Chapter 17
Small footsteps wake me up.
No. I’m already awake. I’ve been lying awake all night. I was awake when Gabriel left. That was?—
When was it?
The footsteps get closer. I keep thinking they’re fading out, but they’re covered by the constant whine of the next-door neighbors’ ancient air conditioning unit. Louder, than softer. Louder, than softer.
I’m late. My chest constricts. I’m not late. I missed it.
Missed what?
The funeral.
Those small, tentative footsteps, a little kid awake in the middle of the night, cross behind me.
I can’t turn my head. “Remy?”
“Jameson.”
Remy’s standing right in front of me, six inches from my knee, her seven-year-old face bone white, like the lightning left a permanent mark. She wears a pink nightgown with a sequined heart on the front, and her hair’s wild, a blonde halo around her head.
“Jameson.” Her chin dimples.
My jaw’s wired shut, but I push through. “Remy, it’s late. You gotta go back to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“Mason won’t stop screaming.”
The concrete in my bones freezes. That constant sound wasn’t an air conditioning unit. Maybe I wanted it to be one, but it’s not. Mason’s screaming into his pillow, but his voice is all ragged. It only gets quieter when he takes a breath.
I can’t take it. Every time he screams I think it’ll be the time I lose my mind. I need it to stop.
He screams again.
“What did they look like when they died?” asks Remy.
She’s still that awful, ghostly white. Lit up in a storm. Her eyes are black.
“Jameson? Did Mom and Dad look like they were sleeping?”
“I don’t know, Rem. Don’t think about it, okay? It’s time to be in bed.”
“Look what I found.” She bends down, the skirt of her nightgown brushing the floor, and picks something up in her small hands. Only a little baby fat remains. “I found pictures.”
“Remy, no.” I swipe at the photos in her hands, but she’s out of reach. She was next to me a second ago. “Remy. Don’t—give those to me.”
A tiny frown of concentration turns her mouth down, and Remy holds the photos closer to her face. “It’s Mom and Dad. See?”
She holds them out with both hands like a drawing she’d done at school. All the hairs on the back of my neck pull so tight I swear they’re being ripped out. My stomach turns. I want to look away. I can’t.
Remy drops the pictures so she can cover her ears.
“Stop screaming.” I can’t get the goddamn things off my lap. They won’t go. They keep sticking to my fingers, always face up, always so I can see them in perfect detail. Remy opens her mouth and wails at me. “Stop screaming. You’re hurting my ears. Stop screaming.”
I’m not screaming. I didn’t think I was screaming. I understand abruptly that I’ve been screaming since I started begging her not to look at those pictures, but I can’t stop.
Somebody knocks on the door.
It’s a crooked knock, more of a scratch. I stand up against my will. I couldn’t get up before, couldn’t put Remy back to bed, and now I can’t sit. My body drags me toward the door. It’s not locked. There’s no lock. Anyone could’ve walked in.
I open the door.
Gabriel’s on the other side, too thin, his cheeks hollow. He has both hands pressed to a spot on his side. He frowns, forehead creased, like he didn’t expect me to answer the door. “Jameson. Wake up.”
Another voice layers on top of his. Jameson. Wake up.
I have to get out. I have to go.
Gabriel lurches back, out of my way, and I tear down the hall of the apartment building, his voice following after me. Jameson. Jameson. Jameson. It doesn’t look how it’s supposed to. It doesn’t look how it did, and I have the horrible sick drowning choking feeling that I’m trapped. I’m fucked. I can’t breathe.
I run into something solid, and it turns me. Or the wall turns. My knuckles smash against a hard surface. It’s a cracking, bruising pain.
“Jameson.” Remy’s at the next threshold, her nightgown bloody and her eyes dead. “What did they look like when they died?”
“Burned.” I bend down and say it right into her dead, wrong face. “They were burned. They were fucking dead, Remy. They were melted bones and ashes. Don’t you show me those fucking pictures, Remy, don’t you dare. Burn the—the pictures—don’t?—”
The apartment’s rebuilding itself around us. Gabriel at the door. Mason screaming. They’re not going to let me out.
In the kitchen, Remy stands on an upside-down milk crate, stirring cake batter. She stops. Pulls out the spoon. Peers into the bowl.
“Look, Jameson.” When she turns, the moonlight catches in the hollow pits where her eyes used to be. “I found pictures.”
I don’t look.
I don’t look.
I go past her to the door. There wasn’t a door in that apartment. There was a wall, and on the other side of that wall was a couple who worked the night shift. They had Thursdays off and spent the whole day drinking and the whole night screaming at each other.
But now there’s a door.
I open it.
