I stare down at the remnants of chipped polish on my toes.
“When your brother got hurt, I showed up to the occupational therapy wing of the hospital every day. I would wait for doctors outside their offices. I once drove three hours to speak with a doctor who had already written me to say Matt’s case was hopeless and that he would never walk again.” It’s strange, but I don’t remember my mother doing this at all. “I held his feet and would mimic the motion of walking, praying that his legs would remember. I held on for a long time, I searched for answers, but there weren’t any. Do you know what I mean?” But I think maybe she hasn’t stopped hanging on, she’s just changed what she’s hanging on to. Matt’s resurrection.
“Dad still bikes, though,” I say. “Miles and miles, and you think that’s healthy.”
“Dad’s biking…it’s a coping mechanism. It’s different. He’s not looking for anything out there on the road. He just does it and then he comes back better. The answers for him are in the act itself. It’s not a crutch.”
I nod, but don’t know how I will be able to tell the difference between a coping mechanism and a crutch.
Before she leaves, I want to ask her one thing: Will you still love me if I don’t resurrect Matt? But I can’t bring myself to say it out loud and the question becomes just one more thing to die between us.
When I check the calendar I discover that, as I suspected, the next full moon isn’t until the eve of my birthday. I check the mail and my inbox and my phone and even ChatterJaw for signs of an invitation even though I know I need to put it out of my mind until the day before my birthday, but it’s hard to shake the sickening feeling that one may not arrive at all.
I sink my head into my knees. There’s a week until the full moon. When I find the wishes, I’ll probably have only hours left before I have to make my final choice and turn in my application for resurrection. Hours and then minutes and then nothing. And I have to pray the pieces fall together—snick-snick-snick.
But worry is sinking in, pulsing in rhythm with my heart. What if my mom and Ringo are right? What if I’m holding on too tightly? Worse—what if the wishes don’t say anything important after all?
There are questions that have been nagging me, questions that maybe it’s time to start getting answered. I feel for Penny’s journal resting underneath the comforter and pull it out. Finding the wishes has always been about trying to uncover what my two best friends would have wanted. I need to make sure I have all the information I need before the clock runs out.
I send two texts, make a plan, and then turn out the lights on the beginning of the end of my countdown: seven days to go.
The sun is so strong and bright, shining directly into my eyes, that it throws the figure standing by the side of the road up ahead into total silhouette. Seashell gravel crunches under the tires as we edge off the asphalt and pull over in front of it.
“That him?” Ringo says from the driver’s seat. I’ve taken to letting Ringo drive me anytime he’s around. It’s easier on me this way, especially now that I’m seeing him more often. A couple of days ago, I listened to stories about his mother, about how she used to serve ice cream for breakfast on Fridays and rent foreign films with subtitles nearly every Sunday night before the school week began, and I think I understand something about him just a little bit better.
Then there are things that I will never understand, like how so soon after Will’s and Penny’s deaths Ringo and I could have managed to create our own inside joke, something stupid about percentages and honesty and the back of my jeans, but still it makes us laugh. It makes me laugh. And when I see him, it makes the beginning of this day just bearable enough to keep going.
I squint. The light shifts behind a row of palm trees and then I can make out the broad-shouldered figure of Harrison Vines.
“Yep,” I say, feeling like I’ve unwittingly entered the Twilight Zone. I roll down my window. “You ready?” I ask him. I’m surprised to realize that the surfer-boy-haircut-and-board-shorts look that I’ve been completely used to because of Will and all the other beach-bum guys at school looks a bit silly to me now—like a caricature—so at odds with Ringo’s style of coffeehouse cool. I look over Harrison’s shoulder to where his house, a one-story home with lawn chairs set up in the front yard, stands set back from the street. I expected his family to be wealthier. Wrong again, I guess.
“It’s been a couple of years since I last saw my uncle,” he says, climbing into the backseat and sliding over to the middle.
“No time like the present for a family reunion,” Ringo remarks, startling Harrison. Ringo twists back and extends a hand. “Ringo Littlefield, moral support,” he says by way of introduction.
Harrison returns the handshake, but he freezes when he sees the dark stain on the top quadrant of Ringo’s face. Harrison looks down and licks his lips and takes Ringo’s hand without looking him in the eye. “Harrison,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” Then to me, “I didn’t tell my uncle we were bringing anyone else.”
“Yeah, well, Ringo’s my friend, and I need a friend right now. So your uncle’s just going to have to understand. And so are you,” I add. The idea of leaving Ringo behind twists a knife in my gut. “Plus, Ringo has some personal experience with resurrections,” I explain.
Harrison glances into the rearview, where Ringo’s forehead is partially reflected. “You don’t look resurrected,” he says. It’s not exactly a compliment. If Ringo had been resurrected, the lifeblood would have slipped through the cells, including those discolored on his face, most likely leaving the skin smooth and undamaged.
“Thanks,” Ringo says with an edge to his voice. “And you don’t look like a horse’s ass, and yet…”
I flinch. With me, Ringo has always been self-deprecating, the first to point out his physical differences and embrace them. This is a different side of him. I turn and glare at Harrison.
Harrison squares his shoulders and pins them to his seat back. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I only meant…Look, I was just making an observation.”
Ringo grunts. “It’s my mom,” he says. “The one who’s resurrected.”
Harrison nods. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Well, this trip is off to a great start, I think, though I don’t regret my decision to bring Ringo along. An hour-long car ride alone with Harrison would be too weird even for this month.
“Maya couldn’t come?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.
Harrison shrugs, stretching out his long suntanned legs. “I don’t know, I didn’t ask her. Why?”