Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
Tonight, my mom is at the store with Paige, leaving her giant television up for grabs. There’s one in the living room, but it’s at least twenty years old, bulky and temperamental. Mom’s TV is the best in the house.
But when I get down the stairs, a giant bowl of chips pressed between my arm and hip, I find the television occupied.
Aisha and Sloane sit sprawled across the futon.
The basement was renovated around ten years ago and turned into a living area and guest room. One side of the room is now my mom’s room, with a big bed and a dresser. The staircase cuts through the middle. On the other side, a plush purple futon and the TV.
Aisha fumbles for the remote. Sloane jumps to her feet. Both human actions, like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
It’s easy to forget how young they both are. How much they’ve lost.
“Oh. It’s you.” Sloane flops back onto the futon.
When anyone else sits, the metal frame creaks and groans.
It doesn’t so much as shift with Sloane on it.
“We’re watching something about Saturn’s rings.
Riveting stuff.” She clears her throat and leans back with exaggeration. “It’s Aisha’s turn on the TV.”
“You can watch your cooking shows at nine p.m. and not a minute before,” Aisha says pleasantly. “And there’s always the living room.”
Sloane snorts. “Right. Margot’s home and it’s Friday, so there’s a new episode of that trashy reality show she watches. With the volume on full blast.” She scrunches her nose and says, “Feel like passing a message along?”
I hold my hands up in surrender.
“The volume debate isn’t a new one. She has the captions on and everything, she just likes it loud,” I say.
Sloane groans.
“Welcome to my world,” I say.
“I may have wanted to kill my brothers half the time, but god, I don’t think I could have handled a sister,” Sloane says.
“I never got to meet mine,” Aisha says. “She’s probably so big now. Probably doesn’t even know who I am.”
Sorrow settles in the room like a dense fog.
So many futures that will never come to fruition.
“Your parents will tell her all about you,” I say.
“Yeah?” Aisha asks softly, voice wavering.
Jasper was barely a toddler when my dad left.
Whatever memories he had of him, even blurred images over a crib, faded with time.
But to hear Jasper talk, you’d think the pair had years together, more than the holiday visits we get each year.
We’ve fed him a steady diet of photos, videos, and stories his whole life, and sometimes it feels like my dad is still here.
Like when Jasper tells the story of one of our memories, we all get to live in the moment it happened.
The ones we lose never really leave us. They’re never truly forgotten.
“I know it,” I say.
Aisha’s eyes glitter with tears. I wish with every fiber of my being that I could pull the girl into a hug, squeeze her until there’s no room left for loss. I wish her childhood was a real one.
I don’t hear the basement door open and notice too late the creaking of the stairs as someone descends. Another thing I’ve gotten pretty good at since I’ve begun conversing with ghosts is pretending I wasn’t conversing with ghosts.
As I start angling my body away from Aisha and Sloane, Margot is in sight.
“Jo? What are you doing down—” My sister reaches the last step, eyes gliding to me, then past, to the couch where Aisha and Sloane sit. She trips on the final step, catching herself at the last second. She huffs, blowing the hair out of her eyes, gaze snapping back to the couch.
The couch with people she shouldn’t be able to see.
“Who are you?” Margot asks.
Aisha and Sloane look at each other. At me. At Margot again.
To me, Sloane says, “Dude, can she see us?”
“Of course I can see you, stranger on my couch,” Margot says.
A smile spreads over Sloane’s lips, and she starts to laugh, hands over her belly.
“That’s interesting,” Aisha says.
“What do you think?” Sloane asks Aisha. Aisha keeps her focus on Margot.
“Is someone going to clue me in?” Margot asks.
“They’re not sure why you can see them. I’m not really sure either.”
Margot scoffs. She folds her arms over her chest. “They’re literally right in front of me, so—”
“That’s not what she means,” Sloane says.
“And what does she mean?” Margot asks.
