I had to go.
My time was up.
I had something else to do, somewhere else I needed to be.
I don’t mean to sound strange. But I had the feeling that just after I died I had been somewhere I could not quite remember, and I’d met people who had explained things to me about how my new life would be. But then they sent me back, and they made me believe things were as they’d been before, when I was alive. They took away my memory of the new things I’d seen, so I could see Laura this one last time, to truly see her and say to her the things I knew were true, now, when they were most needed.
I knew I could go there now, back where I had been, and when I got there I would see the people again and everything would again be clear to me.
But first I went downstairs, and there she was.
She was standing in the living room with her phone in her hand; she’d taken it from her book bag.
She was thinking of who to call.
I looked at her for a moment, hoping it was not the last time I would see her.
I’m going now, I said.
Her face was wet with tears. Her skin was red, her eyes puffy.
She was afraid of what would happen when she told—I could see that—of what they would do to her, where they might put her and for how long. When she finally called her doctor and told him to come get her, she cried convulsively as she explained to him what she had almost done but stopped and not done—because she said she felt it was a voice in her soul that had stopped her.
But after she hung up she stopped crying.
Her eyes opened wider with a harder resolution than I had ever seen in them.
In her eyes was strength.
I saw it.
It was a light, and it was small but growing brighter, and I knew that it could never be put out.
I had finally seen her.
I smiled.
She smiled. Her eyes stayed hard, but she smiled, looking with wonder at what she’d never seen before.
She was looking at her true self.
Chapter
Eighteen
I could have left then, but I stayed.
I mean I hung around the neighborhood awhile.
I’d never really seen how beautiful it all was, all the houses and stuff, and all the trees everywhere.
I guess I felt like seeing all the people again, just one last time, you know what I mean?
I went down the big hill, and I went a bit farther until I got to York Road. I stood on the same corner awhile, right where I’d stood on the day of my funeral, just looking around. The funeral parlor was right across the street. That seemed incredibly appropriate. I mean convenient.
And then, without really looking or even caring to look, I walked into the street. The cars passed through me.
So this is where it had happened.
It seemed incredible.
How could anybody think I had done it on purpose?
I went farther, right to where I had gotten hit. The bus was coming.
I mean, come on.
On purpose?
No way.
I was just a klutz on a skateboard, that’s all. Didn’t anybody get it?
The bus came closer. Nobody was at the stop. I stood there and it went right through me, a big ringing metal box. I saw the seats inside, all the handrails, people sitting and standing around reading the paper. It was crazy.
When the bus was past I turned and watched it.
The day it happened, it was that lady cop who found me. She came up first, I mean. She tried, but there was nothing she could do. She cried. She tried to hide it, but she cried, you know?
I sort of liked her after that. I mean, I couldn’t actually remember what had happened yet, at least not back then, but I suddenly thought she was pretty nice, and I always wanted to thank her—I mean for just being around and looking out for everybody, because it really proved she wasn’t the mean lady cop some of my friends said she was.
So I did. That day in the grocery. Now I knew why she had looked at me so strangely and hadn’t said anything.
She couldn’t see me.
But she’d smiled. I guess she’d heard something.
The bus was going to the city, downtown. The other way it went up into the county where all the malls are. We went to the movies there, once, Laura and me. We rode the same damn bus.
I couldn’t even remember seeing them at my funeral.
I mean all the people who had come.
At the time it was like I couldn’t see anybody but Laura; she really sort of absorbed all my attention. I mean, she really had a way of doing that.
But I do now. I can remember all the people who had come now.
It was really quite an event. Lots of neighbors, kids from school, parents, you name it. My fourth grade teacher who’d never, ever called on me even once, and that must be some kind of record. Suzie was there and she cried. And her mom, looking rather large and stoic. Carol brought his mom, looking sexy, of course. Even Mr. Miller, my next-door neighbor, and I must admit that he’s really the last person I’d ever expect to have shown up, but he did. I guess my dad invited him.
I talk a lot about hiding, but from the size of the crowd, it seemed like maybe they’d seen me all along.
It occurred to me, something funny—that veil Laura wore. Maybe she wished we’d been married. I guess we had the same wish.
I’ll tell you, they really do a great job when they want to fool you. I mean, I don’t know if you were fooled, but I sure was. I mean, come on. They fake you out like a simulator ride, only better, a whole lot better,
