Replay

Chapter 5

5

“Hey,” Beth said, plopping her backpack onto the porch and sinking into the wicker chair beside mine. She was careful not to come anywhere near my leg, outstretched on the padded wicker footstool.

“How was school?” I asked.

“The usual. Seriously,” she said, pointing to the plate of cheese on my lap, “is that all you’re ever going to eat anymore?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe not.”

She reached into her backpack and brought out an assortment of chocolate bars, fanned out in her hands like playing cards.

“From that bakery by Dad’s,” she said.

“I could totally marry you right now.”

We didn’t gorge. Beth and I set up a proper chocolate sampling station on little table between our chairs, and we took our time working from one end of the selections to the other. The hazelnutaisin combo. White and dark chocolate swirls. Milk chocolate over cookie with a caramel center, and plain milk chocolate that was anything but plain as it melted on my tongue and went directly into my blood stream and knitted together some of the gaps I’ve been feeling between nerve endings that have been making me so jittery lately.

By the end of the third bar I felt warm again. Almost happy. I didn’t realize how cold I’ve been these last few days—really, ever since I came back. It’s like my blood still hasn’t even returned to room temperature yet.

“I have a theory,” I told Beth, because I’d just come up with it and felt like telling someone besides myself. I’ve been alone inside my head for too long. It felt good to talk again.

“Let’s hear it,” she said with her mouth full.

“I think when you die and you come back—”

Beth’s eyes widened ever so slightly. I’d introduced the D word.

“—I think after that you’re assigned one section of the alphabet, and you have to eat off of it the rest of your life. I obviously got the ‘ch’s. Cheese, chocolate—”

“Oh, right,” she said, “so, Chex Mix, Cheerios—”

“Chick peas—”

“Chives—”

“Chestnuts,” I said.

“Chicken—”

That stopped me. “No. No chicken. Ever. No meat of any kind. That sounds repulsive.” Until I said it, I didn’t realize that’s how I felt. Considering that I’ve always eaten anything and everything—in massive quantities sometimes, depending on how long and hard I’ve pushed it all day—it was as much of a surprise to me as to Beth.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just the thought of eating flesh right now makes me want to gag.”

“Maybe you’re more . . . sensitive,” Beth ventured, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I could see she wasn’t sure how far she could go. My parents must have said something to her before about all her questions. “You know, since . . .”

I ripped open the chocolate macadamia nut. “All right, Bethie, ask.”

“Ask what?” she said all innocently.

“I know you’ve been waiting. So go ahead.”

“Really?”

I nodded, and she launched right into it.

“Okay, so do you still feel weird? I mean, you’ve been all spaced out ever since you came back. Half the time I don’t know if you’re in a trance or sleeping or what. I mean, we talk to you and it’s like you can’t hear us or you don’t care or whatever. And then sometimes I can see you’re talking to yourself, but your lips don’t really move, it’s just your eyebrows crinkle up, or you shake your head or frown or act like you’re having this really intense conversation with someone. Can you see people now? Like, dead people? Are they talking to you?”

I snorted. “No.”

“Because it’s okay if you are,” she assured me. “I won’t tell Mom and Dad. But I just wonder what’s going on, you know? I mean, you died. You were really dead—no joke. You could have stayed dead. Is it one of those things where you have to actually decide if you want to come back?”

My head was starting to hurt. Maybe it was the chocolate rush, maybe it was so many words all at once after a full week of relative quiet. But I couldn’t just blow off my little sister again. I’m sure I’d have been just as curious if she were the one who had died.

So I gave her a little something. “I don’t think it was my time yet.”

“Yeah, but how did you know?”

Because I met a woman or an angel or some sort of celestial being, and she told me I was only there for a little while so she could basically talk some sense into me and then slap me on the butt and send me home. And someday, Bethie, when you die, you’re going to go to this strange place where you’ll play cards with a bunch of blobs of light, and that’s how you’ll find out everything you’re supposed to be in your next life. Isn’t that cool? Doesn’t that freak you out? Now let’s have some more chocolate.

But I didn’t say any of that. Because a part of me thinks maybe I’m not supposed to tell—maybe everyone is supposed to find out for themselves. And another part of me thinks it’s hard enough to deal with all that when you’re sixteen, and I don’t really need to burden my little sister with it.

And a part of me just plain thinks it’s private. Maybe I’m selfish. Maybe I want to hold it close to me as long as I can.

“Bethie, I’m getting kind of tired—”

“Oh, okay,” she said, clearly disappointed. She swung her legs over the arm of her chair and started to stand up.

“Sit,” I said between my teeth. A car had just pulled up.