Ren parked way down the street so we could walk and talk without being seen before going in. When he stepped out of the car in his suit—though it didn’t quite fit, the sleeves and pants stretched too short on his tall, lithe frame—it stole the breath I didn’t have anymore. He ran an anxious hand through his carefully combed hair, mussing it up perfectly. I bit my lip to keep from smiling too wide.
“Lookin’ good,” I said.
“Really?” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at himself. “It’s not too formal?”
I craned my head this way and that, like a new angle would change the answer. “It is, but who doesn’t want a mysterious hot stranger showing up to their wake?”
He laughed. “Gotta have goals, right?”
I’d really gotten to like making him blush.
We fell in step, heading toward the funeral home. It must’ve been one of the last bright days of autumn, before the chill crept in. I had half a mind to ask how the weather felt. That unearthly kind of blue sky always made me shiver. As a kid, I used to look for a cloud that might be big enough to hold the kingdom of heaven.
“We’re really doing this,” he said.
My stomach dropped, like I’d forgotten why we were here, that I hadn’t brought a date to a party just for fun. I might have a shot at crossing over. I’d really gone out of my way, getting an actual medium to deliver my last words. I couldn’t imagine many ghosts ever accomplished that. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go geist.
Wherever I headed next might be a lot worse. But after dragging this poor guy all the way out here to help me, I couldn’t just change my mind on a panicked whim. And my sister deserved an explanation. I owed her that, if nothing else.
So I asked, “You ever pray?”
“Um.” He winced with a look I’d worn myself, an agnostic anticipation of judgment. “Sorry, no.”
I hugged myself, trying to savor the feel of my own body, while I still could. “Never mind.”
In a low voice, like a tentative touch, he asked, “You want me to pray for you?”
“Only ’cause I can’t do it myself.”
“Why?”
“Every time I used to try, it felt wrong.”
Praying felt like trying to ask my mother for anything. I’d never behaved well enough to earn the privilege of asking favors. As for giving praise, and thanks, and all that, it tasted so coppery on my tongue, like the word “ma’am.” I just didn’t have it in me to bow my head and mean it.
He shrugged, like it was no big deal. “I could try.”
I wondered if his family had ever practiced anything. If they’d found a Buddhist or Shinto temple within a reasonable distance to commute. Perhaps his mother dragged him to a Unitarian church at Christmas and Easter.
We were getting closer to the funeral home. There were visitors in the parking lot, almost within earshot.
“You know what, don’t bother.”
He stilled, standing aside on the sidewalk, so we could still talk freely. “I don’t mind, really.”
I made as if drawing a long breath as I turned around, finally meeting his eyes.
“Look, I know my old religion’s probably not the one true faith, if there is such a thing, but if the world really is that cruel, so cruel that most of the people that have ever lived are going to hell, just for being born on the other side of the world and never meeting a missionary—”
I got lost, for a moment, thinking of all the graves all around the earth, marked and unmarked, towering monuments and ashen pits and long-forgotten final beds fossilized beneath rock and paved over with roads. Then I remembered myself and flashed a brittle grin. “I’ll be damned.”
He didn’t look all that impressed by my speech, squinting skeptically at me. “What if yours isn’t the one true faith?”
I threw up my palms. “I’m fucked anyway, for following the wrong one! I’ll probably reincarnate as a dung beetle.”
“No way,” he said, dismissive, but not unkind. “You can’t be that bad.”
“I’m not that good, either.”
“Bullshit.” He gave me a soft smile. “I don’t think you helped me just so I could help you, am I right?”
I gave him a mild glare. “What if I’m only using you for your body?”
He tried not to dignify that with a laugh; it came out strangled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up flirting your way past the pearly gates. I’ll still pray for you, if it makes you feel any better.”
I gave a vague, slightly embarrassed wave of approval. He closed his eyes, only to open them again.
“Um, who should I address? Just God, whoever that might be?”
“Whoever you want,” I said. “I’ll take whatever help I can get.”
“I can’t even remember who my baba used to address, spirits or the universe or something.” His brow furrowed as he shut his eyes again, searching within.
“Wait,” he said, eyes snapping open again, wide with realization. “If you’re still here, then there might really be something out there.”
I cracked up, pitchy with nerves. “I know, right? Why do you think I’m freaking out?”
“Don’t do that,” he said, gently. “If you’re here, that’s a good sign, isn’t it? If there were some kind of punishment waiting for you, what’s the holdup? Why didn’t you go straight to it? There must be a reason.”
As much I wanted to contradict him, against my every god-fearing instinct, I let myself sink into the warmth of his voice. He closed his eyes again, and I did the same. For once, unlike in church, I didn’t feel pressured to feel a connection. I already felt one this time.
We both opened our eyes at the same time, exchanging smiles that didn’t quite reach our lips, before we continued toward the entrance and through the doors to meet my fate.
