Some of the Parts (11 page)

I do hope you'll write again.

I take an envelope and a stamp from the desk in the kitchen, and write the Life Choice address on the outside.

There is a mailbox up the street, not far from where my abandoned bike rests in the shade. The door creaks when I open it, as all doors on all mailboxes seem to do, and then I drop the letter into the darkness before I lose my nerve. It feels like making a wish, throwing a penny into the well. I stand there, hands pressed to my chest, feeling my heart beat. I wonder if the heart recipient does this, too. I wonder if he thinks about Nate, where that heart came from, or if he tries not to.

Cross my heart.

A bird lands on the tree above me then. Its black feathers swallow the sunlight.

Confirmation.

I nod to the bird, and retrieve my bicycle and my helmet. I put them back in the garage so they are safe.

Then I listen to Matty's playlists until dinner.

tuesday
9/30

T
here is a note from my mother in the kitchen the next morning, telling me that she will pick me up after school. Doctor's appointment. I panic, briefly, but then I check the calendar and see
t to dr balder
written in my mother's newly careful lettering, kept so neatly in the box that this day was given.

I had considered staying home again, but this clinches it. I have to go to school. Plus, if I don't show up for school two days in a row, Mel might come looking for me (if only out of curiosity), and I'm not sure if I want to tell her about this new plot twist. On the one hand, matters of organ donation are right up her alley. The removal of the essential parts, the surgical precision, the reanimation of something. Mel would find it poetic. I just don't know if I'm ready for this to be a metaphor.

We haven't been friends long enough for me to say that we don't keep secrets from each other. For all I know, Mel has warehouses full of secrets. So keeping one from her doesn't feel wrong. It doesn't feel like anything other than a necessity.

For some reason, though, as soon as I see Chase slouching in what has become his usual waiting-for-Tallie place, I have this compulsion to tell him everything. I fight it, of course.

“Hey, sicko,” he says.

I am perplexed by this greeting, until I realize he must think I was home with an actual illness, a legitimate reason. He thinks I'm a girl who follows the rules. And he's not wrong. The threat of Red Circle Day has been keeping me in line for a while now.

My mission is to act normal. “Hey,” I reply. “What'd I miss?”

“Nothing of import,” he says, matching my pace as I walk down the hall. “Those girls from the kissing booth are in my history class, and they got chewed out by Ms. Appleton for calling World War II ‘totally scud.' She went on this whole rampage about trying to force the evolution of language and disrespecting veterans. It was pretty intense.”

“Poor Ms. Appleton,” I say.

“She's usually so quiet.”

“I know. She really hasn't been the same since—” I stop myself from saying
the accident.
This is going to be a day of stopping myself from saying things, I guess.

“I heard Absalom is having another event at the Elbow Room this weekend,” Chase tells me. “Wanna go?”

“I don't think he would be very happy to see us. And I don't think he has any actual psychic abilities.”

Chase snorts. “Of course he doesn't. You'd have better luck with half a Ouija board than with that guy. If you were trying to contact someone, I mean.”

“Which I'm not.” His lost brother might be fully on the other side, but mine isn't. At least, that's my hope.

A look passes across his face like an eclipse, and he says, “I always wanted to try when I was a kid, see if I could actually get through to Houdini. His wife tried for years, y'know? He told her to before he died. He told her he'd come back.”

We're at my locker now, so I have the numbers to focus on to keep myself from looking at Chase when I ask, “Did he?”

“Nope. She tried for ten years. She had séances every year on Halloween because that was the anniversary of his death, and after ten years she announced that he wasn't coming back, and that proved it was impossible. Because if anyone could escape from the other side, it would be Houdini.”

“But how did she know he didn't? What if she just missed something?”

“They had worked out a coded message. It never came through. People are still trying, though. Every Halloween since 1927. If he's out there, he's probably wishing they'd just give up.”

What if that's what Nate wants, too? What if he wants us to just move on and I'm doing the wrong thing?
I push the thought away and look at Chase.

“Do you really think it's impossible for someone to come back?”

He shrugs. “I doubt anything's impossible. Maybe Houdini was just being stubborn. He never believed in séances when he was alive, so coming back would have been kind of hypocritical anyway.”

“Well, they're together now, right?”

Chase shakes his head. “His wife's family wouldn't put her in a Jewish cemetery, so they're not buried together.”

“Oh.” I can't say much more without saying too much. It feels like there's a dam at the back of my throat, and the more I talk, the more likely it is to burst and let everything rush out.

“Yeah,” Chase says. “Hey, we missed you at Bridges yesterday.”

