Corn bread was on the table and beans in a kettle black.
Life was so simple, now that I look back.
Momma would sit in her rocker with her Bible on her knee.
Singing Amazing Grace and Only Believe.

My memories are of Momma, out working in the fields.
Oh how she’d sweat to feed us every meal.
I thought she’d live forever, till we laid her beneath that tree.
I choked back a chorus, of Nearer My God To Thee.

Now I live in the city, far from that rural life.
I thought I’d leave behind, a life of toil and strife.
But I’d trade my Mercedes and my condo by the sea,
If I could hear just one more time, my Momma sing for me.

Jiao Fu, Senior, Pine Manor College

Sai Wang, Freshman, Pine Manor College

Jiao Fu, Senior, Pine Manor College

Jiao Fu, Senior, Pine Manor College

Stephanie Maglio, Sophomore, Salem State College

Sai Wang, Freshman, Pine Manor College

Jiao Fu, Senior, Pine Manor College

Jiao Fu, Senior, Pine Manor College

Sai Wang, Freshman, Pine Manor College

Jiao Fu, Senior, Pine Manor College

My homeland, my nation, my country took a bad hit from this earthquake, but deep down I know that we shall overcome and get past this tragedy. The power of prayer is what makes my homeland stand strong and united at a time like this. "Ayiti Cherie," I’m praying for you and for all the families of Haiti. As Haitians we are all family and must stand strong together. The words on my flag, "L'union fait la force" mean "unity makes strength" or "strength from unities." Just as the American dollar bill says "In God We Trust" my flag has powerful words on it. As I lay my head down, from my mouth to the ears of those heavenly skies, I whisper these words silently:

Dear Lord,

Hear the prayers and cries of my nation and send us the help we need. Open up those heavenly angelic golden gates. Accept the fallen angels of this devastating tragedy with open arms. Send the guiding light of that North Star to the ones who can’t find their way and bring them back to their loved ones. Amen.

The sound of prayer is silent compared to the cries of my nation because I know they are loud and heartbreaking, but as a nation shall get past this day. We will rebuild and become stronger and more united because through tragedy comes strength. As Wyclef Jean said "We felt the earthquake, we felt the earth shake, but the souls of the Haitian people will never break." My flag may be drenched right now from the tears of my country, but these tears will be water for the seeds that have been planted for us as Haitians to grow strong and overcome. Lean on me, Haiti, and hold on.

A trail of a Cigarette’s stench would catch my nose as I would race all the way to the third floor. My miniature fists would bang the large door as loud as they could but no one would answer. “Uncle Jeffrey! Open the door!” I felt a smack on my bottom, “Stop yelling Princess, your grandfather is sick!” My brother laughed at my punishment. I whispered to him, “That didn’t even hurt”. I knew she heard me, as she pointed at me with warning. She continued to knock on the door, and with a quick response the door flung open. My uncle greeted us and we would follow him to grandpa’s room, where he laid with tubes sprouting out of his chest.

A year later the visits to his house turned into visits to his hospital room. Though at the time I didn’t know what was wrong with him, I knew that the hospital was for sick people and I hated being there for that reason. As I would enter the bland room, tears would drop from my eyes. My pace was sluggish as I slowly walked toward his bed. The man that I saw on the bed was not my grandpa. He was very frail and thin. The full grey and black beard I once knew was thinned out and short. His face, wrinkled and worn from age, was unrecognizable. He put his weak hand out, reluctantly I took it. He died when I was eight.

Though my mother avoided it since his funeral, one day she finally found the courage to go to his house and clean what she could. My brother and I went with her. We all walked slowly up the steps when we got to the top the door was opened already. Uncle Jeffery sat lonely in the kitchen as he flipped the old photo albums of lost memories. Mommy sat beside him. The house was desolate.

We went to Grandpa’s room. The walls were bare and the dressers were cleared of all his personal possessions. His bed was still made with the plain white sheets. We kicked our shoes off. My brother’s shoe landed under grandpa’s bed. “You better get that shoe, you lose everything, and mommy will be mad when you can’t find it.” He scurried under the bed and came back up with a small wooden box with a gold clasp in the front. “That isn’t your shoe, Papa” I said to him.

Grandpa gave him that nickname. He handed me the box and went back under the bed. The aroma of mint escaped as I unclasped the box and opened it. A card that read A-L-I-E-N

I-D at the top was the first thing I picked up. A youthful man was in the photo on this card .The name read Jepheth Clarke, which was my grandfather’s name. I then pulled out a tiny folded Jamaican flag made of cloth from the box. A grey and white photograph was the next thing I found and in it were two girls and three boys including grandpa. Another picture was also in it, but it was more recent. There were young children and their faces were very familiar to me. It was my mother, Aunty Lisa, Aunty Monica, Uncle Jeffrey and Uncle Manley. All of them stood on white sand with Caribbean beach behind them. A miniature bible was also in this box. As I flipped through the pages a mint leaf, once tucked in the book of Matthew, flew away and drifted on my brother’s back- still hunched with his head under the bed. In the very middle of the bible was another photo of babies, which I recognized as my siblings and I.

A golden heart-shaped locket was hanging from the middle crease of his bible. My grandmother was on the left side and there was grandpa was on the right side. And at the very bottom there was a preserved cigar still sealed in its plastic wrapper. “Found it!” my brother said with his shoe in his hand. “What’s that?” he asked me as he picked up Grandpa’s ID. “I don’t know but I think grandpa was an alien” I said to him. We took the box to my mother and uncle to make some sense of our confusion.

She put me in her lap and Uncle sat my brother into his lap. They began to tell us stories of their past. She explained to me that grandpa was an immigrant and the card was an Id that was given to him once he left Jamaica to come here to United States. Here he met his love Nana, my grandmother and made a family. There were many things that they recognized in the box, like the photo that they had taken at the beach when they were in Kingston, Jamaica and even the picture with grandpa and his siblings. It was good to see them happy at this time of grief. My uncle raised the cigar and said, “Daddy saved a cigar, this is amazing”. My mom replied, “That man never learned, and we told him to stop smoking.” It grew silent. The tea kettle was ringing. Uncle Jeffrey got up to retrieve it and poured it tea into my mom’s cup. She took the cup and smelled the steamed. “Dad sure did love mint tea.” Uncle Jeffrey poured the tea into his mug and said, “Dad loved all of us.”

