A man is dead, and all I can think about are his socks.
Maybe everyone is right and there really is something wrong with me.
Two hours later, my mother rushes to assure me that there isn’t.
“It was shock, honey,” she tells me, stroking my hair slowly away from my face. “Most people don’t get upset right away. It’s a delayed reaction.”
She wipes my face with a cloth, and makes chocolate chip cookies, and everything is fine until two days later, when it’s my turn to help my father.
I stare at my father’s perfectly manicured hands, the fingernails that are cut into perfect squares, as he pulls the crisp sheet back up over Mr. Elliott’s body.
“I wonder if he had a heart attack and fell from the cliffs?” My dad muses calmly. “Or if he slipped? Poor guy.”
My dad is unflappable, his voice matter-of-fact and speculative.
He doesn’t ask me if I’m okay, because it doesn’t occur to him that I might not be. Death is his business and he deals with it on a daily basis. Nothing bothers him anymore, and he forgets that it might be unnerving for someone else.
I swallow.
“Is the M.E. coming?” I ask, and my voice sounds tremulous in this large sterile room. It’s cold in here because it has to be, and I rub the goose-bumps off my arms. My dad glances at me as he wheels the metal gurney into a cooler.
“Of course,” he nods. “The medical examiner always has to come and sign the death certificate. You know that.”
I do. But somehow, staring at the familiar and dead face of my gym teacher causes the things I know to fly right out of my head.
I nod back.
“Are you hungry?” I ask him, wanting an excuse to leave this room. “I can make you a sandwich.”
My dad glances up at me again, and smiles. “I could eat,” he answers. “I’ll come down to the kitchen in a minute.”
I slip from the prep room and close the door behind me in relief, leaning against it for a second with my eyes closed as I try to un-see Mr. Elliott’s blank face. The last time I’d seen it, it’d been red and taut as he yelled at us during gym. Seeing it so empty and devoid of life is just flat-out jarring.
“You okay?”
My mother is concerned about me still. Always. I nod, because I don’t want to worry her. She’s always worried about me, it seems.
“Yeah. It’s just…he was nice to me.”
That night, after dinner, I have ear-buds in while I do Chemistry homework, but I still hear my parents bickering in the next room.
“I don’t like it,” my mother says. “We’re surrounded by too much death here. It’s not good for her.”
“She needs to prepare for it,” my father says, and his words make me pause, my fingers icy as they hold my pencil.
“Perhaps,” my mother answers, and she sounds so sad. “But not yet. She doesn’t need to face it yet.”
There is silence and I wonder if my father is comforting her, as I so often see him doing. He holds her close and murmurs into her red hair, and his voice is low. It always works.
In a minute, though, they continue.
“As much as I hate it, I think we should spend more time at Whitley. The atmosphere is quiet there. It’s good for Calla’s mind.” My mom is quiet, her voice thin.
My father doesn’t like the idea, I can tell. “And you’ll have to spend more time with Richard? Laura, please. The reason we came here was to get away. We have to participate, but we don’t have to be with them every day of our lives.”
Participate in what? I don’t even realize I’d whispered out loud, until I receive an answer.
“I know,” a voice says, and my head snaps up.
In the corner of my room, a boy stands, his hood pulled up and shadows covering his face. He’s tall, he’s slender, he’s familiar.
I don’t feel afraid, although I probably should.
“Who are you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” I answer firmly, and I think he smiles. I can barely make out the curve of a lip.