Elsewhere(53)
Liz stays up all night drafting a letter to Betty. Dear Betty, Every day is exactly like the day before, and I can't stand it anymore. I feel like Fll never get to the good part. Death is just one big rerun, you know.
It's not about Owen.
By now, you probably know I've gone back to Earth Gone back to Earth as Sneaker.
Please don't worry.
I'm sorry it has to be this way.
I'm sorry.
Take care of Sadie and Jen for me.
Love,
Liz
Omitting the crossed-out parts, Liz rewrites the letter on a fresh sheet of paper and goes to sleep.
Late that night, Owen hears a knocking on the wall. He listens to the knocks, which seem to have a familiar, steady rhythm: it is Emily knocking Morse code to him.
"Do you want me to go?" she knocks.
He doesn't answer.
"I want to go," she knocks.
He doesn't answer.
"Knock twice so I know you've heard me."
He takes a deep breath and knocks twice.
"This isn't working out," she knocks.
"I know," Owen knocks back.
"I will always love you," she knocks, "but our timing just isn't right."
"I know," Owen knocks.
"I'm a thirty-five-year-old woman; I'm different now," she knocks.
"I know," Owen knocks.
"You're seventeen," she knocks.
"Sixteen," he knocks.
"Sixteen!" she knocks.
"I'm sorry," he knocks softly.
"It isn't your fault, O. It's just life," she knocks.
"But we're dead," he knocks.
Owen can hear Emily laugh in the other room. No knocks follow, and then she is standing in his room.
"When you first died, I wanted to die, too. I didn't want to be alive without you," Emily says. "You were my whole life. I had no memories that didn't contain you somehow."
Owen nods.
"But I moved on. I stopped waiting for you. In truth, I didn't believe I would ever see you again,"
Emily says.
"You never married," Owen says.
"I had done that before. And to even consider doing it again, you were the standard against which all others had to be judged." She laughs. "The funny thing is, I had actually met someone a couple of months before I died. It wasn't serious, not yet, but it had possibility."
"I never saw that! I never once saw you with another guy!" Owen says.
"Well, I suspect you hadn't been watching me very closely during that time," Emily says.
Owen looks away.
"On some level, I could always feel you watching me, Owen, and I noticed when you stopped,"
Emily says.
Owen doesn't answer.
"It's all right for you to be in love with someone else. You shouldn't feel guilty," Emily says gently.
"At first, I think I liked her because she reminded me of you," he says quietly.
"Or me twenty years ago."
Owen looks at Emily and for the first time since she'd arrived on Elsewhere, he really sees her.
She's pretty, maybe even more so than she was as a girl. But she's different. She's older, more angular. Her eyes are changed, but he can't say just how. "I don't really know you anymore, do I?" he says sadly.
She kisses him on the forehead, and he wants to cry.
"Some couples work out; some couples make it here," Owen says. "Why can't we be those people?"
"I wouldn't worry too much about it," Emily says. "And in any case, I'm glad I got to see you again."
"But it seems unfair, doesn't it? We were supposed to grow old together and all that."
"Well, that wasn't going to happen anyway. Not here at least," Emily points out. "And I think we were luckier than most," she says. "We had a great life together, and we got a second chance, too. How many people can say that?"
"Is this because of that night on the porch?" Owen asks.
"Not at all," Emily assures him. "But as you mention it, would you like to know what I saw out there?" She pauses. "I saw two kids in love."
Owen closes his eyes and when he opens them again, she is gone. He feels a strange ache in his forearm. He examines his tattoo, which is more vivid than he can ever remember it being, even when it had first been applied. The heart throbs and pulses almost like a real heart. And then, in a moment, the tattoo is gone, too. Aside from a slight redness, his skin is bare. It is as if the tattoo had never been there at all.
Right before he falls asleep, he vows to go see Liz first thing in the morning.
To Earth
On the morning of Liz's Release, she wakes at four o'clock. All launches take place at sunrise when the tide exposes the River, and she arrives about fifteen minutes early.
A team of launch nurses prepares the babies to be Released into the River. Liz's nurse is named Dolly.
"My," says Dolly when she sees Liz, "we don't often get big girls like you."
"I'm a Sneaker," Liz replies.
"Yeah, Joleen normally handles the Sneakers, but she's on vacation. Sneaker or not, you have to take off all your clothes, and then I'll swaddle you up."