Between (30 page)

Just once, in mid-October, Karen Riley visits. She brings Hope. It seems so morbid to me—who brings a toddler to a cemetery? But the little girl occupies herself by running around the graves while her mother stands at my plot and stares wordlessly at the ground. She doesn’t bring flowers. She doesn’t stay long. As usual, she isn’t wearing makeup; her hair is pulled into a loose ponytail. Her jeans are stone-washed, a few inches too short, revealing plain white socks peeking out from her flat sneakers. She kneels for a moment at my tombstone, touching it, running her fingers across the letters, almost like she wants to make sure it’s really me down there.

Then, still kneeling, she presses her palms flat against the earth. “I should have been kinder to you,” she whispers. She glances at her daughter, who is chasing a moth in circles around a fresh grave site. Hope is long and lanky, just like her father. She already has silken blond hair and perfect blue eyes. She’ll be a knockout someday. I’m guessing Karen Riley already knows that.

Karen is crying a little bit. “You were just a little girl,” she says. “I’m sorry for hating you.”

After she leaves, Alex and I are quiet for a long time. This used to be my favorite time of the year. It was always perfect running weather: just cold enough, the air thin and brisk, and I used to love the way my feet crunched against the leaves as I ran along the road. But now I am constantly chilled, more so than ever. At least I can still lie on the grass, staring up at the stars. I can still keep watch over my own grave.

There is always a small part of me that hopes I will catch a glimpse of my mother: her apparition, her ghost, whatever. But she’s nowhere. We were so similar in life; in death, we are in entirely different places. The fact that, even now, she is not here to offer me any comfort makes me feel incredibly alone. The more time passes, the more I feel that I might never see her again. I am so afraid that I’ll be stuck here on Earth forever, with Alex, the two of us left to haunt Noank while everyone else moves on and forgets that we ever existed.

On a particularly cold evening in mid-October, after we’ve passed the whole day in the cemetery watching a funeral for an old woman who died peacefully (her relatives barely cry, and comment more than once that it was her time), Caroline arrives at dusk and comes quietly to my grave.

She’s wearing her cheerleading uniform; there must have been an evening football game, and she probably walked here straight from school. She looks ridiculously out of place in the otherwise somber graveyard: her hair is pulled into two high ponytails, cheeks painted with NH for “Noank High.” Her pom-poms dangle at her sides. She puts them on the ground at my grave site and gives them a wary look, like she expects me to reach out from the earth and grab them.

Like so many other people who come to see me at the cemetery, she kneels at my tombstone and takes a moment to trace the letters on my stone.

Alex watches Caroline. “It seems like she really misses you. You said she was one of your best friends?”

“Yeah, she was.” I stare at Caroline and wish that I could hug her. She is obviously still upset about my death. “She was more than just a good friend,” I tell Alex. “She’s a good person, too, whether you want to believe me or not.”

I expect him to reply with some kind of witty comeback, but he doesn’t say anything.

Caroline stands up, smoothes the nonexistent wrinkles from her perfectly pressed skirt, and pulls her letterman jacket tightly around her body. “Hi, Liz,” she says. She kicks at the earth with her toe. “I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you yet. I don’t really like graveyards.” She looks around. “When I was a little girl, my dad would tell my sisters and me that we had to hold our breath whenever we passed a cemetery, or else we might inhale the souls of dead people and get possessed. I know it’s stupid, but it always kind of scared me.” She pauses. “You’d think it’s dumb, I know. But I figure you wouldn’t want to possess me, even if you’re around here somewhere.” And she looks down at her legs. “You’d never be caught dead in a body with such thick ankles.

“I just wanted to tell you a few things, though,” she continues. “They’re things I never would have told you when you were alive. Because, Liz, you must have known … it was hard to be your friend. You wanted to be nice, I know that. You weren’t trying to be a bad person. But sometimes I used to wonder why I even hung out with you so much. Do you remember the parties I had last year? My parents were in Egypt. Remember that? They were gone for a whole month, and you and Josie convinced me that I should have a party every single weekend while they were gone. You promised you’d help me clean up after all of them, but you only did it once, the very first weekend. After that, you’d just get up and leave in the morning.

