Authors: Brian Mercer
Aftersight (3 page)
Becky
Brewster, New York
May 12
Gwen stood back from the door, her eyes widening then narrowing. "Becky? Is that
you
?"
I smiled self-consciously. "Oh, it's me, all right."
"I didn't recognize you at first. You look so... different."
"I hear that a lot lately."
Gwen grabbed my hand and tugged me into the house. "You've lost weight."
"Yeah. I've been dropping the LBs like a girl on a three-finger diet."
Gwen usually saw me in designer clothing, heavy makeup, heels. I'd always been a little plump, but not anymore. The Becky that stood before her was slender and shapely. Just a few brushes of blush to outline my newly defined cheekbones. A blue sweater. Capris. Flats. Not a hint of jewelry except a simple stainless steel watch with a plain leather band.
"You've straightened your hair."
I pulled the ponytail from the back of my head and examined it. "Nope. Somehow the accident knocked the curl out of it."
"I always loved your hair but..." She smiled sincerely, nodding, "you look good. Really good."
Gwen and I had been friends since we were seven, when what you wore or where you lived counted for nothing. We'd met at summer camp in upstate New York. "Summer friends" was how we described our relationship, because we rarely saw or even e-mailed each other during the school year, but always managed to reconnect in June.
Gwen pulled me further into the house, where her mother was reading in the kitchen. There were more greetings, more amazed gasps at how different I looked. They made me spin around to show off my new figure. When her mother retreated upstairs, Gwen and I settled in the family room where floor-to-ceiling picture windows looked onto a backyard filled with a ruddy golden sunset.
I took a long pull on the glass of soda that Gwen offered me, the ice tinkling pleasantly as I cradled it in my hands. "I can't tell you how good it is to be here."
"I'm so glad you came. I was petrified when I heard about the accident. Did your mom tell you that I visited you in the hospital, when you were still out of it? They wouldn't let me see you, of course, but I did want to be there."
I smiled and tried to laugh, but it came out sounding breathy and tired. "She did. Thank you. And thanks for the cards and flowers. They meant a lot."
Something unseen that seemed to connect Gwen and me snapped into place the way it always did when we reunited for the summer. We fell into the easy talk of old friends whose trust is understood. I'd forgotten how much I missed this, how long it had been since I'd connected with another human being. I loved the hypnotic rise and fall of our voices, the comfortable exchanges, the effortless repartee. It was so nice to talk about nothing: boys, school, summer plans, what college might be like in the fall. Gwen was going to Rutgers. I had missed a good chunk of the spring term but by some miracle I was on track to graduate. I was still contemplating my options.
"It's funny," Gwen said, pressing her tongue along the side of her teeth contemplatively, "you look so much younger and at the same time you seem more mature."
"Yeah, Life After the Accident," I replied, my eyes losing focus. "It's only been five or six months, but it seems like an age. Sometimes I feel like an old lady." I met Gwen's gaze and smiled mischievously. "And sometimes I feel like that whiny girl at camp who cries the whole time for her mommy.
"Mom and Dad think I'm possessed," I added. "Sometimes Mom talks like I died in the accident. Dad actually said, 'Maybe you need another whack on the head, see if we can get the old Becky channel. Hey, maybe I can tune in the game.'"
"No! He actually
said
that?"
"He did. Thinks he's funny. His way of relieving the tension, I guess." I breathed deeply and let it out in a low, shaky exhale, trying to swallow the moisture building up in the back of my throat. "All my friends dumped me." My cheeks were suddenly hot with tears.
"Hey,
I
haven't dumped you."
I stopped myself and took another quick breath, trying and failing to shrug off the crying fit. "You know, I don't need those hyenas. Right after Christmas, when we got together just before the accident, it was like nothing
real
mattered. All I heard were laundry lists of all their new clothes and jewelry and gift cards." I met Gwen's eye. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that's the way I was, too."
"I wasn't thinking that."
"Well, I
was
like that. But not anymore." I reached for Gwen's hand and squeezed it. "I haven't had anyone to talk to, I mean really
talk to
, since all this happened." I bit down on my tongue to hold back fresh tears. "There's stuff I haven't told anyone. Not the doctors, not my shrink, not even Mom. I've gotta unload."
"You can tell me."
"You've got to swear you won't repeat this. Not to anyone. Promise me."
"I swear. I promise."
I gazed at Gwen, steeling myself. It was time, at last, to reveal The Big Secret. "That night at the party, the night of the accident, I think I really did die."
"What do you mean?"
"I had one of those near-death experiences."
I waited for the mocking laughter that would have been the response from any one of my old friends, but Gwen just looked at me. "It's okay, you can tell me. It's safe."
"I'm still fuzzy about what happened just before the accident." I closed my eyes, trying to conjure the hazy pictures from the blackness. "I remember driving along. I remember Johnny was holding my hand. A bright light. Then the next thing I can piece together was me standing on the side of the road.
"I was just... standing there. It was butt-cold that night and there was dirty snow piled on the edge of the highway. I should have been freezing, but I wasn't. Our car had turned over and it was like lying in a kind of ditch. The front was completely smashed in and the windows were broken. I remember the glass. There was glass everywhere.