I am an only child. We lived in a shotgun house that used to be a museum. We owned a flower shop next door that was at one point a fried chicken restaurant. My dad worked as a landscaper, while my mom would tend the shop and gardens. I wish I had a picture of our gardens. They were so beautiful. Once I heard a girl walk in and exclaim, “I’ve seen this in a dream before!” This made me feel like a princess, living in paradise. We lived in downtown Pass Christian, next to two parks, a Catholic elementary school, the town library, a variety of restaurants and retail shops, and of course- the beach. I had a happy childhood with the exception of loneliness. I was never popular in elementary school because I never had any gel pens like the other girls, and I had bad handwriting. I think they all thought I was retarded. It was a small Catholic school with swirling stairs. The church in front of it looked like a big white triangle. Daredevils would climb to the top and skateboard down it. After the storm I would climb on the roof the school and watch the sunset by myself. They eventually knocked it down because they could not pay for repairs. I was sad.

The bare trees, properties with no homes, the burning heat, and smell of death were horrific and new to me. One house would be gone, completely eliminated, like ours. Then the next one would still have a structure and frame. Then, the next one would only have minor flooding and roof damage. We lost our home and business. A monstrous 40-foot tidal wave blew through them, the police had to kill a hammerhead shark on our parking lot where I used to spend hours of my childhood coloring with chalk. I wanted to get the hell out. So, I moved in with my cousins to the hill country of Texas, a town called Wimberley. It is a land of creeks, mountains, hills, and cypress trees, I saw the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, I floated down rivers without using any of my strength to swim, and I met some of the most interesting people. It was so much fun. My cousin’s are like my sisters. I have three of them- Mallory, Natalie and Erin. I wish I could see them more like I used to. My parents eventually made me move, after three or four months of high school there. They said that they missed me. I was just really pissed. When I moved back we lived in a trailer behind a horse barn behind a mansion in the middle of the country. A friend we evacuated with let us stay there. FEMA trailers were not great places to be. I would walk all the way to the bus stop every morning to be harassed by elementary school children making fun of my clothes. I never complained because I always saw worse conditions from different people. After the storm my dad became a social worker with disaster relief, and my mom worked for Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. My best friend lived in a tent outside a trailer park that smelled like meth. Those were some of the best times of my life though. No one gave a flying fuck about anything. That’s all I am going to say about that.

Two years later, we finally rebuilt our house. It was a two-stories, the top floor was an apartment for my mom and me, with a huge porch and an accessible flat roof, where I still spend many nights contemplating life, staring at the stars. The bottom was supposed to be an Internet café with a laundry mat, something that my town really needed at the time. However, my mom and I lack the funds to make it work. Now, she hosts yard sales in the bottom space. We are currently trying to rent our top floor apartment out because the taxes and insurance are ridiculous living on the coast.

Unfortunately, right after we rebuilt, my parents thought it best to send me to boarding school, the Mississippi School of Math and Science. I always tried hard in school, but my mental state was deteriorating. At the time I had applied there I was suffering severe depression and anxiety. I had lost 20 pound because I just could not look at food anymore. I would get the worst mood swings; I stopped hanging out with friends and would just yell and cry almost all the time. They did not want to deal with it anymore, so they sent me off. It was a good opportunity and was nice for a while, but I was not free. I wanted to be able to smoke cigarettes without sneaking off campus and I hated living in dorms; all of my roommates and I never got along. I missed my best friend, Mary; she is the only one who had ever understood me. I stayed for a year, then left to go home. My parents welcomed me with open arms.

Life happens, it comes at you fast and hard. Everyone suffers, everyone experiences loss, but we as Americans live better than almost every human in history. When people complain about nonsense I shake my head, I have seen and heard of people crazy off drugs, starving to death, living in tents with no AC during the hot summer days and cold winter nights, dying of poisoning in trailers, digging up dead relatives, and the list just goes on. I have also met some of the greatest and most influential people in my life, volunteers who dedicated their days to helping others and they still do too. The coast is still suffering from a storm that hit four years ago. My dad still works with people trying to get fair housing for those in need. The storm affected everyone in the coastal area for the better or worse. I like to think that it affected me for the better. I learned to value what I have and accept my obstacles. I can never fully explain the extent of how and why the storm changed us, but it definitely did.

At one point in the night, a conversation on homosexuality came up.

“I like gays,” one girl said.

“Me too,” another chimed in. “I don’t care if anyone here was a lesbian. I’d be ok.”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m not gay. But I’m ok with it.”

Everyone around the tent began to chime in. They all said basically the same thing; they weren’t gay, but they were friendly to gay people.

But then it was my turn.

“I’m bisexual,” I said.

The tent was deadly quiet.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I like both guys and girls.”

There was a pause.

“You know, I think bi people are really greedy,” said the girl who insisted that she wasn’t gay. “They want both.”

“No, that’s not it!” I protested.

But it didn’t matter. For the rest of the week, they avoided me as if I were a leper. It was the last year I went to camp. But more importantly, it was the last time I felt safe telling people my sexuality.

My experience as a bisexual girl has not been traumatic. My difficulties and my pain has not been nearly as bad as what others have suffered. But I’ve still been enormously frustrated with the world around me and how it reacts to bisexuals.

Here’s the problem: society only sees two groups. No matter how you view the struggle for Gay Rights, most Americans believe that people fall into two categories: heterosexual or homosexual. And that’s the problem. Bisexuals fall in between gays and straights, mostly attracted to one gender more than the other. Somehow, we remain inconspicuous.

But we’re not that way by choice. Even though we are the B in the LGBTQ community, we’re not exactly welcome all the time. Many gays and lesbians believe that bisexuals are just confused or coming out of the closet. A gay man once told me confidently that my bisexuality was “just a phase” and to talk to him in a few years when I’ve figured it out.

No. That’s not the way it works.

And of course, the straight community isn’t entirely welcome either. What bisexuals face as a group arguably isn’t as bad as what the LGBTQ community faces as a whole, we still deal with a lot of subtle difficulties. For example- most dating websites don’t have an option for bisexuals. When facing Match.com, I can’t even answer the first question: I am a woman looking for a – man or woman? There is no in-between. Television also has a scant lack of bisexual characters. The only two I know of is Jane, from the BBC sitcom “Coupling”, and 13 from “House.” Not very good examples either. Jane is an idiot and 13 only enters same-sex relationships when she is acting self-destructive. The only public area I know of that accepts bisexuality is Facebook.