“It’s…weird,” I say, trying to stack the words together in a way that will make sense.
“Weird.” Margot echoes.
“Yeah. Weird,” I say. “Because they’ve been in the house since we moved in, and you couldn’t see them until now.”
The concept pushes the limits of her comprehension, but Margot hasn’t fled up the stairs to call our mom and tell her I’ve truly lost it. Instead, she sits on the beanbag chair next to the futon Aisha, Sloane, and I occupy, staring at the carpet.
“So why now? What changed?” Margot asks.
I’ve been curious as to why only I could see the ghosts in the house since the moment Finn showed up, but part of me was afraid to ask. Like the answer will hurt, and I don’t even know why.
“Take it away, smarty-pants,” Sloane says, waving to Aisha, who smiles a little sheepishly.
“We’re pretty sure Jo can see us because of her accident.” She glances at me. “You almost died that day.”
My stomach twists and lurches.
“They weren’t sure she was even alive when they found her,” Margot says. “It took three EMTs to realize she actually had a pulse.” Her voice is icy, disconnected as she speaks. It makes my chest ache.
I didn’t know that.
“We always think of death as this final thing, a literal dead end, but I think it’s more like a road. When you die, you travel all the way to one end. But when you come back, you leave little pieces of yourself behind. Like breadcrumbs. Or I suppose road rash would be more accurate,” Aisha says.
“You can’t kiss death and not expect it to sting,” Sloane adds.
“Exactly,” says Aisha. Her eyes are bright and excited as she speaks. “And when Jo pulled you out of the water and brought you back, you took the same road she did.”
“Like we dipped our toes in limbo or something?” Margot asks.
Aisha nods, pleased.
“Are there more like you? Like, other ghosts or…” Margot doesn’t notice Aisha’s flinch and the way Sloane stiffens at the G-word. It’s what they are and they know it, but the word seems to remind them of it. As if the truth could be avoided if we didn’t speak it into existence.
“Finn. He’s here, too,” Aisha says.
“He’s usually following Jo around like a lost puppy,” Sloane says, grinning.
Margot’s gaze snaps to me. I can see the dozens of questions gathering behind her teeth and squirm uncomfortably.
“Finn?” Margot asks, and I realize her mistake a second too late.
“Wait—” I say. Finn materializes in front of the TV, smiling but clearly a little unsure about being summoned. We haven’t spoken much since Margot’s brush with death. He’s been avoiding me, but I’ve been avoiding him, too.
“You rang?” he asks.
“Jesus Christ,” Margot says, jumping to her feet. She whips around, like she’s surprised no one else is surprised.
“Speak of the devil,” Sloane says.
Finn frowns, gaze flicking to Margot. When she holds his eyes, he looks at me, confused.
“Uh, hi,” he says. He keeps looking at me like I’m a life raft, but I can’t hold his gaze.
“Oh,” Margot says, like she’s discovered something. “You’re the boy from the creek.”
“Guilty,” Finn says. He drops onto the couch beside me, and his shoulder passes through mine. Margot notices, catching my eyes, but I avert them and lean away from Finn.
“Wait, so you must be the beginner pianist,” Margot says. “Thank god. I thought my sister was just that rusty.”
I flip her the middle finger, and she grins.
“It’s a little difficult without solid fingers,” Finn says, making jazz hands, “but Jo’s a damn good teacher.”
Warmth spreads from my belly into my limbs. I know my cheeks are bright red. It’s been so long since I felt this, I almost forget what it is. And when I remember, I feel even worse.
He is temporary, I remind myself.
This is what I want to avoid. The gut-wrenching, venomous feeling that comes with knowing—relying on, caring about—people. The fear that the ground you’re standing on might give beneath your feet, and when it returns, you’re standing alone.
For a moment, all I can see when I look at my sister is an image of her face tacked up on the corkboard alongside the others.
There’s very little I wouldn’t do to keep that from happening.