Deadly Design - Emarsan Page 0,14

on the closet shelf. They aren’t in his room, not displayed anyway. They’re all in here, all crammed together because there are too many. I take down a shoe box, and inside are ribbons and medals won during track or debate tournaments. I glance back at his room.

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The only thing on his dresser is Emma’s senior picture sitting in a frame made of looping metal hearts. On one wall is a bulletin board where he keeps the schedules for all of his meets and tournaments and his work as a lifeguard at the recreation center. He’s got a few photographs pinned to the board, mostly ones of Emma. And there’s a photograph of our family taken on the water ride at Six Flags in Texas about eight years ago. It’s a horrible picture, one of those taken by a camera right as you plunge down a steep decline. Normally our parents wouldn’t have spent the money to buy it, but Dad’s baseball cap is flying off his head in the picture, and the expression on his face is hysterical. That was one of our last vacations before life got too busy for trips to theme parks and campgrounds.

“Time to rise and shine,” I say as cheerfully as I can.

He doesn’t move.

“Connor, time to get up.” I nudge the mattress with my knee. “Come on. You don’t want Emma to . . .”

Something’s wrong. The sheets on his bed are black and against them his skin looks . . . it looks gray.

“Come on, Connor. Quit messing around!” I grip his shoulder and then recoil.

His skin . . . it’s cold.

“Connor!” I yell and start shaking him like it’s not too late.

He can hear me. His spirit’s standing by the bed or hovering below the ceiling and when he hears my voice, when he sees how desperate I am for him to be alive, he’ll come back. His spirit will enter his body, and it won’t matter that his skin is cold and turning hard; he’ll be alive. “Connor!”

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“Connor?” Mom rushes toward the bed. She grabs his shoulders, feels the cold, but instead of recoiling, she pulls him to her. “No! Connor!”

I back up. I keep backing up until I hit the wall and there’s no place to go. Dad’s there, calling 911, but there’s no use. The operator knows it too, because even though she can’t see the grayness of my brother’s skin or feel the hardness creeping into his muscles, she can hear my mother’s sobs. They are the worst sounds I’ve ever heard. They are the sounds of a living heart being torn from a warm body. They are the sounds of a mother who has lost her child.

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t’s hot outside, bright and hot. In movie funerals, the weather always matches the mournful mood of the characters. But there are no clouds, no rain today. The only dampness is from tears and sweat. The church parking lot is boiling over with cars.

Trucks and compact cars and piece-of-shit cars driven by teenagers line the main road and side streets. People, all dressed in the appropriate drab colors, filter in through the double doors, past a life-sized crucifix hanging on the wall. The church hall is actually the Catholic school’s cafeteria. Once all the sack lunches and fish sticks are devoured, the tables fold up against the walls and the basketball goals come down. It’s table time now, and the goals are tucked high against the faded blue ceiling. I could go for a little basketball right now. I could go for jumping up and crashing down and plowing through sweaty bodies and running. Running until I collapse with exhaustion.

Running until I drop . . .

I didn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t, and I don’t think people could have handled seeing me there. A person can’t be dead and alive at the same time. There can’t be one of you reposing 4 4

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in a coffin while another one is sitting in a pew singing or praying or . . . existing. It’s weird because I always thought about how different Connor and I looked. It wasn’t until last year that I had a growth spurt and caught up to his six-foot-two stature. My muscles—and my tan—have

Deadly Design - Emarsan Page 0,14

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