That isn’t to mean that there aren’t any places that accept bisexuality. But in my limited experience, these are the roadblocks I have faced, and it’s frustrating.

I am a bisexual woman. I am not confused. I am not experimenting, I am not going through a phase, and I am not being greedy. Don’t ask me to choose. Can a gay man choose to be gay? Can a straight woman choose to be straight? Don’t ask me to choose when they can’t. As a bisexual, I face ridicule from my family, my friends, and my community. So please, don’t judge me. Just accept me for who I am. Look around you. The world isn’t black and white - there are enormous and lovely shades of gray in between the two. And that’s where I and every other bisexual fall – into a lovely shade of gray.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do (what does one do when one’s dead, anyway?), so he sits down on the cleanest cardboard box he can find, leans against the dirty brick wall, and waits. Anna’s killer is dressed in all black, and dark hair pokes out from underneath the black cap on his head. His eyes are determined, and he works mechanically. Anna watches with morbid fascination as the killer peels the white shirt off Anna’s limp body and, with strange surgical precision, cuts into his chest, extracting his heart from between his cracked, splayed ribs. He places his heart in one of those insulated lunchboxes, places that in the small red cooler that has been at his knees this entire time, and closes it with a snap. He leaves the alley. All this in under ten minutes.

Anna considers crying, but he doesn’t. Instead, he sits there. He’s there when the first rat creeps tentatively from behind a cardboard box and scurries toward his body’s leg, nose twitching as it weaves up his thigh, towards his open chest. He’s there when a policeman walks by on a routine patrol and nudges his cold shoulder with his toe (what the fuck, he thinks), there when more squad cars arrive, there when the crime scene technicians begin examining the scene. He’s there when the medical examiner takes his body away on a stretcher, there when the police finally call his mother, and he’s there when the police finally pack up and leave. He’s there, staring at the yellow tape and the white chalk outline until he feels a tap on his shoulder.

“Hi.” A boy with kind brown eyes smiles at him from under a mop of black hair. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Late for what?” Anna regards him curiously, and the boy rubs the back of his neck, smile going sheepish.

“You know you’re dead, right?” Anna nods numbly. “I’m here to take you away. Into the afterlife, whatever you want to call it.” He shrugs.

“Oh.” He stands up, brushes his jeans off, and accepts the boy’s outstretched hand.

“Luke,” he says.

“Anna.”

“Well, Anna. Nice to meet you.”

“So…what is this?” Anna kicks a pebble as they walk down the sidewalks, and starts when it skitters across the pavement. They’ve been walking for hours now, taking all the routes that she knows by heart: school to the gelato shop she works (worked) at a couple of blocks away, the gelato shop to her favorite restaurant on the Lower East Side, the restaurant to the theater downtown that Benjamin had taken her to for their first date, and then they just wander. They don’t go anywhere near Anna’s home.

She knows that no one is supposed to like being dead, but simply walking down the street is discomforting. Noticing people see right through him as She walks down the street next to Luke is discomfiting, frightening, forces her to recognize what She doesn’t want to.

“What’s what?” Luke stops in front of an ice cream vendor’s cart and holds a finger up. Anna looks around; no one else seems to notice the cart: their eyes slide from the brick building behind the vendor to the boutique one unit down. The sky above them is fading, a slow progression as dark blue melts away into dusky gold.

“This.”

“The ice cream cart?” Luke raises an eyebrow while handing the vendor money, and the vendor laughs. “Thanks, Jinki.”

“Forget it,” Anna mutters. She jams his hands into his pockets and walks off, and She hears Luke’s light steps as he chases after him.

“Hey, hey.” Luke grabs his arm. “Look, I’m sorry. I was kidding. I’ve been dead for a long time, okay? I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in your position.” He unwraps the ice cream bar and offers it to Anna, and Anna takes it grudgingly.

“It’s not about being in my position. I just…don’t understand this place,” Anna says quietly. She and Luke are walking around Central Park now; the sun is rising slowly, and Anna can see the flecks of brown in Luke’s eyes, beads of slowly melting frost on individual blades of grass, and the silhouettes of tall, proud trees.

Luke slips his hands into his pockets and tilts his head back, squinting against the intense light. “What place?”

“This…afterlife.”

“Who said this was the afterlife?” Luke’s tone is teasing. “It’s not. It’s easier to call it that, and I guess in a sense it is one, but it’s more like a layer over the world that we know. Everything that you know is still here, and still the same, it’s just people that are alive can’t see us, hear us.” He smiles distantly. “Want to sit here for a while?”

Anna sits down, legs splayed out. The grass feels dry though it looks wet. Luke lies back beside him and takes his ice cream back.

“Any questions?”

“About what?”

Luke shrugs. “Being dead.”

Anna studies her feet. She’s wearing her favorite pair of ballet flats; the funny thing is, she doesn’t even remember getting dressed that morning. She reaches back and runs her fingers through her hair, smoothes the creases in her T-shirt, touches the frayed hems of her jeans. “A lot,” she admits. She breathes in deeply. “Why am I here? Is there a reason? Did I do something wrong?”

“I couldn’t tell you that.” Luke closes his eyes.

“What’s this body I’m in? Is this what my soul looks like? Or my spirit?” Anna tugs on the hem of his shirt. “Am I really wearing this, or is this just another layer? How am I sitting on the ground? Wouldn’t I just fall through? I mean, like, the ice cream guy? Did the cart come with him?” She pauses. “I’m pretty sure I walked through a person on the way to the ice cream cart.”

Luke sits up. “No living person can see you; you had to have noticed that.” Anna nods. “It’s animate versus inanimate, and conscious versus unconscious. You’ll walk through people when they’re awake, you’ll be able to touch them when they’re sleeping. You can sit on anything you want, stand on anything you want, but gravity doesn’t apply if you don’t want it to.”

“So it’s whatever I want it to be.”

Luke laughs. “Not even close.”

“Then what is it?” Anna smoothes his hair down, flicks his bangs out of his eyes. It feels different.

“It is what it is. You’re in and then you’re out. It just depends on how long it takes.”

Anna frowns. “That’s not a real answer.”

“Well,” Luke says, after some thought. “Maybe I don’t have all the answers.”

Anna’s silent for a moment, before opening his mouth hesitantly. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure.”

“How long have you been dead?”

Luke laughs. “Eight years. I was nineteen. I tried to save my dog when our house caught on fire.”

