Liz is being moved out of the ICU and into a private room. Monica cries when she hears the news. Julia wipes at her nose surreptitiously. Kennie bawls. Liam overhears and closes his eyes, and quietly thanks everything that will listen.
One visitor at a time, they are told. But the fact that they are allowed to visit at all is such an improvement that they can’t help but hope.
The room is cold and dim and unfriendly, and Liz looks like hell. When Monica sees her, she feels such a strange mix of elation and sadness that her breath turns heavy and she almost cannot go on, but she does. She goes to Liz’s bed and looks down at her daughter, and she wonders what her husband would have said if he were here.
“Elizabeth Michelle Emerson,” she whispers, stroking Liz’s hair away from her face. She remembers being just two floors above here, holding Liz when she was still just a small bundle of pink in her arms. She remembers shifting Liz from one arm to the other so that she and her husband could sign the birth certificate beneath the name that they had chosen so carefully.
Through her tears, she says softly, “Please don’t make me write it on a tombstone.”
I hover at the edges of the room and echo.
Please.
Please.
Please.
SNAPSHOT: FUNERAL
Her hair lies in damp curls on the nape of her neck. Her hands are streaked with dirt. The mud makes squelching noises between her toes when she walks.
We are very solemn as Liz buries the worm found lying dead in the driveway.
She kneels in the rain-soaked grass and lays the worm in the dirt. Her nose is running, and I am hugging her fiercely.
She cannot bear to catch fireflies in jars. She hates zoos. She will not let her father teach her about constellations, because she will not trap the stars. She lives in a world made entirely of sky.
It is inconceivable that one day, her world will grow so dark and distant that when she raises her head, she will not be able to find it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The Last Day of Liz Emerson’s Childhood
On the day Liz’s father tried to fix their roof but died before he could, Liz and I drew pictures of ourselves on the roof with chalk. On that day, her hair was tucked into a blue wool hat and I wore the dress Monica wouldn’t let her buy. There was an impossibly blue sky above us, and after a while, we realized that the day was too perfect to be spent drawing pictures. Liz gathered the chalk back into the box, and we began playing tag.
Our laughter floated into the sky. We were happy, and the world was wide.
“Be careful,” Liz’s father called.
We tried, we really did. But the wind asked us to dance.
The loose snow took our hands and twirled us around. The cold was everywhere, but so was the sun, and it was irresistible. It made us reckless and invincible, and after a minute, we forgot. Liz chased me and I ran a little too close to the edge.
I wobbled.
She screamed.
Liz’s father spun around too quickly, and lost his balance.
And Liz screamed some more.
A neighbor came to investigate. She called the police and got Liz off the roof. Later there was a funeral and a fatherless family, and Liz had to be pried off the coffin, finger by finger.
She never stopped blaming herself.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Hickeys and Black Eyes
Jake Derrick finally arrives in the waiting room.
He walks over to where Kennie and Julia sit and says, “Hey.”
Kennie ignores him entirely.
Julia looks up. She gets slowly to her feet and says, “Jake.”
“How is she?” he asks.
Julia examines the hickey on his neck. “Where have you been?”
He runs a hand through his hair. It’s so overly gelled that the crinkle fills the room—the junior class has paused its card games to listen. “I didn’t hear about it until an hour ago,” he pleads.
“You were in school today,” Julia says flatly. “It was all over Facebook last night. You couldn’t have not known.”
“Oh, come on,” he says, growing defensive and consequently unpleasant. “You know I was at basketball practice last night. And I don’t check my wall every five minutes, like some people.”
Julia’s eyes narrow. For a moment, her expression is so uncannily similar to the one Liz often wears that Jake is unnerved. “Nice hickey,” says Julia. “Who was it?”
“I don’t—”
“Your girlfriend,” Julia says, “is fucking dying.”
That shuts him up, because Julia never swears.
Jake collapses into a chair and rubs his face. He looks tired, afraid, and I know that he cares. But like Julia, like Kennie, I hate him because he has never, ever cared enough.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he says in a hollow voice. “I heard that she was in the hospital, and—god, Julia. We had a fight on Sunday, okay? I tried to apologize and she told me to go away. Do you know how guilty I’ve been feeling? God, don’t you think I regret all the things I said to her?”
Julia stares at him for a moment. Then, without warning, she punches him in the face so hard that his chair falls backward.
And with Jake curled on the floor, shocked and wincing, his hands cupped over his eye, Julia says in a hard voice, “This is not about you.”