Chapter One

 

Getting the gun is easy. Mom has never tried to hide it from me and my sister. As soon as Dad moved out three years ago, she bought it for our “protection.”

In her bedroom, I slide open the top dresser drawer and pull out a skeleton key attached to an angel key ring. The angel is made of pewter and smiles at me knowingly. I hate its smile. At the foot of Mom’s bed, I kneel in front of Grandma’s old cedar chest. I run my fingers over the rose design that disguises the keyhole. After slipping in the skeleton key, I turn it and listen for the click. It’s easy to hear in our quiet suburban home.

The heavy lid creaks as I open it. A faint cedar scent escapes. When I was little, Mom told me cedar chests were supposed to hold a woman’s most treasured items before and after she married—lace tablecloths, fine linens, dresses, photos. We don’t have much of that. Instead, Mom has filled Grandma’s cedar chest with our old report cards and baby books, a lock of chestnut hair from my first haircut, the First Communion dress both Cecille and I wore, and our baptismal candles. I dig deeper. Somewhere in this chest is a shoebox. And in that shoebox is a .38 snub-nosed revolver wrapped in a kitchen towel.

The cedar chest actually contains several shoeboxes. Taking the lid off the first one, I find programs from all the plays I’ve been in. On top is the program for Arsenic and Old Lace, the play I was in last weekend. Actually, I’m supposed to be in it again tonight, but that’s not going to happen. I put the cover back on the box and push it aside. Leaning around the lid of the cedar chest, I check the time on Mom’s alarm clock. Three minutes after five. It’s Friday afternoon. Mom’s already turned off her computer at her desk outside Mr. Henderson’s office. She’s probably already headed toward the parking lot. That gives me 22 minutes—give or take a few, depending on traffic lights—before she gets home.

I reach for the next shoebox. It contains two tiny pairs of shoes. Cecille’s first pair of ballet slippers were pale pink with white bottoms that went gray from hours of pirouetting and pliéing. They were well loved and well worn. My first tap shoes, on the other hand, are still shiny and barely scuffed. They were unloved and worn poorly. I put both pairs of shoes back in the box, but linger on the ballet slippers for a moment. When I’m gone, Mom will be able to afford the best ballet school for Cecille, the one that practically guarantees she’ll get into Julliard. My sister will be a success. Someone in the family should be.

Before I can pull out the third shoebox, a drawing peeking out from under the report cards distracts me. I recognize it instantly. A homework assignment from my sixth grade Religious Ed class. I smile as I remember how angry I’d been…

 

“Homework?” I had whined to my best friend Ally. “We shouldn’t get homework in Religious Ed.”

Luckily, Ally had a way of looking on the bright side. She invited me to her house for a sleepover so we could work on the assignment together. After homemade pizzas and ice cream sundaes, Ally and I pulled on our cuddly pj’s, and spread Ally’s markers and colored pencils all over her family room floor. The assignment was to draw what we thought heaven would be like.

Lying on our bellies, we pulled blank pieces of white paper in front of ourselves and began sketching. Multi-level cloud platforms came first. Some were high, some were low, some were connected by cloud escalators, but they wouldn’t really be used since we’d all have wings then.

Next, we worked on what each cloud would contain. I insisted that one cloud would simply be stocked with 3 Musketeers candy bars, their fluffy insides like little clouds of chocolate heaven all on their own. Ally wanted a cloud that came up with a different kind of candy every day of eternity so she’d never get bored. We both wanted clouds where bands could serve up dance music so the party could last forever. Of course, we’d all be wearing the latest fashions, and we’d all look like ourselves, only better—no acne and no frizzy hair. “And no glasses!” Ally insisted as she pushed hers higher on her nose.

After a while, we got so into the project that I forgot all about being mad at Mrs. Dolan for assigning homework. When I’d finished filling in the 24/7 fast food cloud, I peeked at Ally’s drawing. On a cloud in the center, Ally had drawn her mom, her dad, her older brother Joey, and their cat Gloria. I looked back at my drawing. Mine had no family, but that didn’t surprise me. Mom and Dad fought all the time. And Cece was such a baby—only six at the time—that all she ever did was follow me around and annoy me to death.