"I could see one of the boys in the front seat; Bill, I think. He was hanging partially out of the car. I was seeing all this but I wasn't really thinking. I was like shell-shocked, you know?"
Gwen shook her head. "I don't get it. If you were standing by the side of the road, how did you get so hurt?"
"That's just it. The police said they found me
in
the car with half the back seat wrapped around me. I
couldn't
have been standing by the road."
A warm softness filled me. "It was⦠peaceful. Perfect peace. Peace and what? Peace and I want to say, relief. Like, you know, it was done.
I
was done. It's all gonna be okay now.
"I don't remember everything. A lot of that first part is still hazy. For a long time everything was like all globbed together. It took a while to sort out. Actually, I'm
still
trying to sort it out.
"I know my Great Nana Mary was there, my mom's grandmother who died when I was a baby. I'd never really met her, you know, but I'd seen pictures. She told me she'd been kinda watching out after me. I guess she still is, maybe.
"And there was this man." I pressed my hand to my forehead as if I could push out everything that had happened so I could see and make sense of it. "This older man. He was like a tour guide or a concierge or something."
"Was this heaven or a hotel?" Gwen joked.
I smiled. "Yeah, I know. Really.
"No, he was like... like a really nice teacher." I put my hand on my heart and patted it. "He was
so
nice. It was like being with the sweetest grandpa you could ever imagine. And he was telling me things, about me, about my life. I don't remember all of what he said, only that what he told me didn't make me feel sad or ashamed, only that I could do better, you know. Like I had let myself down."
"Maybe he was a relative of yours,” Gwen suggested, "like your Great Nana Mary. Someone you've never met before."
"I don't think so." I shook my head. "He seemed to be with me for most of the time. I remember walking through like this neighborhood with him, the most beautiful and peaceful neighborhood I'd ever seen. It was full of tall, really old-looking trees. Everything was green and lush. And there were these big houses, like old-fashioned mansions, all along the street. It was very quiet and
so
peaceful. Being there, it was like being able to totally relax for the first time. It was like I was finally home, you know?"
I closed my eyes, trying to remember the next part exactly. "I have these fuzzy memories of talking with a lot of people. Their faces were
so
familiar. I knew them and they seemed to know me, but for the life of me, thinking back on it, I couldn't tell you who one of them was.
"Then finally this grandpa guy, the one who'd been showing me around, he tells me that I have to go back, that I hadn't done what I'd come to Earth to do.
"I was like confused, you know, 'cause I'd almost forgotten about my life as Becky. By then Becky seemed like a dream and like I'd finally woken up and the dream was fading.
"I told him, 'Are you kidding me? I'm not going. I'm staying here with you and my friends.' But he said no, that that wasn't what I agreed to when I'd decided to be born as Becky. He told me â and I remember this clearly â he said that I had something very important to do, that I was gonna help a lot of people."
"Wow," Gwen said. "This is huge."
I smiled and my eyes filled with tears again. "But I still didn't want to come back. I begged him, 'Please let me stay.' And that was the last thing I remember. Then I was in the hospital, but I didn't recognize where I was or how I got there. One minute I'm in this amazing, happy place, and the next I'm in a bed with tubes and wires coming out of me and this awful, foggy pain that never seemed to go away."
"How long were you gone?"
"I don't know. It's hard to tell how much time passed, you know, Over There. It could have been hours, days, weeks. Mom said I'd only been out of it for like three or four days, but somehow it seemed like I'd been gone forever.
"My parents, my therapist, they think all my freaking out is 'cause of survivor's guilt. And I guess it is, kinda. I
am
sad that the boys died and I didn't, but not because I wish they'd made it.
"I just miss it, you know? I want to go back. The feeling of being Over There..." I shook my head. "It's like, since the accident, everything's different. The days are drab and dismal. Colors are duller. Food has no taste.
"Since I got back from the hospital, it's like wherever I go, all I can do is take on other people's garbage. I'll go out to eat or to the mall and it's like there are a thousand voices in my head and everyone's trying to talk to me at once. It's like all I can do is
feel
and I can't turn it off. I can't shut it out."
"I think I'd go nuts," Gwen said.
"If you only knew. I know this isn't gonna make any sense, but it's almost like a little bit of the person I was before I was Becky came back with me. I know how weird that sounds, but it's like I'm remembering things about who I was
before
.
"Do you ever feel like something big is just about to happen? Like, you know, there's something out there that's gonna change your life but you don't know what it is? That's what it feels like. Like my life is gonna change.
Again
. Gwen, I'm so scared. I feel like I'm going crazy, I mean really, truly crazy. Like those guys you see on street corners when you go into the city, screaming at people who aren't there. I don't want to end up like that. I'm afraid I'm gonna end up like that."
Without thinking about it, I started chewing on my ponytail. A new habit.
By now it had grown dark outside. The ceiling-high windows that looked out onto the backyard had for years been curtainless. Now they looked out into blackness, a void reflecting the image of Gwen and me sitting on the couch. The windows felt like watchful eyes. I sensed the presence of people beyond the glass. Not just the disembodied Jenny, who liked to announce herself at moments like this, when I was just a little bit rattled. No, it felt like the presence of many people, maybe a dozen, maybe more, standing out there in the dark.
