light, not too far from the coffins, I saw him. Tall and burned and bloody. Hunter. My Hunter.
“Don’t you tell her to stop, Hunter McMaster. She was laying her head on my man. You should be pissed, too. You even told me you thought he liked her.” Keisha had her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. I knew that look. The one she reserved for people who’d really ticked her off—like the time I’d given her new Barbie a haircut. I remember truly wanting to give that doll a haircut because it was fun, but I also remember being jealous that Keisha had a new Barbie and all I had was a hand-me-down knockoff, whose head and arms kept falling off.
“None of that matters now.” Hunter frowned at Keisha then looked back at me. “Help us, Kaitlyn. You have to help us.”
Dylan pushed open the door into the hazy summer sun and grabbed my hand. Somewhere behind us, Keisha screamed again, and we ran out into the light.
Now I knew for certain that Father Alvarez’s prayer had fallen flat. God hadn’t had mercy on them, and Keisha and Hunter sure as hell were not in heaven.