“Oh.” Anna traces circles in the grass. “That’s noble.”

“I guess.” Luke throws a blade of grass at him. “She lived.”

Luke dozes off, leaving Anna alone for half an hour. She’s only guessing on this, because the hands of his watch have stopped at 2:06. She watches people mill around the park as the last rays of sun disappear behind skyscrapers. There are other people like him and Luke here; She watches a small girl walk through a mother, but crash into the stroller the mother is pushing. The girl falls to the ground, looking like she’s on the verge of tears, but the mother keeps walking, oblivious.

Luke finally wakes up, produces a deck of cards and offers to teach Anna how to play gin rummy, and She agrees, because it doesn’t seem like there’s anything else to do. This also gives him more opportunities to question this not-afterlife She’s landed himself in.

“Am I allowed to visit people I left behind? Like my mom. I haven’t seen her since…this morning. Or my boyfriend? I was supposed to call him when I got home, and he’s going to worry that I haven’t gotten back to him yet.” Anna examines the cards in his hand, avoiding Luke’s eyes. She pulls one from the fan and slaps it down on the picnic table, and Luke studies it, sighing heavily.

“You’re forgetting that you aren’t alive,” Luke says, looking at his own cards. “You shouldn’t visit them, anyways; makes moving on easier.”

“I should’ve at least been able to go to my funeral or something, right?” Anna says, watching as Luke puts a card down and chooses another one. “I just need to know that they’re okay.”

“You actually don’t.” Luke frowns, eyebrows knitting together.

“Then what’s the point of me being here?” Anna throws down his cards, ready to throw a tantrum like she hasn’t since she was six. “Do I have a mission? Do you have a mission?”

Luke shrugs, the tilt of his mouth indifferent. “This is my mission.” He slaps a card face down on the table. “Rummy. I guide souls—whatever—and take care of them until they’re ready to move on.”

“So I do have a mission,” Anna says. “Otherwise I would’ve moved on by now, right.”

“Or,” Luke says, taking Anna’s cards from her hands and slowly shuffling the deck, “you’re just not ready to.”

Anna narrows her eyes. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You just do. Who else do you have here? Bottom line,” Luke says definitively. “You’re not supposed to drop in on anyone. It won’t make it any easier for you, and it won’t make it easier for them, either.”

What would you know, Anna thinks defiantly. Luke’s eyes bore into hers, and she looks away.

Anna escapes the next chance she has, and checks in on Benjamin. She’s there just in time to watch as Benjamin’s mother slowly opens the door to his room and steps in, phone still clutched in her hands. Anna watches her mouth shape words, watches as Benjamin, who has been sitting at his desk (cell phone in hand, waiting for Anna’s call, she realizes) stares at his mother in disbelief before his shoulders slump and shudder with sobs.

This is a relationship in retrospect, Anna tells herself as she crouches on the fire escape. She shies away when Benjamin climbs out through the window and unknowingly sits next to Anna. Benjamin’s fists are clenched in the soft cotton of his sweatpants as he stares out at city skyline, and Anna wants nothing more than to hold his hand and tell him that she’s fine, more or less. I can’t touch him, she remembers, as she tells herself not to cry.

She does anyway, smoothing her fingertips over Benjamin’s forehead as he sleeps, pressing away persistent wrinkles and watching his face slacken as he slowly falls deeper and deeper into sleep. His breathing is shallow and there are dark circles under his eyes, and it is only when he’s sleeping that Anna allows herself to cry. Her tears drip from his cheeks to Benjamin’s, and Benjamin mumbles Anna’s name in his sleep.

“He can probably see you in his dreams,” a somber voice says from her right.

Anna jumps and turns to see Luke.

“Can he?” She’s expecting to be scolded, and she closes her eyes, wiping her cheeks defiantly, but nothing comes. She opens an eye.

Luke turns to him and smiles lopsidedly. “Who knows? But it’s nice to think of it that way.”

Anna nods, unsure of what to say. “It is.”

She drops in on Benjamin again when Benjamin visits her grave the next morning, after the funeral, which Anna doesn’t go to. (The idea of attending her own funeral is weird to her, despite having wanted to go earlier.) Benjamin’s suit jacket hangs loosely on his skinny frame, and a bouquet of birds of paradise—her favorite flower—dangles from his fist. He kneels in the wet grass and dirt and places the flowers gently at the base of the tombstone. Anna perches on the tombstone and watches him.

“Hi,” he says after a while. “I know I haven’t been here in a while, but my dad’s been trying to ‘snap me out of this’, whatever that means.” He shrugs. “I don’t get how you snap someone out of grief, but I guess if anyone can do it, it’s my dad.” He pauses, and Anna notices the tears that have started trailing down his cheeks. “I miss you. A lot. And I wish you’d let me walk with you that day instead of saying that you’d be fine on your own, and I wish I’d insisted and not let you go alone. And I know it’s mostly my fault that you’re dead right now and I wish”—his voice breaks—“I wish I could get you back. I had a dream about you last night, you know. We were at the ice rink at Rockefeller Center, like our first date, after the movies, but no one else was there. And we were just…skating. And it felt so nice. We were holding hands, and it’s like I could feel that weight in my hands for real, just like every other day that you weren’t…dead.” The tears are running unchecked down his cheeks, dripping on the lapels of his jacket. Anna reaches forward to push the hair from Benjamin’s face, and jumps when her fingers pass through Benjamin’s hair, his forehead. Anna recoils, looks at her hand curiously, and watches as Benjamin rubs his tears away with the back of his hand and runs his fingers through his hair in apparent frustration.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers weakly. “I could have saved you.”

This is more than Anna can take. She slides off the tombstone and runs.<

“I told you,” Luke says, bumping shoulders with Anna. Anna buries her face in her hands and wills herself not to cry.

“It was different from just watching him sleep. Hearing him talk was…” She trails off. Luke wraps his arm around Anna’s shoulders; it’s heavy and surprisingly warm.

“Of course it’s different.” Luke laughs lightly. “Hearing them talk always is.”

“He blames himself,” Anna says after a beat. “He shouldn’t, though; it’s my own stupid fault. He offered and everything, but I told him no, and I just…”

Luke looks at him passively. “So you’re not going to visit anyone else, right?”

“You’re not mad?”

He shrugs. “You’ve got to learn for yourself, don’t you?”

