The Beginning of After - By Jennifer Castle Page 0,32

Kaufmans there. Mr. Kaufman would even be kind of bummed that we won’t get to check out his sweet new car, and my dad would be glad about it. We’d have dessert, and it would be totally boring, and then we’d come home to more boringness. But my parents would be downstairs now, arguing with Toby about leaving his socks on the couch.

The no-sleep thing made it all worse, of course, but I didn’t seem to have any say in the matter. I’d gotten used to the headache and the pain behind my eyes, the sensation of pressure on my every muscle. This kind of exhaustion made me feel somehow more awake.

And my family’s bodies kept me company.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what they looked like. Nana had insisted on closed caskets. It was Jewish tradition, she said, but I knew it was also because of the burns and because of my mother. She’d been an organ donor, and somewhere out there, there were people alive with parts of her in them. I knew I’d be able to get that information someday. I might even want it, someday. But for now, all I could do was think of Mom as Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, with stitchwork seams holding her together.

What did their skin look like? How bad were the burns? Did their faces look peaceful, or anguished?

I wished I’d had the presence of mind at the funeral to really look at those three caskets, one shorter than the other two. To tell myself that this was the last time my parents and Toby would physically be in the world together, and hold that moment close enough to feel like a good-bye.

Now the rain tapped harder against the glass, as if trying to shake those images loose. I had to get my family out of those caskets and talking, breathing. Doing stuff.

What a shame not to be outside today, Mom said in my head. My mother hated any day that didn’t involve sunshine. She’d seek it out wherever she went, moving her plastic lounge chair around the backyard as the bright spot traveled. She sucked up sunlight like a plant in photosynthesis, and never saw the beauty in bad weather.

Dad did, though. His voice now: Whoa, look at how the wind blows the rain sideways. Watch the sky. We might just see some lightning. Hey Laurel, there’s a word on your SAT list that fits here. Can you guess it?

Yes, Dad. Fulminate: “to cause to explode.”

Toby. What was Toby saying?

I’m going outside anyway! I pictured him by the door, putting on his rubber boots, grabbing an empty jelly jar in case he found something worth keeping. He liked to bring back slugs and pour salt on them to watch them shrivel up, and I’d yell at him for being so cruel.

My body shook down into sobs again, and I grabbed the towel Nana had left folded on my nightstand. We’d given up on Kleenex that first post-prom day.

Now Nana must have heard I was officially awake and knocked on the door once before coming in. She didn’t creep into the room slowly anymore but rather stepped briskly all the way inside.

“Will you get out of bed today, sweetie?”

“Probably not.”

Nana’s mouth fell into a flat line, and I turned to gaze at the ceiling.

“I think you should. I talked to Suzie Sirico. She can make time to see you today.”

“Please stop with the Suzie stuff. It’s not going to happen.”

Nana sighed and left with the same forced-fast movement she’d arrived with. I got the feeling that to her, my bedridden, grief-soaked, deep-black funk had a forty-eight-hour time limit and had just expired.

But time didn’t seem to matter anymore. It was something that could be stretched or twisted or thrown down to the floor as I saw fit. In the back of my fuzzy, buzzing mind, I knew it was now Tuesday. I imagined the rhythm of the school week, the air still electric with tales of Laurel’s Freak-Out. The people who’d actually witnessed it suddenly in demand and more important. And Joe, who’d actually been kissing me at the time. I couldn’t even think about it.

I rolled toward the wall and covered my head with a pillow, then heard Masher come in, the slight jingle of his collar. Nana must have left the bedroom door ajar. Sniff, sniff, sniff, very businesslike at my shoulders and back. Thud as he planted his butt on the floor, thump, thump went his tail.