“I never told you this,” she goes on, “but remember the very last weekend, when you got drunk and threw up in my living room? You puked all over the oriental rug. You didn’t offer to clean up the mess, either. You just left. I was so worried that you wouldn’t get home okay because you’d been drinking, but you promised you’d text me once you got there, and of course you never did. I couldn’t get ahold of you until the next night. I was scared out of my mind. But you know all that, I guess. The thing I never told you is … the rug you threw up on, it was an antique. My parents bought it at an auction in Beijing. It was worth tens of thousands of dollars, and you ruined it. You were drinking vodka and cranberry juice all night, before you switched to beer, and that’s when you got sick. Anyway—the stain was bright red. I couldn’t get it out. And when my parents came home and saw what happened, I took all the blame.”

She blows out a deep breath, a cloud of fog forming in front of her face. “I didn’t tell them what really happened because I knew they’d tell your parents. I knew they’d want your parents to pay for the damage, and I was so afraid”—she starts to cry—“I was so afraid that you wouldn’t be my friend anymore, that you and Josie would turn on me if I got you in trouble. So instead I got grounded for a month. And now my dad doesn’t have a job, and my parents are starting to sell all their antiques just to pay our mortgage. The other day, my mom told me that if they still had the rug to sell, it would keep us in our house for another three months. Can you believe that?”

I feel bad for Caroline, obviously. I feel worse about how I acted, and that she didn’t have the courage to tell me what happened with her parents and the rug. “She should have saved herself all that trouble. I still would have been her friend,” I tell Alex. “She ought to know that. My parents would have paid for the rug.”

“Are you sure?” He’s staring at me intently. “What about Josie? She said she was afraid you and Josie would turn on her.”

“I don’t know what she means. Josie’s a good person. She just likes being popular, that’s all.”

“She sure does,” Alex agrees. He doesn’t elaborate.

“Anyway,” Caroline says, wiping her eyes, “it’s not like any of it matters now. You’re gone, and my parents are still probably going to lose their house, and Josie told
everyone
at school that my dad lost his job. I don’t even have a date for homecoming. Josie’s going with
Richie
. You died a few months ago, and he just got arrested a few weeks ago, and your parents are letting her go with him like it’s nothing.” She shudders. “It’s horrible. Everything’s terrible without you.” She pauses. “But it was terrible even when you were around. I know it sounds crazy, but for months before you died, it’s almost like there was this … this sense that something bad was going to happen.”

She picks up her pom-poms, gives them a shake to get rid of the leaves that have gotten caught in the plastic. “I don’t know why, but when I heard Mera scream that morning, I knew something terrible had happened to you. I just knew.”

Then she bows her head, says a quick, quiet prayer, and crosses herself with a pom-pom. “You were falling apart before you died, Liz. Everybody could tell. I hope things are better for you now. They sure are awful around here.”

Caroline takes a few steps backward, like she’s about to walk away. But then she stops. She stares up at the dark sky and takes a long, deep breath, looking around to make sure she’s alone. Then, instead of turning to walk on the path that will take her out of the cemetery, she cuts diagonally across the grass and heads uphill, toward the edge of the graveyard that is closest to a dense patch of woods. “Where is she going?” I ask.

Alex is suddenly tense as he crosses his arms against his chest. “She’s probably going home.”

“No, she’s heading the wrong way.” I begin to follow her, but Alex doesn’t move. “Hey,” I tell him, “come on.”

He hugs himself more tightly. He shakes his head. “That’s okay.”

I stop to stare at him. “Alex, come on! What’s wrong?”

He looks at the ground. “Nothing.”

Caroline is almost at the top of the hill. She turns left onto one of the cemetery’s narrow gravel roads and walks toward a small cluster of tombstones situated just before the woods. In an instant, it becomes clear: she’s going to Alex’s grave.

But why? She didn’t know him. She went to his funeral, just like me, but so did plenty of kids who didn’t know him. I don’t remember her being overly upset at it, either. They weren’t friends; they obviously didn’t run in the same circles. I just can’t imagine that they might have known each other for any reason at all.