“You went?”

He shrugs again. “I've been trying out some different things. So far, Bridges has the best snacks. Margaret had some kind of breakthrough, apparently. Confessed to lying about all kinds of stuff. Bethany wanted to kick her out of the club or whatever, but Ms. Doberskiff said she could stay and ‘mourn her loss of truth' or something.”

“Yuck.” I can just picture it, the whole morbid scene. “I'm thinking of quitting.” In fact, this thought has not occurred to me until just now, but it seems obvious that I should follow through on it. Even at the risk of getting in trouble with Principal Hunter, who will get me in trouble with my parents, who could get me in trouble with Dr. Blankenbaker. The fact is, I can hardly sit there and talk about Nate without this new secret bursting out of me like confetti. It's as if my tragedy has been rewound and redirected somehow. It wouldn't be right, acting like nothing has changed. Even if that's kind of what I have to do with Mel and Chase and my parents—to lie to the Bridges kids would be on a karmic par with repeatedly kicking a puppy.

“Yeah,” Chase says.

“So,” I reply, the words I will not say still hammering at the wall in my throat.

He cocks his head and squints a little, and he seems about to say something, but doesn't. He just points down the hall and then follows his own finger until the crowd swallows him whole.

Mel finds me eventually, as she always does, and it's round two of acting normal. We are walking down one of the many hallways toward one of the many, many stairwells of our school. Sometimes I wonder if the architectural plans for this building were inadvertently swapped with an Escher drawing.

“Hey,” Mel says. “Want to help me drive Zoey and Fiona completely insane?”

“What now?”

“I'm starting a band called Scud. I need a bass player.”

“I don't know how to play bass.”

“Who cares? It's not like we're ever going to play any gigs. I just need people to be in a picture so I can set up a Tumblr page.”

“Scud is a terrible name for a band,” I tell her.

Mel looks at me with an expression of deep pity. “Obviously,” she says. “If I was
actually
starting a band, it would be called Muskrocket.”

“Um,” I say. “That is also kind of terrible.”

“Yes,” says Mel. “But in a totally different way.”

“What about your project at the barn?”

“That's a weekend thing. Uncle Enoch has dibs on the workshop during the week. And anyway, the cat's done. I just have to finish the cape and the hat for the raccoon's costume. And find a raccoon.”

We stop at the bottom of the stairs and allow ourselves to be brushed against by the passing hordes. It is not unpleasant. Every once in a while, I realize how little human contact I have, physically. They've done studies with rats that are socially isolated, and the rats get all sad and their immune systems fall apart. I know this because we read about it in biology last year, and Mr. Cunningham felt compelled to remind us that humans are much more resilient and even if someone has, for instance, just gone through a painful divorce and only sees his children twice a month, he would still be okay. (Mr. Cunningham is now dating Ms. Pace, the fiber-arts teacher. They park next to each other in the faculty lot, and their vanity plates read, respectively,
ORGNC MTR
and
SEWIN LOV.
)

I see that Mel is looking at me and that she appears concerned, in her way, and I realize that she is waiting for me to answer a question I didn't hear.

“What?” I ask.

She hikes her backpack up onto her shoulder. “Go to the Grounds after school? I want to ask Cranky Andy if I can post a flyer for my band.”

“Can't. I have a doctor's appointment.”

Mel smirks. “Head doctor or regular doctor?”

“Regular.” I've never talked to Mel about Red Circle Day or about Dr. Blankenbaker, but somehow she figured out that I'd been to a therapist. I guess that's just standard practice for trauma these days. Another layer in the tragedy cake.

Mel starts to say something but someone bumps into her, pushing her into me, and our bodies are touching for just a second before she recoils as if she's been electrocuted. I have this sudden urge to hug her, to make her uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as I am in my own skin.

“I could pick you up after,” she offers. “Your new fanboy might be there.”

Something crackles between us.

The bell rings.

“Whatever,” Mel says, and disappears down the next flight of stairs while I stand there, watching everyone disperse like birds.

D
r. Balder is my pediatrician. He was also Nate's pediatrician, of course, and he is one of the only people who didn't say anything trite or hollow the first time I saw him after the accident. I had come to get my stitches taken out of the cuts on my arms, where the windshield had spit its broken glass into my flesh, and Dr. Balder was so patient and gentle and did not mind that I cried the entire time. At the end, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It's a damn shame, my girl. You both deserved better than that.”

I felt, in that moment, like Dr. Balder and I were soldiers in the same platoon and had just lost an important battle. I felt fortified and, at the same time, really sad. For both of us.