* * *
There weren’t any other visitors left in the entrance. We found the room number on a sign and wandered alone down the hallways looking for it.
“You ready?” he asked.
I lifted my fingers to my lips, in case he needed reminding. He rolled his eyes and gave me one last open acknowledgment by opening the door for me. If only he’d gone in first. I could’ve snuck in one last private moment of panic with his back turned.
It had gotten even emptier since I’d gone. Some of the guests must’ve stopped by just to leave food. Touch and go.
Ren didn’t move, as if trying not to draw any attention to himself, while waiting for my direction.
“Wanna turn back?” I asked. “Forget about this whole thing?”
He shook his head ever so slightly.
While he busied himself signing the guestbook, I looked around for anyone that would be easy for him to try and mingle with, warming up before finding my sister. I half-wished there were some of my old bandmates here, friends from college and on the road, somebody for him to talk to who really knew me.
Before I could find anyone better, somebody broke out of her cluster to approach. One of my former coworkers, wearing what looked like a fucking summer dress to my wake.
Ren didn’t seem to notice how she eyed him up and down. She introduced herself like they were at a barbecue, all but giggly.
“So how did you know Mallory?” she asked.
My mouth fell open in a laughing gasp. She didn’t even know my first name.
“Malena and I were dating,” said Ren.
I grinned. I hadn’t told him my full name. He’d been paying fucking attention.
“Oh,” she replied. She didn’t catch on to his correction, clearly preoccupied. “I didn’t know she had a boyfriend.”
He didn’t answer that, perhaps catching on now to her original intent. His silence must’ve intimidated her, because she gave a nearly submissive little tilt of her head, and in a practiced tone, almost singsong, she said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
As he moved past her, as if with a purpose rather than as an escape, I tried to guide him, like we were at a party where he didn’t know anybody else but me.
“You should go take a look,” I said, tossing my head toward the casket. “Try to choke up, make it look legit.”
We approached, slowly, like we didn’t already know what we’d find in there. His lips parted as he stared, looking from the casket, to me, and back. Meanwhile, my mind instinctively protested at glimpsing my own body as I never should’ve witnessed it, from the outside.
My face didn’t look much like the one I knew from reflections and photographs. I blinked, shaking my head to clear my vision. All my proportions were ever so slightly off from what I’d expected. I wondered if the mortician had done some reconstruction.
The makeup didn’t complement me in the slightest. They’d chosen rosy shades of lipstick and blush, trying to make me look wholesome, cover up my pallor and the dark circles under my eyes. Combined with the boring work outfit my sister had picked out for me, it worked. She looked like someone else: a young woman who could’ve been going places.
Ren’s eyes filled. At first, I thought he was acting, damn well. He sniffed, turning away from me as he wiped a hand over his face. I wondered if it was the validation of his sanity again. Or he hadn’t processed the reality of my situation, since I appeared before him talking and joking like a normal person. I might’ve been there, but at the same time, I’d gone, and I was never coming back.
He cleared his throat, trying to smile at me, though his eyes were red. I couldn’t think of what to say, what he should do next.
And then I heard it. I knew the sound so well, it seemed to come from inside my own head. Except all the guests were turning toward it. Guitar riffs. I’d helped write them. And, even after all this time, I both loved and hated the result. Mostly hated.
Weren’t you going to wait till you’re twenty-seven?
I blinked against a sudden glare above me, harsh white light bouncing off close white walls, no windows. My wrists and ankles chafed with an odd tightness, like I’d been bound.
My stomach cinched with worry, too warm to be my own. The light dimmed. My limbs were free again. I jerked, looking around, wondering where I’d gone and come back from.
“Mal?”
I knew this man. How did I know him? His hand withdrew, like he’d been touching me, but I hadn’t felt anything. Well, nothing physical. That’s what had warmed me.
Ren was speaking aloud to me in his concern, if only under his breath. “What happened? Your eyes went all blank, and you just took off, like you were sleepwalking, or—”
I managed to raise a finger to my lips.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as he stared, begging an explanation I couldn’t give him for what had just happened—losing myself so deep in a memory, I’d almost gone there, soul and all.
He shook his head, whispering one last time. “You looked like one of the others. You know—the not-so-nice ghosts.”
Someone had turned the music off. Another familiar voice jolted me out of my haze.
Gloria glared, her face indignantly stiff. “Who put that on?”
For once, her mask didn’t look so unnatural. It would look to any guest like she was putting on a brave face. How courageous, they’d think. What a strong woman, putting aside her grief to be a good host. And how righteous her anger toward whoever had put on that inappropriate racket. Not many people here could’ve put two and two together. They didn’t know me.
