Dead River - By Cyn Balog Page 0,64

I just wanted you. Sick or healthy. I didn’t care!” I shout.

“You wouldn’t have had me either way. The doctors gave me three months to live. I was beyond chemotherapy. It was too late.”

“But even a few more days,” I protest, but it comes out soft because suddenly I feel very weak.

“You’re tired,” she says. “You need rest.”

I remember how she used to usher me up to my bedroom every time I acted out of line, saying, “You’re tired and need to rest.” No, she just wants to be done with me. I bet ghosts don’t even need to rest, just like they don’t need to use the bathroom. The thought makes me more bitter than ever. “I’m fine. I wish you would have stayed.”

She is silent for a moment. “And I wish you had stayed alive. You should have left when Trey told you. But we all can’t have what we want, now, can we?” She sounds like she did whenever I told her I wanted dessert, never mean, just sweetly condescending. In my mind’s eye, I’m in the kitchen, reaching for a bag of cookies in the pantry. She slams the door and smiles at me. We all can’t have what we want, now, can we?

I feel a new wash of tears fall over my cheeks. It was futile to think I could harden myself against her. She is my mother. I was deluding myself when I said I didn’t care. She is my sun. Even if she hated me, that fact would never change.

“You don’t even want me here now. You sent Trey to make sure I stayed away, because you didn’t want me with you.”

She puts her hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me, Kiandra. I want you. It hurts me terribly not to be with you, but it made me happy to know that you were having a life. More than anything, I wanted you to live. To be happy and live.” She enunciates the last word as if teaching it to me for the first time. “You were happy there, without me, weren’t you?”

I wipe the tears from my cheeks and look out toward the east bank. I think of Justin, and my father. I wonder if Dad has made it up to the river yet. I wonder how I’ll look when they find my body. How they’ll react. The thought of my father seeing me that way twists my heart. I’m his everything. That’s what he said to me, about a thousand times, on that ride up from New Jersey. He kept chewing on the inside of his cheek and looking over at me with crazed eyes. You’re my everything. I won’t let anything happen to you. I nod.

She smiles a little. “You had a boyfriend, didn’t you? What is his name?”

I nod again, less forcefully this time. I’m not really sure what we were, as of last night. I guess we were still boyfriend and girlfriend. “Justin,” I say, but I’m back to thinking about my dad. You’re my everything. More tears slide over my cheeks. “But I can’t stop thinking about Dad. This will kill him.”

“Yes. I know it will.” She bows her head for a moment, then moves closer to me, and I think she’s going to hug me again. Instead, she leans in close to my ear. I feel the familiar sweep of her lips on my cheek. It sends the world reeling for me, but not as much as her next words. Very quietly, she says, “And that is why I am going to send you back.”

It takes a moment to register. I search for another meaning, but can’t think of one. “What … You don’t mean that …”

“Oh, Kiandra. It’s not that I don’t want you.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s …” Maybe this is a misunderstanding. She didn’t see the wound in my body. She didn’t see how much blood I lost. There’s no way I could go back to living. That’s not possible. I’ve heard of people who die for a few minutes and come back to life, but I’ve been dead for hours. “What are you talking about?”

“You will have this power, too. Many of our ancestors do. We are the only ones.”

I shake my head. “Are you talking about … making me alive again?”

She doesn’t have to say a word. Her expression speaks volumes.

I stop breathing. “But how? That can’t be done.”

She crosses her arms. “It can be. But if I do this for