But I hang around.
Surprising, because I didn’t expect to.
I figured I’d be in front of Dad one minute and on that cosmic conveyor belt the next.
Not so.
Don’t ask me why. There are still way too many things I don’t understand.
Wade is around. I feel him. And the others too. They are becoming more real to me than my own family. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Sad or glad. Maybe a bit of both.
They tell me I have done good. I have done all I can do. They tug on me, urge me to leave, to come to the other side. Not yet, I say. Not yet.
They give me a little more time. Just a little.
Dad does not go to bed. After I fade, he goes into the kitchen and pours himself more scotch. A double. He checks on Amy, on Mom, lets the cat in, out and back in again.
And he paces. I know he is trying to make sense of things, trying to rationalize away what he has seen. What I have told him.
But he can’t. Because I am beside him, whispering in his ear. And I believe—I have to believe—that my words, my thoughts, my love for him, have power.
Outside the living room window, the sky turns. Dawn is coming. Night is fading. I think again of being in a planetarium and watching the sky lighten when the show is over: black to indigo to gray to pearl. And pearl is so close to that milky white of the round place that it reminds me I am running out of time.
Dad puts on the coffee, goes down the hall to shower.
I go to Amy. She is curled up on her side, the covers up to her chin. I brush the hair out of her eyes, smell her baby powder smell, kiss her cheek. She wakes up with a start because she feels something. She feels me, only she doesn’t know it. Uneasily, she stares around her room. Then she pads down the hall and crawls into bed with Mom.
When Mom pulls her close, I wish I were nine again. That I could do things differently, make better choices, hang on until exit point five.
But I can’t.
I drift into my room, sit on the edge of my bed, stare at the pictures on my dresser, the swimming trophies on my shelf, the ball caps I collected. All the details of my life mean so little now. I can hardly relate to them. To the person I was. Maybe because I’m not that person anymore.
In the kitchen, Dad pours coffee, adds sugar, then cream. I hear him slurp. I taste the hot liquid scalding the back of his throat. I smell the tang of his aftershave.
My senses are hyped. I see and hear and feel everything. I hear the cat scratch at her dish, the drip of the faucet in the bathroom, the march of an ant on the sidewalk outside. I feel the steam in the shower stall, the clutch of Dad’s fingers around his cup, Mom’s arm around Amy.
And even though I am going away, I know I will take a part of this—a part of them—with me.
Dad goes into the bedroom, bends down, kisses Mom’s cheek. He whispers in her ear, “I’m going out for an hour. Coffee’s made.”
I shoot up through my ceiling, out of my roof. I see my yard with the basketball hoop that Dad hung and the garden where Mom grows tomatoes. I see the shed where we store our bikes, our camping gear, our tools.
I float higher. I see Garvin delivering the morning paper, the Christmas lights still on at the Turners’ one block over and Hannah’s house. She is still sleeping. I feel her breath as though I am breathing myself. I know that she and Tom will end up together. Once that would have angered me. Now I’m glad she’ll have someone good in her life.
A slam draws my eyes back to our garden shed. Dad has come out and shut the door. In his hand is a shovel. He goes to his car, opens the trunk, tosses the shovel inside.
He is going to Herb’s. He is going for Pookie.
The thought frees me. I relax and drift up. Up.
Below me the streets flow and connect, weaving and linking like the silk of a spider web. Only this web is never-ending.
I see Paine Field and the Space Needle. Lake Washington and Pike Place Market. I see the Cascades, the Snohomish River valley. The Olympic Range and Vancouver Island. Portland, Oregon, and then Utah.
I soar higher, and higher still.
I am dead.
And, yeah, I did die at the wrong time. But it doesn’t matter now.
I am going home.