“Yeah. No,” Anna says numbly. “I’m not going to visit anyone else. I don’t think I could.”

He’s lying. Anna checks in on his mom the next night. She’s still grieving, though not as intensely as she had the night that Anna died. His dad is calm, composed, and probably keeping it in for his wife’s sake. Anna’s grandmother died a year ago. He hasn’t seen her on this plane and naively assumes she has passed on.

“You said you wouldn’t do this again.”

Anna shrieks and almost falls off the grandfather clock. “What’re you doing here?” he hisses, indignant.

“Making sure you don’t do anything stupid,” Luke says with a glare. “I shouldn’t have to babysit you.”

“I’m getting closure.” Anna crosses his arms and watches his mom move around the small kitchen, turning off the rice cooker and adding salt to the pot on the stove.

“This isn’t closure.”

Anna raises an eyebrow. “I’m learning for myself.”

The look Luke gives him is half exasperation, half genuine anger, and wholly pitying. Anna hates it.

“If you want real closure,” Luke says, “your killer’s dead.” He hoists himself off the clock and lands on the ground neatly. “Talk to him. It’ll help.”

“Do you need help?” Anna’s dad asks below them.

“No,” Anna’s mom replies. “I don’t.”

His dad looks at his mom uncertainly. “Are you sure?”

“Just go,” his mom snaps, and his dad recoils slightly.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

“My killer?” Anna looks away from the exchange and at Luke.

“He died last night.” Luke shoves his hands into his pockets. “Go talk to him.”

Anna looks at him skeptically.

“You’re lucky in that sense,” Luke says. “At least you have someone you can question.”

“I’m lucky I was killed?”

Luke shakes his head. “Go talk to him,” he repeats quietly. “It’ll help.”

Anna follows Luke out of the apartment. As he walks through the door, he hears a dish shatter. When he looks back, his mom is crouched on the floor, crying and picking up the pieces.

Her killer’s name is Sean. He’s twenty-three, tall, handsome, and looks entirely unapproachable. He’s sitting on a bench in Central Park, hands clasped in his lap as he looks around the deserted park.

“He died two days ago,” Luke tells Anna as they walk toward Sean. “In a knife fight. The police found his body in an alley.”

The irony doesn’t escape Anna. “Who’s his guide?”

“Guide?”

“I have you, right? You’ve been helping me this whole time.”

“I’m not really a guide.” Luke shrugs. “I’m just making sure you don’t fuck up.”

“You’re a liar, too,” Anna says casually. Luke eyes him, but says nothing. “I don’t want to talk to him,” Anna says decisively. Luke looks at him expectantly, and Anna sits down right there, on the jogging path. “What am I going to say to him? Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Anna, by the way you killed me?”

“You need to come to terms with the fact that you’re dead,” Luke says, crouching beside him.

“Who says I haven’t?” Anna traces shapes in the dirt, avoiding Luke’s eyes.

“The last time I visited my parents was six years ago.” Luke sits down across from him, crossing his legs. “You have to understand: your parents are your connection to the real world. Once of you let go of them, and all the other people you love, you can move on.”

Anna swipes at the dirt it’s smooth again. “You’re still here. You haven’t moved on.”

“I’m here because I have to be,” Luke says, when Anna opens his mouth. He takes Anna’s hands in his, squeezes them reassuringly. “I just know that doing this is a good thing. Honest.”

“But how do I know I can trust you?” Anna asks, again, and Luke’s expression softens.

“You really don’t have anyone else, other than me, do you? Listen, I was like you when I died, but I didn’t have a guide. I kept going back to my parents, kept checking in on them and seeing how they were doing and then one day, bam, I’m told that I’ve got 150 years of guiding to do. You don’t want to be like me.”

“So there is a god?”

“Fuck if I know.” Luke smiles. “What I do know is that you need to do this.”

“Okay,” Anna breathes. “Okay.” He gets to his feet, dusts off his jeans, and looks down at Luke. He nods encouragingly, and Anna walks to the riverbank.

Sean looks up when Anna stops in front of him. Sean’s eyes are arresting, but Annas pushes this thought to the back of his mind as he extends his hand.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Anna. You killed me.”

Sean’s lips tweak up at the corners. “Hi, Anna.”

“Did you regret it?”

They’re under a tree, a safe distance apart. Anna picks at blades of grass idly while Sean lies back with closed eyes, arms folded under his head.

“Hmm?”

“Killing me. You were alive for longer. Did you feel guilty?”

Sean sits up. “Isn’t that kind of a given?”

“No,” Anna says. “You’re not acting it, at least.”

Sean looks at him appraisingly, and Anna meets his gaze. “I did. I’m Christian.”

Anna presses her lips together and squints at him. “I know.”

“I felt guilty,” he concludes.

“That’s not a given,” Anna says. “If you’re a human being with a conscience, you would feel guilty. You don’t have to be Christian for that.”

He looks at her appraisingly, and Anna squirms under his gaze. “What’re you?”

“Religion-wise? Buddhist. Do you think I’m a heathen?”

His glare is sharp. “God accepts all.”

Anna scoffs. “Sure.” There’s an uncomfortable silence, which he breaks again. “Okay, really. Why’d you kill me?”

Sean regards him coldly. “I needed the money. Black market, you know.”

“No,” Anna says. “I don’t. I’m not…like that.”

Anna can almost see Sean’s temper flare. “Like what? Desperate?”

“You’re getting mad at me for being mad because you killed me?” Anna regards him coldly.

“I have a younger sister. Had,” Sean revises, looking away. “She had leukemia, and we didn’t have the money to pay for her treatment. My parents both work dead-end jobs. I’m barely paying for med school. We’re cut off from the rest of the family. I did what I had to.”

“What the fuck does that have to do with me,” Anna grits out. “I’m only nineteen. I have—had—a life.”

“My sister deserved the same chance,” Sean replies dully. “She was only thirteen.”

“So you took one life to save another? How is that fair?”

Sean shrugs. “It is what it is.” Anna remembers Luke saying something exactly like this, about the afterlife, and thinks that maybe life and death aren’t so different after all.

“Do you regret it?” he asks again.

Sean considers this. “No.” He pauses. “He lived.”

Anna watches him for a couple of seconds, and Sean looks away from him, as if suddenly all the righteousness has left him. “Thank you,” he says.

“For what?” Sean watches as he stands up.

“Nothing,” Anna says. “Just…thank you.” He walks away.