“Do you think when we get to heaven, it’d be all right if I stay with your family all the time?”

Ally looked up from her drawing, her eyes wide. “Don’t you think your family’s going there?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? But even if they do, I’d still rather be with yours.”

“Oh.” Ally scratched the back of her head by sticking the capped end of a light blue marker through her jet-black hair. “I’m sure you could stay with us. It’s heaven. Doesn’t that mean you get whatever you want?” Ally went back to coloring in the background.

“Do you ever wish you could go to heaven right away?”

Ally scrunched up her nose. “You mean, die?”

I snorted. “No, I don’t mean the dying part. I mean the everything-being-perfect part. No more school. No more annoying little kid sister. No more bossy parents or teachers.”

“I don’t know.” Ally bit her lip. “Earth has good stuff too. And we’re not here very long to enjoy it. We’ll have all eternity to enjoy heaven.”

Ally had a point.

“Do you believe all that stuff about when you die there’s a white tunnel of light and then you see all the people you knew who died before you?” I had finished my drawing, so I sat up and signed my name on the back.

Ally still lay on her stomach. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I hope so. It’d be pretty scary if all you saw was a bright light, but you didn’t see anyone you knew. I wonder who’d greet me. My parents would probably be off fighting on a cloud somewhere and forget to show up.”

Ally sat up, too. “I’ll tell ya what. If I die first, I’ll be sure to be there when you enter the light.” It was the perfect thing to say, but then again Ally had been the perfect best friend.

Sitting beside Grandma’s cedar chest, I can’t stop the tears from coming. One of the tears drops onto the heaven drawing on my lap. Too many things have changed in the past six years. Another glance at the clock tells me the time is 5:15. I’d better hurry. Mom’ll be home in another ten minutes. I lay the heaven drawing on top of the report cards and reach for the third and final shoebox. The gun has to be in here. My hands tremble a little as I take it out. When Mom bought it, she’d said we were never to touch it because guns weren’t for little girls, but I’m seventeen and hardly little anymore.

Sitting on the edge of Mom’s bed, I lift off the box’s lid and then pull out the gun wrapped in a green-striped kitchen towel. It’s heavier than I expected. I unwrap the towel and let the revolver fall into my right hand. I consider putting everything away, but what’s the point? They’ll know soon enough what I did.

Remembering the instructions I’d read online, I push the latch on the left side of the gun and swing open the cylinder. The gun has two rounds in it. One more than I’ll need. I snap the cylinder closed and head out of the room. At the doorway, I stop, turn around, and pick up the heaven drawing before heading out again. I’ll know soon enough how close I came to being right.

In my room, I lay everything out on my bed—the note I’ve written to explain everything to Mom, the Chicago Tribune article about the car accident, the obituary from the Pioneer Press, the .38 snub-nosed revolver, and the drawing of heaven. I have a faint memory of Mrs. Dolan saying suicide is a sin, but that’s only if your reasons are selfish. Life will be better for my sister when I’m gone. Mom will finally have the money to send her to proper ballet classes. At least one of us can become a successful artist. Mom deserves that. She deserves at least one child who isn’t a failure. Not to mention a killer. The tips of my fingers graze the obituary, and I choke back tears. Yes, the world will be a safer place when I’m no longer here.

My heart pounds in my chest. Funny how the body fights to live even when the mind knows it must die. I raise the gun and am surprised how far I must stretch my index finger to reach around the trigger. I lift the gun to my head just as I hear keys scrape into the front door downstairs. Mom’s home early. It’s now or never.

“God, forgive me,” I whisper and squeeze the trigger.

They say your hearing is the last to go when you die. And they’re right. After the bang from the gun subsides, I hear footsteps running up the stairs. The last thing I hear is a high-pitched scream.

Oh God, what have I done?