Elsewhere(49)

"I do," Liz replies.

Watching Owen drive away, Liz thinks about the flu. She thinks how everyone else she knows died of much more respectable causes: Aldous and wife (plane crash), Betty (breast cancer), herself and Sadie (hit by cars), Curtis and Thandi's cousin Shelly (drug overdoses), Thandi (gunshot wound to the head), Owen (fire), Esther (Alzheimer's/related causes), Paco (drowning).

Now, those were deaths, Liz thinks. Who the hell dies of the flu except really old people? Liz thinks how everything is changing, all because stupid Emily couldn't be bothered to wash her hands properly.

When Owen returns, Emily is reading a photocopied pamphlet with the title "Elsewhere Office of Avocation Services Guide to Alternative Professions." She says, "It appears I can't be a doctor anymore. I could work at a healing center I suppose, but that's more like nursing."

"I'm sorry," Owen says.

"Don't apologize. Even if I could still be a doctor, I'm not sure that I would want to be one anyway."

"Do you know what you want to do instead?" he asks.

"Maybe I'd like to be one of those people who catch Earth people reading from the ODs and then transcribe the Earth books for here."

"You can't mean a keeper of books?"

"That's exactly what I mean. You have to be good with punctuation, which I am, and a good listener, which I also am, and like to stay up late at night when people do most of their reading, which I also like."

"Sounds sort of boring though," Owen says.

Emily shrugs. "I never had any time to read for pleasure when I was a doctor. And besides, it's just something to do; it's not my whole life."

Owen just shakes his head. "You were always so ambitious. A keeper of books? That just doesn't sound like you."

"Maybe I'm different now," Emily says.

Owen decides to change the subject. "How are your parents?"

"Good," Emily says.

"And your sister?"

"Allie's divorcing Joe," Emily says.

Owen says, "They were so in love."

"Not for a long time, O."

"I still can't believe it," Owen says.

"You haven't seen them for a while," Emily says. "You missed some things."

"Okay," Owen says, "tell me everything about the last ten years in thirty seconds, go!"

"Um," she says, "I . . ."

"Faster," he says, looking at his watch, "you've only got twentyfive, twentyfour seconds left."

Emily laughs. She tries to speak as quickly as she can. "Finished medical school. Went into burns in your honor. Being a doctor was okay. Sickness, accidents, death. I spent a lot of time with my sister ..."

"Ten seconds left."

"Oh God, I've really got to hurry then. Allie had a baby, a boy, and she named it Owen. I was a good aunt." And then her voice changes, "Did you know when you died I was pregnant? We had a baby; I lost it, O."

"Time," Owen calls out halfheartedly. "I didn't know."

"What happens to babies when they die before they're born?" Emily asks.

"I think they don't make it all the way down the River to start with. They just float back and gather their strength until they can start swimming again. I'm not sure exactly."

"So the baby becomes another baby? Someone else's baby?"

"Something like that," Owen agrees.

"Oh, I wish I'd known that before. It wouldn't have seemed so sad."

"I wish I could have helped you," he says.

Emily sighs.

"We had a baby," Owen repeats. "Why didn't I know?"

"Because I didn't know myself until after you died. I lost it in the second month, and I wasn't really showing that much."

"But I still should have known! All I did was watch you!"

"Some things we can't see. Some things we don't want to see," she says.

"And I thought you were just sad over me," he whispers.

"There was certainly that, too."

"I would have liked to have met that baby," Owen says. "Did you name it?"

Emily nods. "I did."

"What was the name?"

Emily whispers the name in Owen's ear.

"I like that," he says softly. "Not too fancy, not too plain. I think he would have liked it, too."

At night, Emily starts sleeping on the sofa while Owen stays in the bedroom. They keep different hours and quickly find it to be easier this way. Besides, he feels happy just knowing she is across the wall from him. It reminds him of when they were kids growing up in New York, and they used to knock Morse code to each other.

Every day with Emily is like a small miracle to him. There she is in his chair. And there she is wearing his shirt. And there she is doing the dishes. And there she is sleeping. And she's everywhere.

He can't believe how everywhere she is. He wants to bite her just to make sure she's real.

He wants to take pictures of her just because he can. And when he's supposed to be doing other things, he just sits there and stares at her. And Emily's so amazing. She wants to see things, so he takes her to all his favorite places in Elsewhere. And she asks a lot of questions. (He had forgotten that about her.) And Owen tries his best to answer them, but she's always been smarter than him (now even more so), so he's not sure if all his answers are even satisfactory to her.