“Closure, right?” Luke grins up at her.

“Were you like this with all the souls you guided?” Anna glares as she sits down next to him, and he offers her his ice cream cone, presumably as an apology. “Yeah, though. I think.”

“It gets better,” he says, after a few moments of silence. “In any case, if you’re ready…”

“For?”

“Moving on.” Luke turns to look at her. “If you’re ready, just say the word.”

“You’re rushing me.” Anna frowns.

Luke shrugs. “Most people don’t want to stick around.”

Makes sense, Anna thinks. “Can I ask you one last question?”

Luke sighs dramatically but nods. “Yeah, go for it.”

“Will he get a guide?” Anna points to Sean. “I think he needs one.”

Luke seems to consider this, and then nods. “I’ll take care of it.”

Anna smiles. “Okay, and this is the last question for real: Anything I need to know before I go?”

Luke reaches forward. “Is your heart lighter than a feather?”

Anna blinks. “What?”

“Just something to keep in mind.” Luke smiles, and it is fond and reminds Anna a bit of Benjamin. “Close your eyes, Anna.”

Luke’s fingers touch her forehead, cold and solid and firm. There’s pressure, and then there’s nothing. When Anna opens her eyes, Luke is smiling gently at her. There’s something balanced on his fingertips, blindingly bright.

“Bye, Anna,” he says.

And suddenly, she’s floating.

Christine wasn’t home from work when I got there, but I found a post-it on the front door that told me to relax, unpack, make myself at home. Yours is the empty one, it said, with a smiley face. Those same smiley faces she drew next to her name when she was a kid. Big loopy letters and cartoon smiles. Maria’s so smart, you used to tell everyone. So mature. She’s the older sister at heart. Christine could learn a thing or two. Take a page from her sister’s book. Grow up.

Christine’s apartment isn’t big, just a little kitchen and a living room, two bedrooms, one bath. She has this thirteen inch TV and an old stereo just sitting on the floor, under some modern looking kind of art on the wall. No landscapes or fruit bowls, just colored lines, circles, brushstrokes all jumbled together in patterns Christine always says she can see and I never can. She has maroon throw pillows with cheap, dangly plastic beads sitting at each end of this gaudy gold couch. I hated it. I didn’t want to be there. The guest room was empty, white walls and an old blue mattress lying right in the middle of the floor. I planned on keeping it that way. I hung my clothes in the closet, short-sleeves on one end, sweaters on the other, everything else in-between. Panties, bras, socks in the top dresser drawer. T-shirts in the middle. Pants on bottom. Just like at home. Just like always. In the bathroom, I put just my toothpaste and birth control in the medicine cabinet. And I only took the birth control so when I got home, everything could pick up right where it left off. I put my toothbrush in the holder next to the faucet. Those holders, they all come with four separate holes so when you have guests, they have a place to put their toothbrush. I put my shampoo in the shower and didn’t recognize the label on Christine’s. Something French and expensive sounding, something impractical I would never buy.

I left the rest of my things packed. Hair products and books, jewelry and picture frames, I left all that in the suitcase. I brought the picture frames so I wouldn’t get homesick. I’ve never been away from Nikki for more than a week, and I wanted to see her face while I was away. But I left them in the suitcase, because I knew I wouldn’t stay long enough to need them. After that, I sat on the couch and read a book that was sitting on the coffee table. I don’t even remember the title. Christine came home about an hour later and gave me a big hug, told me she was so glad to have me. I hadn’t seen Christine in a while, must’ve been at least six months, maybe more, so of course she was happy to see me. She didn’t look much different. Her hair might’ve been a little darker, maybe a little longer, but messy as ever, even pulled back out of her face. She still wears those stupid hoop earrings, huge and obnoxious, and layers of those long necklaces that hang down to your stomach. She asked if I wanted to go out to dinner, and I said no, because Evan would probably call and I didn’t want to risk losing reception.

Evan called, but Christine had friends over and I could barely hear him over the awful music they were playing. He asked if I was with Christine. He said he read the note, but didn’t understand. So I explained to him that I had been stressed for the past couple of weeks, and I needed some time for myself. Just a little time out of the house. That’s when he started yelling. Probably because the music was so loud. Evan never yells. I told him I couldn’t hear very well. I’m sure that’s why. I thought he was angry at the time, though, so I got upset. I said things I probably shouldn’t have. I told him I wasn’t coming home for a while. That wasn’t true. I wanted to come home as soon as possible, but Evan yelled stupid things at me, horrible things. “How can you do this?” he said. “How can you leave your child? No decent mother picks up and leaves her own daughter. Without saying goodbye. How can you be so selfish?” Can you believe that? He had no right to say those things. I’ve never done anything to deserve that. So I told him to shoulder the responsibility for a while. I said he could learn what it felt like to look after another human life twenty-four hours a day. He needs to learn. He doesn’t understand. He said he has a job to do, but I have the hardest job in the world. You understand that, don’t you? I said he didn’t appreciate me. I didn’t mean that. I was upset.

Evan hung up after that. I don’t blame him. The music was so annoying and you know how ridiculous I get when I’m upset. Christine’s friends were gone, so I went into the living room and Christine offered me a beer. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I needed to relax. So I drank a beer with Christine, and we talked for a while. It was nice to catch up. We talked about stuff that happened when we were kids, like the time Rick Fletcher cut half my ponytail off with his safety scissors and Christine tied him to the basketball hoop with a jump rope. Or the time I saw her kissing Scott Carpenter on the front lawn and I thought she wasn’t breathing. I know you hadn’t spoken to Christine since she dropped out, but those stories used to make you laugh. They made me laugh too, until Evan called back. I didn’t check the number and I was laughing when I answered my phone. He didn’t like it. He asked how I could laugh while Nikki was waiting for her bedtime story. She wouldn’t sleep until she heard it from Mommy. He said he was glad abandonment brought me so much joy. He asked how I felt about burdening his mother with the responsibility of watching Nikki after school while he tried to provide for the family and I swapped stories with my deadbeat sister. Those were his exact words. He wouldn’t even let me talk. He wouldn’t let me laugh. What kind of husband doesn’t want his wife to laugh?

