Love Letters to the Dead

Your plane didn’t have quite enough fuel, and your maps were off by a little bit. Radio communication was bad. When you sent a message to the Coast Guard on Howland—We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low—were you in a panic? They answered back twenty minutes later, but didn’t know if you’d heard them. And then they got your last message, full of static, an hour after that. They sent up smoke signals to you, but we’ll never know if you were close enough to see them. They sent out search parties, and we’ve been searching ever since. It’s a testament to how much we loved you that we are still looking seventy-five years after your death. But sometimes I can’t help wonder what would be different if we finally had an answer.

Today is Monday, my first day back at school after the breakup with Sky. Dad finally said that he thought that he should make an appointment with the doctor, and I knew I couldn’t go on playing sick forever. So when it was time to switch to Aunt Amy’s yesterday, I said I was feeling better. This morning I put on a sweatshirt that I hadn’t worn since eighth grade and pulled my hair back. At lunch, I didn’t feel like eating my kaiser roll or even a Nutter Butter. I went over to our table and sat down with Natalie and Hannah. Before they could start asking questions, I blurted it out. “He broke up with me.”

They went into a chorus of Oh my god, are you okay, how come? After something really bad happens, the next worse thing is people feeling sorry for you about it. It’s like confirmation that something is terribly wrong. I tried to hold back the tears that were burning behind my eyes, but they came out anyway. Natalie and Hannah rushed to put their arms around me, and Hannah pulled my head against her shoulder and started to stroke it. “He has no idea what he lost. You are the best, most beautiful girl ever. What a complete idiot asshole, Laurel.”

“No,” I said, my voice muffled by her shirt. “I think it’s me.”

“What? No it’s not. It’s not.”

“I can’t go to chorus today,” I told Hannah. “I can’t see him.”

“Okay, it’s all right,” she said. “You don’t have to go. We’ll ditch.”

So in eighth period we snuck off campus, walking through the little flecks of swirling snow that were melting against the blacktop, and went to the sketchy Safeway to get some liquor that we would drink at Natalie’s house before her mom got back from work. We climbed up onto Natalie’s roof, bundled up with blankets, and passed the bottle of cinnamon After Shock between us. Hannah was trying to make me laugh and trying to think of a new boyfriend for me, suggesting friends of Kasey’s that made Natalie wince, and then Evan Friedman—“He and Britt are on the outs again, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

But I could hardly pay attention to what they were saying. There was only one thought that I could hear, that kept repeating itself in my head, over and over. She’s dead. And then it happened. Maybe because I was grateful for Natalie and Hannah, or maybe because I was too tired and too sad to try to be like her anymore—I just said it out loud.

“My sister’s dead.”

It was silent for a moment. Finally, Hannah nodded. “I know,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

It didn’t make sense. “What do you mean you know?”

She hesitated, and then she said, “Tristan told us. He and Kristen used to hang out with some kids from Sandia, and they said that a girl from there died. It wasn’t that hard to figure out that she was your sister.”

“What?” I was suddenly angry, like when your parents yank the blankets off in the morning to make you get out of bed. In the cold January air, my skin felt so thin that it was almost transparent. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

Natalie answered, “You never talked about it. We were just waiting until you were ready, I guess.”

And then Hannah said, “I mean, you’ve never had us over to your house or anything like that. We just thought that you didn’t want us to bring it up.”

I stared at them. My body drained of everything, including the anger that had been so palpable only a moment ago. They’d known this whole time, and they hadn’t treated me any differently than they did. I wondered what they saw when they looked at me.

Hannah passed me the bottle, and I took another sip. “What was she like?” Hannah asked.

“She was beautiful,” I said. “She was … she was great. She was funny, and smart, and she was basically perfect.” And she left me, a voice screamed from inside my head.

I looked at my phone. “Shit, it’s three o’clock! My aunt!” Hannah passed me the mouthwash out of her purse, and I climbed topsy-turvy down the ladder in a rush and ran back to school, slip-sliding over the coating of snow on the sidewalks that was starting to stick. When I arrived, half an hour late, Aunt Amy’s car was one of the few still in the parking lot.

“Where have you been?!” she asked.

“I was just—I—”

“Your cheeks are all red,” she said, and put her hands against them. “You’re freezing!”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I … this kid, he fell on the ice and I had to help him inside.”

Aunt Amy gave me a look like she didn’t know if she believed what I was saying. “Lying is a sin, Laurel.”

I looked back at her. “Yeah, I know.”

She was quiet for a moment, tucking her silver hair behind her ear as she tried to decide whether to trust me or not. My stomach knotted with guilt.

“Can we go?” I finally asked.