Love Letters to the Dead

She could probably hear the shrug in my voice. “I don’t know. She’s just normal.”


“What does ‘normal’ mean?”

“She’s cool and nice. What is this, twenty questions?”

“I just wanted to know a little bit about your life now,” Mom said, sounding hurt. “Who your friends are.”

I felt bad, but I couldn’t help thinking that if she really wanted to know, she’d be here.

It was quiet for a moment, and then Mom laughed a little. “Do you remember when we used to play that game with your sister in the car on the way home from school?”

She meant twenty questions. “Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t help laughing a little, too. May was great at that game, like she was at everything. She always thought of something super specific. Instead of just a train whistle, it was the train whistle from the lullaby that Mom would sing us. And she added her own category, too—in addition to a person, place, or thing, you could also think of a feeling. Her feeling wouldn’t just be something like “excited.” It would be the exact feeling of waking up on your birthday.

“I’m thinking of a feeling right now,” I said to Mom.

“A feeling that’s more happy or more sad?” Mom asked.

“More sad,” I said.

Mom asked a few more questions, but in the end she didn’t guess, so I had to tell her that the feeling was missing her.

And of course, after all of that, she told Aunt Amy to let me go.

Hannah’s house is outside of town, in the red dirt hills. Natalie’s mom dropped me and Natalie off, and Hannah brought us upstairs to say hi to her grandpa. When she knocked on his bedroom door, he came out to the hallway. He smiled at us, but Hannah had to yell when she told him my name, because he doesn’t hear very well. Her grandma was sleeping, and after we met him, her grandpa went back into his room to watch TV.

Then we went wandering in the forest behind the house, and Natalie and Hannah smoked cigarettes. You can walk to the river through the cottonwood trees covered in brambles and webs. The leaves have all turned yellow now, so the light looks golden even when the sun just leaks through the clouds. But when we started to get close to the sound of the river, it made me start to breathe too fast. I saw May that night in a flash, before my brain shut off and wanted to blank out. So while Natalie and Hannah walked to the riverbank, I hung back, pretending to get lost in looking at a spiderweb or something.

When we got back from our walk, we went to visit Hannah’s horse named Buddy. Buddy was actually her grandma’s horse, but since her grandma isn’t doing well, Hannah takes care of him, and she says Buddy is more like hers now. She says that Buddy is her favorite one in the family. She also takes care of Earl, their donkey, since she doesn’t trust her brother to be nice to the animals. To tell the truth, Hannah’s brother, Jason, is scary. He’s trying to train himself for the Marines, so he goes on obstacle courses he made for himself near the river, with old tires and ropes and things. He used to be a football player, but then he tore his shoulder, and he hasn’t been able to play since. He should have gone to college this year, but he didn’t. I don’t know if it’s because he couldn’t get in now that he can’t play football or because their grandparents are old and can’t really watch after Hannah. I think her brother thinks he’s supposed to be like her parent, but he’s bad at it. For groceries he only buys Vienna sausages in a can and grocery store–brand sour cream and onion chips. Even though their family isn’t poor or anything, maybe part of why Hannah wants to have a job is so that she can pick her own things to eat, without having to ask Jason. She likes to eat spinach out of the bag and Doritos (the real brand) and Luna Bars.