On the other side, my feet land on kitchen tiles. My mom is leaning on the kitchen island, my teacup in her hands. Light from the window shines on her face. Three more steps and I can see what she’s watching—us, in the backyard. Me and Mason, playing with two-year-old Remy, rolling a big, soft ball so she can toddle after it.
“Jamie,” my mom says, a happy, summer-vacation smile stretching across her face. “You’re dead.”
“No—”
The teacup shatters in her hands, stabbing into the meat of her palms. She frowns down at the broken china, and then a streak of molten ash tears down the center of her face and keeps tearing until she’s burning up on the floor, burning a hole through the floor. It can’t be too late. She was just alive. My legs give out underneath me and I reach for her to pull her out of the flames, but they’re coming from inside her, and my fingers don’t touch anything but cold ash.
“No. No.” I rake through the ashes, searching for any piece of her I can find. My fingers break on the concrete floor. We didn’t have a concrete floor. It’s a sidewalk, not the floor, and I make the mistake of looking up.
I’m such a fucking disaster.
I look up, and there’s Gabriel, falling. He hits the sidewalk with a terrible wet sound, screaming, screaming, and I don’t know what to do so I crawl over to him on busted kneecaps and when I get there he turns his head and he’s Mason.
“Jesus, no,” I manage. “Mason, please. Mason please.”
He blinks, his eyes focusing, and then he sits up, a crease in his forehead. “Jamie, stop screaming.”
“I’m not screaming.” My throat is completely raw. Hurts so fucking bad. “Please.”
He puts his arms out, but they come from the wrong direction. My foot curves over a ledge, my toes wiggling into nothing. Whoever it is pulls. I don’t want to go back there. I can’t go back there. But they pull harder, and then my foot is on cool, solid tiles.
The tiles come up.
Or I go down.
And then there’s a T-shirt?
A person.
Whoever it is, they’re not screaming or broken or bleeding out. They’re just holding.
Me. Holding me.
“You’re okay,” he says. “You’re okay, Jamie. You didn’t fall in the pool.”
My lungs don’t want to expand to fit any air, but they do. “Mase?”
“It’s me. It’s fine. You’re okay.”
He can’t be down here. He can’t even get out of bed. He might die from the pain, not to mention the fall.
“But what about—what about?—”
“I’m okay, too.”
“I don’t think—” The apartment is starting to fade in. I can only see it in my peripheral vision. “I don’t think I can wake up.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ll wait. We’ll wait here.”
Small footsteps wake me up.
“I can’t sleep,” Remy says. She wears a pink nightgown with a sequined heart on the front, and her hair’s wild, a blonde halo around her head.
“Why not?”
“Mason won’t stop screaming.”
Mason’s screaming into his pillow, but his voice is all ragged. It only gets quieter when he takes a breath.
I can’t take it. Every time he screams I think it’ll be the time I lose my mind. I need it to stop.
He screams again.
The bedroom is in the wrong spot. Mason’s on the bed, a pillow over his face. The fall mangled his leg beyond recognition. I shouldn’t be able to see it in the dark.
He takes the pillow off his face and stands. Walks out of the bedroom. Drops down next to me on the couch. His arms go around me, but they’re coming from the wrong direction.
From underneath me?
“This is a dream,” he says. “It’s not real.”
“I don’t think I can wake up.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ll wait.”
Small footsteps wake me up.
“I can’t sleep,” Remy says. She wears a pink nightgown with a sequined heart on the front, and her hair’s wild, a blonde halo around her head.
“Why not?”
“Gabriel’s dead. He won’t stop screaming.”
The apartment rocks from side to side like it’s on the deck of a ship.
“Gabriel’s okay.” Mason’s voice, but I can’t see him.
“Look what I found.” I can hear Remy moving, but I can’t see what she’s bending down to pick up. “I found pictures.”
“Don’t look,” Mason orders.
“I don’t think I can wake up.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ll?—”
Small footsteps.
“Mason won’t stop screaming.”
“Why not?”
“He’s dead.”
“I’m not dead,” Mason counters. He must be right, because he didn’t sound so calm when his leg was broken. He wasn’t calm at the hospital at all. “I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay. You’re dreaming.”
“I don’t think I can wake up.”
“That’s okay,” he says.
Footsteps.
“Jamie.” The teacup shatters in my mom’s hands. “You’re dead.”
“No, I?—”
“You’re not dead,” Mason says. “You’re dreaming. This is a dream. It isn’t real.”
“Look what I found.” Remy’s right next to my ear. “I found pictures.”
“No pictures, Remy.” Mason’s as gentle with her as he was when she was seven. “Put those away.”
“I don’t think I can wake up.”