You see where this all started getting out of hand, right? It’s miscommunication. I try to talk and Evan doesn’t listen. He misinterpreted the situation and wouldn’t let me correct him. He thought I sat around all night, drinking and laughing and having a wonderful time. Right off the bat, he thought I took some kind of vacation, like I enjoyed leaving, like I wanted to leave. How can he know what I want if he won’t listen? It wasn’t a vacation. I went out the next day and got a job, an actual job, selling hand lotion from one of those carts at the mall. I threw myself at people and begged them to try the hand lotion, and they ignored me. They avoided me. They pretended to talk on their cell phones just so they wouldn’t have to look at me. It was horrible. I wasn’t happy, and it wasn’t a vacation. But Evan thought it was, just because I laughed when I answered the phone. He blew it out of proportion. He blew everything out of proportion.

I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t get so worked up. I’m just frustrated, because I know now where everything went horribly wrong, and I’m so mad at myself for not seeing it then. But I knew if I told you, you'd see it too. You’d realize this whole thing was just a big accident, one big mistake. Once you hear the whole story, you’ll understand, and you’ll help him understand.

I went with Christine to work the next day, because the people at the hand lotion cart only needed me every other day, and Christine didn’t want me sulking around the apartment alone. Christine works at a coffee shop now, serving all those bleary-eyed college kids on their laptops. All those doctors and engineers, authors, accountants, all sitting together feeding a caffeine addiction. Learning together. Poor Christine has to sit and watch them all finish what she started. It must hurt, but she pretends like it doesn’t. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she loves her job. She’s that good at smiling it away.

But I went with her, and I sat down and started reading that book again, the one I told you about. The one from Christine’s coffee table. And about an hour later, someone tapped me on the shoulder. So I turned around and – you know when you recognize someone but can’t remember how you know them? This woman said hello and started asking me how I’ve been, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out who she was. I made small talk for a while, and thankfully a man came up behind her and told her she was late for something, and she hurried off. And I was curious, I knew it would drive me crazy if I never remembered who she was, so I grabbed the man’s wrist and pulled him back towards my table. It kind of surprised him, I guess, because he tripped and bumped the table with his hip and knocked my book onto the floor. It was funny, because all I wanted to do was ask the name of his friend, and I caused this big scene. You know how much I hate it when people stare at me, and everyone in the shop was looking at us. That’s why I blushed, because I hated the attention. He was only laughing because it was so awkward, so bizarre that some stranger grabbed his hand. Grabbed his wrist and pulled him over just to ask a stupid question, making a complete fool of herself. He introduced himself to be polite. Wouldn’t you introduce yourself to someone after nearly knocking them to the ground? His name was Sam.

The woman was his sister, Lisa McManus. Her maiden name was Dell. She went to my high school. Her mother Charlotte ran the concession stand at basketball games.

Christine said she saw what happened, but it was lunchtime and the shop was busy. There must’ve been at least twelve people in line. It wasn’t like she was standing around doing nothing. She doesn’t know what happened. You know how Christine gets. She makes such a big deal out of everything. I even told her the whole story when she asked. I didn’t have anything to hide. I didn’t do anything wrong. But Christine sees what she wants to see. It’s not my fault she’s unhappy. We’re all unhappy. That doesn’t mean we need to go around telling lies.

I tried to call Evan that night, but he wouldn’t answer his phone. I thought I’d give him a few days to cool off before I tried again. I couldn’t force him to talk to me. There was nothing I could do.

I planned on taking all the money I made at the hand lotion cart and spending it on Nikki when I got home. The man in charge told me I was a natural salesperson. He said I could make a good living selling things if I wanted. They only needed me every other day, though, so I went to the coffee shop on my days off. What else was I supposed to do? I would’ve made myself sick sitting alone all day, thinking about Nikki and Evan and how unhappy they were because of me. I would’ve gone home right then, but Evan didn’t want to speak to me, let alone see me. So I went to the coffee shop, just to pass the time, and the man who knocked my book over – you remember, Sam – he was there again. I told you about Sam, Lisa McManus’s brother. He’s taking some courses at the community college, so he comes in for coffee every once in a while. He saw me and wanted to apologize again. He sat down because he had a little time before class and he liked the book I was reading. Like I said, I don’t even remember the title. It wasn’t an interesting book. Christine only found it in my bag because I wanted to finish reading it at home. I never stop reading a book in the middle, even if I hate it. Like you always said, it’s wasteful to not finish what you’ve started.

Sam and I didn’t talk long. He asked how I was enjoying the book, asked if I had any classes that afternoon. He thought I was a student. It was flattering. I guess if I had gone to college, I would’ve been in grad school by now. Sam’s not a full time student. He’s in the Army and going to Iraq in January. He’s a nice man. A nice kid. He’s only nineteen, practically still a child. Still learning.

I don’t have many friends, you know. The mothers of Nikki’s classmates, they think I’m so young. I don’t speak to any of my old high school friends. You remember how busy I was right after Nikki was born. And they were busy too, planning graduation parties and getting ready for college. It’s hard to keep in touch. It’s hard to make friends. Evan’s working so often and Nikki hates every babysitter I hire and there’s nothing wrong with making new friends at a coffee shop. Every day, people have coffee with other people they barely know. It’s normal. Sam’s not even a friend. He’s an acquaintance. I saw him three times. I’ll never see him again. It happens all the time.

You’d understand if you met Christine’s friends. I know she’s an adult, and she has every right to choose who she wants to spend time with and how she wants to spend it. But she’s exactly the same person she was in college. She hasn’t changed one bit. I asked if she ever thought about going back, finishing her degree, and she laughed it off. She said she makes enough money working at the coffee shop and selling her sketches to keep her happy. A few of her friends take classes at the college, and she won’t even consider it. Maybe staying at Christine’s was a mistake. I just wanted to rest for a few days, but she had friends over almost every night. She had guys over, and her bedroom was right next to mine. The walls were so thin I could hear everything. It made my skin crawl. I felt like I had bugs all over me. You can’t expect me to sleep like that. You can’t blame me for leaving. I just wanted to take a walk. It’s not a huge city, and Christine lives right downtown, right across from every bar every college kid goes to on the weekends. Running into people on the street isn’t even a coincidence there. It’s expected.

I didn’t expect it, of course, because I don’t live there. There’s no way I could’ve known. I sat down on a bench and I guess it must’ve been around two o’clock, when all the bars close, because whole groups of people started stumbling out at the same time. I wasn’t paying attention, but I heard someone call my name, so I looked up and saw Sam crossing the street. Sam from the coffee shop. I told you, he’s a nice guy. He saw me and wanted to say hi because he’s a nice guy. He likes to make people feel good by remembering their faces from coffee shops and saying hello when he sees them on the weekends. I’m sure he does it all the time. He didn’t have anywhere to be, and I didn’t have anywhere to go, so we talked for a while.

