The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried(11)

“No one’s home,” I say.

“How do you know?”

I’m getting tired of having to argue with Dino. Used to be that I could tell him something and he’d accept it. “Because Momma’s been refinishing furniture in the garage, so she’s had to park in the driveway. No car in the driveway means no one’s home.”

“Jo could be there.”

I point at the upstairs window, which is dark. “You see her light on?” The only light on is the one in the foyer that shines through the bay windows in front of the stairs.

“Fine,” Dino says. “No one’s home. Now what?”

No use in answering. If he doesn’t know why I’m here, explaining it won’t make a difference. I open the car door and head out, leaving Dino to either stay or follow, though I’m betting he’s too spineless to leave the safety of the car.

I jog across the cul-de-sac toward the house. It’s one of the smaller houses in the neighborhood, but it still feels huge the way it looms across the night sky, its shadow spilling over me. I head around the side and get the key out of the ceramic turtle in the backyard and use it to let myself in.

The house smells like Momma, which means it smells like food. During the summer it’s fresh fruit and grilled veggies and meats. Chicken soup when someone’s sick, chocolate and fudge during Christmas, chili when Momma’s in the mood for it. More than the perfume she’s been wearing since before I was born or the coconut conditioner she uses or even the faint hint of weed she smokes to treat her anxiety that she thinks she’s so good at hiding; it’s the million scents of home-cooked food that remind me of her.

The thing is, walking through the door and smelling what’s cooking always felt like coming home. But this time is different. I recognize the furniture and the foods, but I feel like I’ve broken into a stranger’s house. Everything is off, like it’s on the verge of spoiling.

I catch the breakfast nook out of the corner of my eye. The table I was sitting at; the chair I must’ve fallen—Nope. Not doing this. Trying to remember what happened that night is a whirlpool of emotions that I won’t allow myself to get trapped in. I run upstairs to my room.

My phone. I grab it from where I left it charging on my desk. I turn on the flashlight. Nothing’s changed. Not one single molecule has been moved. Bed’s still made, Xbox controllers are still on the floor, comic books are still stacked on my nightstand. I wonder how long Momma would’ve left it like this. Would she have turned it into a shrine? Let the dust grow thick over my stuff, or would she have waited a couple of months and then converted it into a meditation room or let Jo use it to store her growing collection of trophies and awards? Even if Momma hadn’t been willing to touch my room, there are a million belongings of mine Jo?lle coveted, so it was only a matter of time before she would’ve broken down and started taking what she wanted.

But I’m home now, so it doesn’t matter. I’ll sit in my room and wait for Momma and Jo. They’ll be happy to see me and Daddy can come over and we can be a family again. For a while. Eventually, they’ll ask the same questions as Dino. They’ll need to know what’s happening to me and how long it’s going to last. And what if it doesn’t last? What if I die tomorrow or in a year? Just when they’ve gotten used to the miracle of my return, they’ll be forced to face losing me a second time.

I start to tremble. If I had tears, I’d be bawling. But I can’t do this. I won’t do it. Because I’m not dead. Or not-dead. If I were dead, I wouldn’t be here. And if I went from dead to not-dead, maybe I can go from not-dead to alive. Or maybe I’ll die again. Either way, I’m not going to sit here and wallow in what-ifs and maybes.

I should change and return Dee’s clothes. It feels good to slip into my own jeans and to get out of that hoodie and put on a thin black blouse with a high enough neck to cover the incisions. I even trade the shoes I borrowed from Delilah for a nice pair of sandals. I rifle through my closet for a bag to stuff Dee’s clothes in, and spot this coral dress that I love. Momma saw it on sale and bought it because she said she couldn’t imagine anyone but me wearing it. Tags are still on it. I stuff it into the bag too.

What am I doing? What was I thinking? I can’t stay here. I’ve only been dead for four days and not-dead for four hours and this already feels like not-home. I’ve got to get out of here. At least until I’m confident this is going to last and that I won’t be subjecting my parents and Jo to more heartache. I refuse to let them get their hopes up if this isn’t forever.

As I turn to leave, a rumbling rolls from the floor to my feet and legs. It’s the garage door. I am so screwed.





DINO

WITHOUT WARNING, JULY OPENS THE car door and bolts.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

But she doesn’t answer. She’s out of the car before I can stop her, slamming the door shut and sprinting across the street. What the hell am I supposed to do? If I chase her, we could both get caught. And what if she’s wrong and her mom and sister are home? July knows her family better than I do, so if she says they aren’t home then I have to believe her, but she’s not infallible.

Instead of worrying, I keep trying to figure out what’s happening. July may not want to understand, but I do. I refuse to believe there’s not an explanation for her condition. There are drugs and toxins that can make people appear to be dead by slowing their heart rate and breathing to negligible levels, but I doubt that’s what happened to July. She had an autopsy. The medical examiner cut her open and removed her internal organs and weighed them and recorded them. He even took out her brain, though in July’s case that might be an improvement. The point is that in the extraordinarily unlikely case she wasn’t dead before the autopsy, she certainly would have been by the end of it. I guess it’s possible that there’s some unknown biological agent at work. I’ve read about a fungus that invades an ant’s nervous system and controls it. That could be happening. Maybe.