“That’s—”
Something snaps,like a chain coming out of the wall. None of the angles in the apartment make any sense. The couch isn’t there. Then it is. The next-door neighbors’ ancient air conditioning unit whines, but it sounds like an ambulance siren—wailing and wailing, up and down, up and down, up and down.
What little I can see of the apartment shudders. Earthquake? Maybe.
“—found pictures. It’s Mom and Dad, see? Mason won’t?—”
“—dream. This isn’t happening. This is happening too often. What was that?”
Another earthquake. My jaw really hurts.
“Jameson.” Gabriel’s voice distorts. “Wake up.”
Another earthquake.
“I don’t think I can?—”
Another earthquake.
“—okay.”
Another earthquake.
Mason’s voice is so close that it might even be inside my head. There’s a constant thumpthumpthump behind it. Something soft. Cotton.
“He keeps doing that.”
Another earthquake.
“—quiet?” I don’t know whose voice that is.
“No,” Lily answers. I’d reach for her, but I don’t know where she is. Jesus, I want her so much. I want to hold her hand. Oh—she is holding my hand. That’s her wedding ring. “Not that I’ve seen. He’s usually very?—”
A hand on the side of my face reminds me that my teeth hurt. Bad.
The other voice is talking about the weather, how sunny it is, how it’s a good day for the pool, and in the middle of all that he says how is he with needles?
But maybe not, because needles don’t have anything to do with the weather.
“Charlotte brought bathing suits.” The whole world rocks. At least all of me. This is why people like to spend time on ships. Because of the water. “She even packed one for Robin.” My brother sounds so proud of Sunshine. He should be proud. She’s so smart to pack bathing suits. Another earthquake. “Hasn’t ever been able to stand them. Our mother used to sing this song—” Mason starts humming the song.
Gabriel laughs. “I forgot about that. The doctor’s office had balloons painted on the wall. Every day was a party.”
“Happy birthday,” Remy sings.
“That wasn’t the song,” Mason answers. “I learned to swim in a pool.”
“I learned to swim in a lake,” another voice says.
“You’re welcome,” a third one says. “Ungrateful bastard.”
“Fuck off,” the second voice says.
Another earthquake.
“—power of attorney?” the first voice asks. So charming for legal talk.
“Me,” Mason answers. “And Lily. The paperwork?—”
There’s something cool on my arm. Evaporating.
“It’s Mom and Dad, see?” Remy’s seven-year-old voice says.
Earthquake.
“—won’t stop screaming.”
Earthquake.
“Jameson. Wake?—”
Earthquake.
The apartment stops moving, but I’m still rocking. Like a pendulum. Like the inside of a clock. Slow. That isn’t a second. Time doesn’t work like that. It’s faster. It turns into syrup, then judders to normal speed. Sunny. A good day for the pool. I have never been so calm. Somebody drums their fingers on my arm like they’re playing the piano. If there’s a needle, I don’t feel it. Have they done it yet? Have they done it yet? Have they?—
A tugat my hand wakes me up.
It’s not Lily. It’s someone smaller, with a pudgy, almost-baby hand.
“Hi.” A tiny voice. “Hi. You’re sleeping.” It sounds like you seeping. “Hi.”
This time, when I open my eyes, there’s no earthquake.
Hades’s daughter looks at me from a weird perspective. Like she’s taller than me.
“Hi,” she says again, and pulls harder on my hand. “You’re sleeping.”
Daisy has her little stuffed cat tucked into one elbow. She readjusts it to press it under her nose. Something’s different about her.
“Up,” she orders.
I sit up and rub my eyes, because it’s bright, and her eyes are blue. So blue.
Oh. That’s weird.
With me sitting up, we’re face to face. She studies me from behind her plush cat, and then her eyes crinkle like she’s grinning.
“You’re sleeping,” she says again, her eyes wide.
“I don’t think I can wake up.”
“No. You’re see. Ing.”
“Seeing?” I point at my eyes.
“Seeing,” she says, then lets go of my hand and pats my cheek. “Look.” Her Ls sound like Ws.“I love it.” I wub it.
“Love what?”
“Look.”
I look.
This isn’t any nightmare I’ve ever had. This is a wide green field with trees in the distance, all the grass dotted with tiny daisies. A river glints in the forest. A path.
“Hi.” Daisy waves.
“Uh…hi?” I wave back.
“Hi,” another voice answers, and I’m on my feet before I’ve made the decision to move. I’ve fully jumped up from the ground and spun in a wild circle, because that is my mom’s voice, and that’s her, and that’s my dad, and they’re both just here in the field and then their arms are around me and my mom is laugh-crying in my ear and my dad is saying I missed you so much, buddy and I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, because this is impossible. This is an impossible dream. It’s a dream. I’m asleep.