Yet here she is, kneeling at his grave more than a year after his death. I stand beside her, watching in confusion and fascination as she leans forward and places both of her hands against the top of his tombstone. Coming to rest on her knees in the grass, she tilts her head down until her forehead touches the side of the grave marker.

She stays that way, keeping her body almost completely still, for a long time. As I’m watching her, Alex approaches behind me. For a while, neither of us says anything.

When Caroline finally raises her head, I see that her eyes are red. The letters painted on each of her cheeks are smeared with tears. She looks around again, double-checking to be sure that she’s alone.

“Hi, Alex,” she whispers. Her voice is so soft that I almost can’t hear her.

Standing beside me, Alex smiles at her. His expression is kind. He seems more relaxed than he was just a few minutes ago. “Hey, Caroline,” he replies.

I gape at him. “Alex,” I demand, “what is going on? Tell me.”

Caroline stands up. She wipes her eyes and cheeks with the back of her hand, smearing the painted letters into unrecognizable blobs of red and white.

Alex holds a finger to his lips. “Shh.” He continues to smile at her.

“I’m so sorry,” she says out loud. And as she squeezes her eyes shut, she looks ready to cry again. “I’m so sorry, Alex,” she repeats.

“What is she sorry for?” I ask. “How do you two know each other?”

Alex glances at me. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s obviously
something
. Alex, come on. This isn’t fair. Please tell me.”

He ignores me and continues to watch her. Caroline bows her head, closes her eyes, and begins to speak again. Her voice is sweet and soft, her words haunting as she pronounces them in the silent, empty cemetery.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and in the hour of our deaths …” And she pauses. “Now and in the hour of our deaths,” she repeats. “Now and in the hour of our deaths. Now and in the hour of our deaths … Amen.”

She opens her eyes. “You rest now,” she says, staring at his tombstone. “Find some peace.”

She leans over to pick up her pom-poms. Then she walks away, down the hill toward the cemetery’s exit. We both watch as her form grows smaller against the backdrop of the evening, her steps unhurried as she moves between row after row of tombstones. She was uncomfortable when she visited my grave, but not so much at Alex’s. And now, even from far away, she seems calm.

“Okay,” I say once she’s gone, “what was that all about? What is she sorry for?”

Alex tilts his head to one side. “I think she’s sorry for what happened to me, that’s all.”

But his explanation doesn’t satisfy me; it still doesn’t explain why she would visit his grave or the odd way she recited the Hail Mary.

“Alex,” I repeat, trying to sound stern, “what aren’t you telling me?”

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “It’s hard to explain. But I could show you, if you want.”

“Show me? You mean like—”

“Yes.” He nods. “I’ll take you. You can see for yourself.”

“But I thought you didn’t want me to see anything from your life.”

He’s still wearing a dreamy smile. “I’ll make an exception.”

Before I can accept the offer, something occurs to me. “This isn’t the first time she’s been to your grave, is it?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

I almost can’t believe it. Caroline. Here. Visiting Alex. Praying for him, and telling him she’s sorry—but for what? As stunned as I am, I find that I’m also so happy for Alex, that he has at least one visitor aside from his parents. He deserves at least that much. “How often does she come?”

“Not often. Every few weeks.” If he were alive, I’m sure he’d be blushing. “The first time she came, I was so surprised,” he says. “It’s amazing that she even remembers.” And he gives me an expectant look. “Do you want to know? I’ll show you, but that’s it. Nothing else.”

“Okay.” I reach toward him and grasp his wrist. “Let’s go.”

Once we slip into Alex’s past, I open my eyes to see that we are standing in the middle of a big room filled with long wooden tables. I think we’re in a basement of some kind; there are no windows in the room, and at the far end, past a set of double doors, I can see a staircase.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“You don’t know?” Alex seems amused.

“No.” On the wall with the double doors, I notice a life-sized color drawing of Jesus. His arms are spread wide. He gazes downward, where a group of children is drawn at his feet. There’s a chalkboard on the same wall with several Bible verses written in neat cursive handwriting.