"What time is it?" I looked at my watch, tapping it with my fingers. "This dumb thing. This is my third watch this year. I put 'em on, they'll work for a few days, then they stop working. I take them off and put them on the dresser and within a week they start working again. I put 'em on and â blam! â broken. They work on the dresser but not on me."
"What do you mean 'What time is it?' Who
cares
what time it is! You mean to tell me you've been walking around with all this for months and months and you haven't told anyone?"
I leaned over, peering through the door to the kitchen. "Eek! It's past eleven. I've got to go."
"Becky, you can't drop this bomb on me and just leave!"
"I know. Sorry. But if I don't get home soon, Mom's gonna call out the third battalion." I looked at Gwen imploringly. "This is the first time I've been out alone at night since the accident and Mom and Dad are kinda freaked out."
"Your
phone
still works, doesn't it?"
I smiled. "It does."
"Then call me. We'll figure this out, 'kay?"
"Okay."
****
I started the car and put it into reverse. Gwen stood under the porchlight, waving. The night had a chill to it. A misty circle formed an eerie halo around the light, matching Gwen's pretty green aura that all night I had perceived clean and bright around her. I waved and backed out of the driveway, "Grandma slow," I teased myself, accelerating up the dark, quiet street.
Lampposts formed hazy tents of light at even intervals along the road as I edged the car down Oak Street and onto Main. To my relief, the sense of presence that I'd felt earlier began to recede, a feeling that I was leaving an unseen gathering of watchers behind in Gwen's backyard.
I slowed the car to a halt at the traffic light where Main Street met Brewster Avenue, feeling as ridiculous as I always did when I stopped for red lights late at night, when no one else was in the vicinity. A light fog had gathered in the trees behind the T-intersection, forming dreamlike rifts in the darkness. I felt a strange sense of déjà vu, thinking back to the night of the accident and the long car ride home. I would be glad to be home, safely tucked in bed.
The traffic light flashed green and I started to turn left onto Brewster when something caught my eye. It was the figure of a teenage girl standing in the street, just off to the side of the intersection. Even in the dim light, I could make out her torn jeans and the hooded sweatshirt flipped up over her head. Her features were just visible where the edge of my headlights touched the side of the girl's face. Dark tufts of black hair framed a pale, somber expression. Her eyes were two black holes masked in shadow. She wasn't doing anything, just standing there, motionless, staring at me.
When the girl's eyes brightened in the glare of my headlamps, our gazes connected, as if the girl could see me, even in the darkened cab. I felt an instant connection with her. There was something imploring in her expression, as if she was reaching out to me for help.
That first jolt of seeing someone standing, where they had no business standing, quickly turned to pity. It made me think of myself stranded at the party all those months ago, relying on strangers for help. Here I sat, facing a girl who might be in exactly the same situation that I'd been in. For just a second I had the impulse to stop and ask if she was okay, maybe even offer her a ride, but whatever charitable instinct had possessed me quickly gave way to a commonsense left turn onto Brewster. I felt utterly relieved to step on the gas and accelerate away.
I avoided the turnpike, driving northeast on Milltown Road over the border into Connecticut, then southeast down into Danbury. I was still skittish of traffic, especially at night, and though this route would take maybe ten minutes longer, it kept me sane.
The fog thickened the farther I moved into the country. It condensed in misty clusters of grey before tattering away to clear patches, when the silvery curtain parted long enough to reveal the road for short stretches.
I'd worried that the trip home would be filled with flashbacks of the accident and the moments leading up to it, but now I found myself thinking back to the girl in the street. Who was she? Had she really needed help? I couldn't shake the girl from my head.
As I made my way into Danbury, the fog thinned to the consistency of a soft, swirling haze. I took the car off the main road and onto the sleepy side streets leading home. Just a few more blocks now.
It was too late to call Gwen tonight, but in the morning I would e-mail her. It was a huge relief to share the story of my otherworldly experience at last. Who else but Gwen could I trust? Gwen knew me well enough not to think I was crazy, but if something had gone wrong, I wouldn't have to face her right away. I still didn't know how she'd react when I told her about the disembodied voice of Jenny, but I had the feeling Gwen would accept it with the same unblinking cool she had tonight. Finally, I'd have someone to talk to and help me figure all this out.
I eased into the driveway and put the car in park. The big old house looked dark and asleep, but I knew better. Mom would be waiting to hear the front door open and my footsteps climbing the stairs. I was kind of keen to hear those sounds myself.
I made my way up the walkway through the gloom, fumbling with my keys at the front door, when something drew my attention back to the car. It might have been the clicking sound of the engine cooling, or the indefinite shuffling of shoes on gravel, or a dim movement out of the corner of my eye. Whatever it had been, I wasn't prepared for what looked back at me.
There, standing a few feet away from the car, in perfectly solid, three-dimensional clarity, was the hooded girl I'd left fourteen miles behind in Brewster, studying me from the road.