“Sort of,” my mom says, still laughing. Her laugh is just like Remy’s. “But in another way, you’re awake.”
“This is embarrassing. I went crazy,” I say into her hair. She feels just like she did when she was still alive. “I have to be crazy. Oh, fuck—am I dead? Fuck. Dad, you’re going to be so disappointed.”
“That’s bullshit.” His voice is so similar to Mason’s. I’d forgotten how much they sounded alike. I guess now Mason sounds like Dad used to. I guess he grew into it. “You have to stop beating yourself up, Jamie.”
“But—” A knot in my throat makes it hard to talk. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t know until the cop showed up.”
“Is he crazy?” my dad stage-whispers to my mom. “He doesn’t know?”
“For Christ’s sake, James! Don’t tease your own son.”
Dad clears his throat. “I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. I sincerely apologize for?—”
I burst out laughing. “I forgot you were like this.”
“Wow,” he says, fake offense ringing in his voice. “My own son.”
“You were there.” My mom kisses my cheek. “Don’t you remember our hands?”
“Paff.” Daisy’s voice comes from roughly knee-height.
I look down at her through the circle of my mom’s arms. “What?”
“Paff.” She puts a hand on her hip and stares up at me, eyes narrowed, then inhales her stuffed cat deeply, as if she’s exhausted from dealing with me. “Paff. Paff.”
“Path,” my mom says. “The path. You showed us the path.”
Daisy runs around in a circle, crouching down to pick a bouquet of daisies. A tiny black cat streaks through the grass at her feet, batting at the flowers with its paws. I would say oh, hey, I know that cat, but—what path?
“How? Am I Jesus?”
“God, I hope not. Talk about a cross to bear.”
“James.”
“Listen, son. You’re okay. You had a bad dream, but it’s over. Let it be over. You got us here in one piece. It’s great. We’ve had plenty of time to work out all our former issues. I kicked Cy’s ass.”
“Charlotte’s dad? You saw him?”
“Of course I did. And you should see how your mother looks when she’s?—”
“James.”
The bits of green I can see are getting less green, and I pull my face back on instinct. My mom’s eyes are just the same. Still blue, like Remy’s. And she’s happy. She’s not burned. She’s good.
“You’re okay.” Even her smile is the same. “We love you.”
“Of course we love you.” My dad squeezes my shoulder. He looks a lot more like Mason than I realized. And Gabriel, too. Maybe even me. “You’re Jesus.”
“When did you figure that out? Because if you knew I was the Messiah the whole time, I feel like there should have been some preferential treatment.”
My dad’s eyebrows go up. I forgot—how did I forget?—that Gabriel does the same faux-stunned look.
“Jamie.” His voice trembles. “I gave you my name.”
My mom nudges him. “We.”
“We gave you my name. What could be more preferential than that?”
I let out a weird snort-laugh. “I really don’t want to be Jesus.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Oh—you’re right. That’s some other guy. You’re our Jamie.”
Every time I blink, there’s another shade of green. It looks like a T-shirt. The wide green field with its dome of blue sky and its trees and river and daisies is fading away. I squeeze my parents as tight as I can, but I think they’re fading too.
My mom goes up on tiptoe and kisses my cheek again. My dad kisses my temple.
“I love you,” Mom says. “You have my teacup.”
“Go in peace.” My dad’s arm around me is real. Solid. I try to memorize it. “You’re the bread of the world. Whoever follows you will have the rye of life.”
“Jesus Christ, Dad.”
“That’s the idea.” He ruffles my hair. It’s barely anything. Like a breeze. One last glancing kiss to my temple. “Love you, Jamie.”
“I think I’m waking up.”
Daisy grabs my hand and pulls. “Zee,” she says. “Zee. Zee. Look. Look. I wub it.”
“Daisy,” Zeus says. “We shouldn’t bother people who are sleeping. Let go of Jameson’s hand.”
Daisy squeals.
And then my eyes really are open.
I’m about an inch away from a forest-green T-shirt that has a dancing pattern on it, like the surface of a lake, and I’m—laughing? It’s a weird, sore-sounding laugh, more of a huff. Waking up laughing is new.
“Jameson,” Mason says.
From somewhere above me.
Like I might be lying in his lap.
“Jamie,” I say. I sound like shit.
Mason’s chest hitches. “Jamie. Are you awake?”
I turn, sort of—everything hurts like I got beat up again—and there’s Mason, and Gabriel, and Remy, and Lily, all gathered around, looking brave and teary-eyed and hopeful.
“Yeah,” I tell them. “I’m awake.”