Behind her, fold-up chairs were being brought in. A stand-in for the priest my family had wanted, the funeral director or someone, stood at the front of the room and announced, “Everyone, thank you all for being here. If I could have you finish up your drinks and please start taking your seats, we’re going to have a service starting soon.”
Ren and I exchanged charged glances.
“Let’s wait—” I started.
“Hey there,” Cris said.
We both froze. She didn’t even search for any kind of familiarity in his face before extending her hand. Her eyes looked dull behind her fixed expression.
“Thanks for coming,” she said.
Before I even had a chance to mention it, he asked, “You’re her sister?”
“That’s right.”
He smiled, too big, as if this were a happy occasion. “I, uh, this is a little weird, because she never introduced me or anything…”
She barely raised her eyebrows. I cringed, trying to keep from shaking, my stomach knotting up. He caught on, coughing as he sobered his face and gave his name.
“Um, I guess, she might not have mentioned me. We’d been dating a while. Me and Mal.”
Cris hardly reacted, except perhaps with an instinctive glimmer of pity. She probably suspected he thought we were more serious than I intended. I’d always been an escape artist.
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“I mean, it would’ve been nicer under any other circumstances.”
She nodded vaguely. “Right.”
We ought to have workshopped this more. Come up with a more natural approach.
“Listen,” he said. “I don’t mean to be like, forward or anything, but I have to tell you.”
Ren looked at me expectantly, while she stared at him with the same look. I’d been putting off trying to find the words, hoping that any moment, my instinct for bullshit would kick in like usual, right when we needed it most.
Except he wasn’t me. He couldn’t flash her my coin-trick smile and dazzle her with the truth.
“Yes?” asked Cris. She looked relieved for the brief rest of waiting, like she’d fallen asleep with her eyes open, forgetting to care what yet another stranger had to say about me.
“So, uh—here’s the thing about Mal—”
I gave in to the restlessness in my feet and started to pace. Better than bolting and leaving him there, like my instincts screamed at me to do. I’d gotten him into this. We had to finish it.
But the words still didn’t come. My tongue went numb.
He gave up waiting for me, skimming his hands through his hair on his way to clutch the back of his neck. “She’s—I mean, she’d been doing way better.”
Cris narrowed her gaze, wide awake now. I pressed my hands together, as if in prayer.
“We were good,” he said. “Like, really good. Deep in it, you know what I mean? It happened so fast, maybe that’s why she didn’t mention—”
He’d almost had it. I trembled on his behalf.
“Anyway, it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “She never would have—”
“What are you saying?” asked Cris, keeping her tone even.
It hadn’t been “never.” That’s what made this so fucking difficult.
Ren gave me one last glance, looking for an out. I shrugged at him. We didn’t really have a choice but for him to just say it.
He kept his voice low, so nobody else would hear. “She couldn’t have done it.”
She let out a clipped breath. “What?”
“Killed herself.”
The curtains next to us billowed, but none of the windows were open. It would be too cool outside for air conditioning.
Her jaw clenched, but her voice still fell flat. “Thanks so much for your input. Really, I appreciate it.”
“Hold on.” He swallowed, voice hoarse. “You believe me, right?”
She didn’t quite laugh. It came out more like a sharp exhale, but she grinned, all the same, even as her eyes glinted with tears. It made me shiver.
That wasn’t like her at all. More like me, really.
“You know, plenty of strangers have lied to my face about her today,” she said. “But yours has got to be the hardest to swallow.”
So she’d made up her mind about how I died. I waved my wrists, shuffled my feet, fighting off the strange, encircling ache. At least I didn’t have to wonder anymore.
“I’m not lying,” he said. “I know her, she wouldn’t—”
“Did you?” she asked. “Look, just because she made special friends with you doesn’t mean this is any of your business. You don’t just talk to people like this! What kind of a psycho are you?”
His whole body tensed, like she’d just slapped him.
The funeral director got up to speak at the pulpit. He tested a mic, though there weren’t quite enough people to justify using one.
Cris glanced up, on the verge of turning away.
“Wait—” Ren shot his hand out onto her shoulder.
She jerked away. “Don’t touch me.”
The office dad, Ted or Todd, sidled up to them. “Is everything OK here?”
Ren put his hands up. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” said Cris. She shot him a warning glare, like she wouldn’t hesitate to ask for help getting him kicked out. “He’s having a rough time.”
Ted or Todd put his hand on Ren’s arm. It could’ve been either a comfort, or a warning. Ren went rigid, his eyes glazing, but he endured it for a peacekeeping moment before the other man withdrew.
Cris turned and started herding some of our family to their seats, busying herself to the last. Ren and I stared after her.
“Well, fuck,” I said.
Deep down, I hadn’t really expected this to work, anyway.
But the knots in my stomach eased. I wouldn’t be going to hell today. Just enduring the hell on earth of my continued existence, however long that lasted.