A Million Miles Away(11)

“I’ll find something.”

Her mother tipped her head back, examining her over the top of her lenses. “You look so unnaturally tan for winter.”

Kelsey said nothing. She had been using her allowance to go to the tanning salon since she was sixteen. It was part of who she was, who she liked to be. And all the Rock Chalk Dancers got tans. Or most of them, at least. Her mother knew that.

“If you could, I need you to rummage for a few things.”

Rummage. Kelsey’s stomach dropped. That was the family’s code word for entering Michelle’s room. They had “rummaged” for things like her overdue library books. They had “rummaged” for her prized prints and paintings, which Lawrence High wanted to put on display.

Her mother handed her a list: Grandma’s necklace, email password, cancel Facebook.

“I would do it myself, but I don’t know how to work the Facebook.”

Kelsey’s jaw clenched. She had done so well at avoiding it this week. She had kept moving. “All right.”

Her mother sighed. “I love you, Kels.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

At the door of Michelle’s room, Kelsey flicked on the light. The room had started to lack any sort of smell. It had smelled like coconut and oil paints and even dirty laundry for days and days after, but that was all fading. Cacti in pots at the foot of her bed had gone brown from lack of care. Dust collected on the frame of the print of a Campbell’s soup can on the wall. Grandma’s necklace was easy to find because Kelsey had borrowed it before: a gold chain with an emerald hanging from it, lying on Michelle’s dresser, next to her wooden rings and nail polish.

The email password was more difficult. After booting up Michelle’s laptop, Kelsey had searched everywhere for some small piece of paper on Michelle’s desk, or maybe a file on her desktop with all of them listed, but no luck.

She tried all combinations of “password” and their birthday. Then “warhol” because that was the artist Michelle was obsessed with. Still nothing.

As for Facebook, Kelsey was glad to discover she didn’t have to sign in to cancel the account. Apparently, you could just write an email to the company.

“Dear Mark Zuckerberg,” she wrote. “Please delete my sister’s Facebook page. People write stupid posts on her wall, pretending to be sad, but they are full of shit. Plus, she will never see them because she is dead. Thank you, Kelsey Maxfield.” Then she attached a link to Michelle’s obituary in the Lawrence Journal-World.

Kelsey had no trouble crying anymore. She cried in her room, mostly. She cried in the girls’ bathroom sometimes, ducking in from the halls when she could feel it coming on. And she was crying now as she pressed SEND. She didn’t stop herself. It was the one thing she could do that didn’t ask her to think, to remember, to pretend that everything was going to be all right.

When she cried, Kelsey didn’t have to do anything else.

Suddenly, there was a strange sound. A sort of musical beep, over and over, coming from the computer. A green phone icon appeared. “Peter,” the name read.

Peter? Peter. The mysterious Peter. Before she knew what she was doing, Kelsey wiped her nose and pressed ANSWER.

A fuzzy image, cutting in and out, filled the screen. Then it became Peter’s face. He was sunburnt, smiling, laughing, leaning back in his chair with what appeared to be relief, then coming forward, touching the screen where he must see her. Kelsey hadn’t seen someone so sincerely happy in a long time. He was mouthing words, but no sounds matched them.

“What?” Kelsey said. “I can’t hear you!”

The words finally came, as if they were traveling through water to reach her. “I’ve been trying to get you for two da—!”

There was a green tent behind him, with sunlight filtering through. He was calling from Afghanistan. He was calling for Michelle.

Peter mouthed more words. They came to her as “Can’t say where I am, but we’ve ju—got set—after going through all these little towns. Is the connec—?”

“The connection’s pretty bad,” Kelsey said loud and clear. “Listen, Peter—”

Peter hadn’t heard her yet, because he was still glowing, his movements in choppy poses. His audio broke through. “I missed you—Where have you bee—What have you bee—doing?”

She tried again. “This is Kelsey!”

But all he could do was put a hand to his ear and shake his cropped sandy head.

Kelsey noticed a dark line resting on the bench behind him. A gun. He wore ammo around his chest like a pageant queen wore a ribbon.

Her voice was caught in her throat. Even thousands of miles away, through a screen, Peter sensed something. His forehead clenched in concern. “Are you oka—?”

She shook her head and smiled in a mimed don’t-worry gesture, but immediately stopped. Her heart raced. He really had no idea Michelle was dead. He thought Kelsey was Michelle. Here and now, Peter was looking at her dead sister.

The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile, his sad-shaped eyes following suit. “I don’t know if you ca—hear me, but this is making my whole mon—. To see you.” He looked around him, then back to her. “It’s s—bad ou—here. This—” He took his hands out, as if he were holding her image. “This is goin—to help me sleep toni—.”