My mother picks me up outside the school's front door. I'm still not used to seeing the silver SUV she got after the accident. I still look for the green station wagon and I have to remind myself that it's gone, too. We drive to Dr. Balder's office in nearly perfect silence, which is broken by only a few words:
hi how are you fine.

She signs me in, like she always has, even though I've been able to write my own name for a while now. The waiting room is meant to look warm and comfortable, but no number of couches or floral prints can hide the fact that it's a doctor's office. The smell of antiseptic cleanliness, the surgical masks and hand sanitizer offered to protect you, the promises made by a wall full of brochures. I wish there was one that would be relevant to my circumstances. I wish it was as simple as chicken pox and personal hygiene.

I look at a magazine and listen to the music threading itself through the tiny wall-mounted speakers, a dramatic orchestral arrangement of a Billy Joel song my parents used to like. I keep my breathing very regular, and then the nurse calls my name. My mother looks at me, eyebrows raised, asking without asking if I want her to come with me. I shake my head and follow the nurse down the hall.

Dr. Balder is, in fact, bald. He often makes a joke about it, as if he feels it necessary to remind me that he has not forgotten about his baldness and the cruel irony of his name.

“Good thing my parents didn't name me Harry, hmm?” He guffaws and pats his stethoscope.

This comment makes me think of Harry Houdini, which makes me think of Chase, which is rather inconvenient right now because Dr. Balder notices me blushing and thinks I'm embarrassed for him. “Well,” he mumbles. “How have you been?”

I trace my river scar with my finger.

“Fine. I mean, I've been kind of distracted lately,” I tell him. And then quickly add, “It's probably just…stress.” I pause before the word
stress
because I want to give it some gravity. I have read that almost every human ailment is caused by stress and that doctors are very receptive to this word.

“I see,” says Dr. Balder. He looks down at my chart and rubs his head. I wonder if he did that when he had hair. “Can I give you some advice?”

“Okay.” Maybe this will be like the verbal version of the brochure I wish I had.

“You've been through a lot, my girl. Your body and your mind are catching back up to each other. It might help to step back and give them a chance to do that work.”

“Meaning?”

“Have you tried meditation?”

The rituals.
“Sort of.”

“Good, good. It can be scary sometimes to let yourself be open to what's happening, but the only way to get past something like this is to go straight through it. No shortcuts. You understand?”

I nod. Because I do understand. Or at least, I'm beginning to. I can't
think
my way out of this, or meditate out, or
will
something to happen. Finding out about Nate has derailed my back-to-normal mission. Can I have both? Can I move on, knowing that he's still around, or do I have to choose?

I found out the truth because I broke a rule. I can do it again. I can make something happen. It feels like trying to let go of the handlebars on a bike that's going seventy-five miles an hour. Against my instincts. Almost impossible.

Almost.

“Thank you, Dr. Balder,” I say, and then, surprising both of us, I throw my arms around him. He smells like Old Spice and coffee, and his doctor's coat is softened from years of wear.

“You've been through a lot, my girl,” Dr. Balder says again quietly, and before I let go, I tell him, “We all have.”

As I'm walking out the door, something else occurs to me. Another way he might be able to help.

“I'm writing an article for the school paper on organ donation. You know, trying to get the kids to sign up to be an organ donor when they get their driver's license. Anyway, do you know anyone I could talk to? About how it works?”

Dr. Balder taps his pen against the manila folder with my name on the tab. Upside down it looks like hieroglyphics, something written in a lost language. “There's a new doctor at the hospital who might be able to help. Came from Boston. Dr. Abbott. I think his son may go to school with you. Jason, is it?”
Tap, tap, tap.
“No, Chase! That's it. Chase.”

You've got to be kidding me.

“Yes,” I say. “I think I may know him.”

“Wonderful! Let me know if you have any trouble getting in touch with him. And I'd love to read the piece when it comes out.”

“The what?”

Dr. Balder chuckles. “Your article. Bring a copy by the office, would you? We can put it up on the bulletin board.”

“Absolutely,” I tell him. “I will.”

Another lie on my to-do list. And now I have to figure out a way to ask Chase for help without asking him for help. He shared his secret hobby with me, inducted me into the Society of the Memorial Binder. I could play into that, even though I know the truth: No one can really preserve anything. There are too many variables. The minute you dodge the speeding bus, a piano falls from the sky. This used to bother me, the unpredictability of things, but now, well, I think it can be very motivating to know you've only got so much time to do what you want.

And what I want is to find my brother.