kiss me and love me. The only person I have is you, and you’re not here, not really. Not when you’re on that stuff. So what am I supposed to do?”
We stare at each other, surrounded by my mother’s scent. Let the tigers come with their claws.
“You didn’t even cry,” I snarl.
As soon as I say it, I wish I hadn’t.
Her blue eyes darken a little. Like clouds covering the sun.
I don’t care. I really, really don’t fucking care. She is the enemy. The one who will try to keep me from floating and I want to fucking float, okay, I want to go away. And I want her to go away, too, I want to be on my planet, alone.
“I’m going to bed,” I say.
She zips the bags shut. Won’t look at me. “My cell’s on. If you need me.”
Mae goes, and maybe I should feel bad about snapping at her, but I don’t. Not really. I’m starting not to feel bad about anything, which is nice. I see why they call them painkillers. They really do kill the pain. Murder it.
I take Mom’s brush to my room and set it beside a candle, like it’s a relic. I don’t know whether or not I want them to be found. I hate the idea of them being separated. Dying alone. So if they were both in the grave, then maybe it meant they were together until the end.
I’ve imagined the wave so many times. In one version, Mom and Dad are together at the beach. They hold on to each other as the water covers them. They die in each other’s arms. But I know that isn’t possible. Mae said the water was too strong. Something about force and acceleration. Nerd stuff. I don’t know.
In another version, they’re at their bed-and-breakfast, and they make it to the roof, but it’s not high enough and the water sweeps them away. Or they cling to palm trees that topple over. Or a piece of metal decapitates them. Or a floating car crushes them.
There are so many ways to die.
I lie back down on the rug in corpse pose and stare at the ceiling. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the crack seems bigger.
i ignored the last call I got from my dad because i was watching a movie on TV.
Kitchen Cupboard
4302 Seaview Lane
Venice, CA
9
Hannah
My parents have been dead for one week.
I am running out of Vicodin.
Fuck my fucking life.
It’s early evening, and shadows crawl over the carpet. I don’t know when that happened—the sun leaving. It was here, just a minute ago. Whatever. I live here now. On this carpet.
There’s a soft knock on my bedroom door. Someone is always knocking on the fucking door. No one can take a hint. I make sure the rest of my pills are in the envelope inside the throw pillow, not on the desk. Then I turn on the bedside lamp.
“Come in,” I say.
Aunt Nora is barefoot but still wearing her lawyer pantsuit. She looks a lot like Mom—dark hair, olive skin, mysterious smile. Uncle Tony’s behind her. He’s in his usual uniform of Red Sox shirt and jeans.
“Hey, kiddo,” Tony says. “You doing okay?”
“I’m tired, I guess.”
I wish Dad had left behind more Vicodin. I wish Priscilla delivered. It’s hard to sneak out to the boardwalk. Maybe there’s an app for that.
“Got time for a little chat?” Nora asks. I nod, and she perches on the edge of my bed.
Mae comes in. Plops down on the floor, leaning back on her hands. As usual, something has been decided without me. I don’t know what.
“Do you want me to lead up to what I have to say, or should I just say it?” Nora asks.
I like how blunt she is. Nora always cuts to the chase.
“Say it,” I say.
“Tony and I”—she looks at Tony, who nods—“want you to move in with us.”
“But you live in Boston.” I look over at Mae, panicked. She’s watching me with her thinking face on: brows furrowed, eyes a little glazed, biting her lip.
“They told you already,” I say to her.
“You were sleeping.”
The heir and the spare. Of course they told her first.
“There’s a really good high school by us—Saint Francis,” Nora is saying. “Nate’s in the dorms at MIT, but he comes home most weekends. We’ve got plenty of space in the house—you’d have your own rooms.”
“I can’t … I … Micah lives here,” I say.
Nora nods. “I know, sweetie.”
I close my eyes, see him and Dad painting the