And this is where you really need to pay attention. You have to listen, because no one else will listen to me. Everyone believes what they want to believe because they think I’m young and stupid. I made one mistake five years ago. I was a good kid, I made one mistake, and no one trusts me anymore. I never lie to you. I’ve always done what you thought was best. I married Evan when he asked. I stayed at home with Nikki so he could work. I’ve given everything to my family. So you have to understand. Believe me.

I felt sorry for Sam. He asked if he could send me letters from Iraq. He doesn’t have anyone else. His mother’s dead, he doesn’t talk with his father. His sister’s so busy with school. He doesn’t have a girlfriend. But he’s scared. He told me he doesn’t usually talk about it, because if he doesn’t talk about how scared he feels, he can pretend there’s no reason to be scared in the first place. All he wanted to do was send me a letter. What kind of person would I be if I said no? I couldn’t live with myself if I said no. I gave him my phone number. I told him to call me before he left so I could give him my address. I didn’t know if I’d be back home by then. Evan wasn’t speaking to me. I would’ve explained everything, but Evan wouldn’t pick up the damn phone.

Christine jumped to conclusions. She didn’t know I had left the apartment. I walked in at three in the morning and she just assumed. The picture she found in the book the next day, Sam gave it to me because he had a spare in his wallet. It was one of those pictures with the flag in the background. He was proud of it. He wanted to give it to a friend that night, but she never showed up, so he gave it to me instead. He wrote his number on the back in case he couldn’t reach me. You have a picture of Gary Convey fishing at Table Rock. You have his number in your address book. Does that mean you don’t love Daddy anymore? Christine’s a spoiled child who doesn’t think actions have consequences for anyone but herself. She writes stories in her head, just like the ones she wrote in high school, but for God’s sake, we’re not kids anymore. She can’t just reach down and take what’s mine because she’s older. It’s not about what’s fair or unfair. It’s about my husband and my daughter, and I won’t ignore it this time. She wants a family and I’m not allowed to have what she wants. It’s always been that way.

I can’t go home now. Not yet. I’m not afraid of Evan. I know he believes Christine right now, but I’m not really afraid he’ll leave me. Evan loves me. He always has. If he knew the whole story, he’d forgive me. For leaving. But no one knows the truth. If I show my face now, no one will look at me the same way. The mothers at Nikki’s school, her teacher, women in the grocery store, the man at the post office. They’ll talk to me like always, but I know what they’ll be thinking. I’ll see it in their eyes. No one will hear me over their own judgments. Everything will change.

I’ve given my whole life to Evan. I had his child and I married him and I love him and all I wanted was a little time to myself. A week, at the most. Why would I throw everything away for a boy I just met? Don’t you think I have more sense than that? Haven’t I always been the smart one? Haven’t I always been mature for my age? I love Nikki more than anything. More than everything. I can’t lose her. You have to talk to Evan. Make him understand. He has to believe me.

You believe me, don’t you?

As a result I always saw death as a business deal– $2,000 to the funeral home, $450 for transportation, $1,500 for a casket and another $2,000 for the flowers, cemetery plot and headstone. Overall, dying is a costly business. I never realized how many people were willing to pay more money for a mourner at a going rate of $20 per hour plus gas money even after all the essentials are paid for.

“It’s not about the money,” Carrie repeated for those skeptics out there as she stuffed a wad of cash into her tummy-control stockings. For her, even though she was paid fairly well for her services, it was about respecting those whose turn it was to journey to the afterlife. She was an eternal lover who cried for a living and enjoyed it. Go figure.

I never understood much about Carrie’s chosen profession, but the most obscure aspect was why her clients found it more important to have friends after they were dead. Regardless of the deceased’s popularity, my Aunt Carrie would shed a tear and provide a shoulder to cry on when death destroyed families.

Because Carrie had so much experience with funerals, her personal specifications were distinct: she didn’t want one. She believed it would be too cliché to mourn for a mourner. Growing up she was always available to babysit or tell an outrageous story. She was such a stable part of the family I never considered the possibility of Carrie ever dying. Like a tattoo artist with an unmarked body-- it just wouldn’t make sense. A businesswoman could never escape her own product.

When I was younger my father used to describe Carrie’s job in terms of a popularity contest. To sugarcoat the whole dying part of a funeral, he would tell me Aunt Carrie and God were close friends so it was Carrie’s job to welcome the new member to Heaven. As a five-year-old I accepted this until my older brother told me she wasn’t a friend of God’s but Satan’s whore. Of course I didn’t know who the hell Satan was or what a whore did, but I did know it wasn’t something nice by the way Cody said ‘whorrrrrrrrre.’

Later that day I climbed the stairs to the attic of our house and exclaimed, “Hi Aunt Carrie!”

Carrie sat on her bed in her mini-apartment with orange walls and yellow zebra patterned carpet. I ignored the tears that streamed down her cheeks and her scattered mess of blonde hair. Even at five I knew the difference between sad and happy tears.

Aunt Carrie lifted her head and smiled broadly. Her tears vanished, allowing her previously sullen blue eyes to perk right up. Her face looked as if she had hours to compose herself and she morphed into the energetic chipper woman I knew.

“Why do you like to cry, Aunt Carrie?” I asked hopping up onto the bed.

“It feels good to cry, Nora-bee,” she said with a wink using the nickname she coined for me the day I was born.

Years later, I believed it was like a catharsis for Carrie each time she attended a loner’s funeral. At the same time, though, I couldn’t help but ask why cry for a stranger? It was all an act, right? Fake tears and fake emotions for a fake friend, but Aunt Carrie believed it was her respect and mourning that created the peace and tranquility needed for eternal rest. Only the luckiest men and women had Aunt Carrie to mourn for them because as much as the job was an act, the emotion was real.

“Is it true you and God are friends?”

Carrie pinched my cheek. “Absolutely. He and I go way back.”

To test her I countered, “Then what’s His favorite color?”

“He loves all colors equally. God never discriminates, but I do remember Him saying something about the color orange once.”

“Okay,” I said. She knew God’s favorite color and that, to me, proved friendship.

I had a hard time seeing death as disheartening in grade school because I practically grew up in a cemetery. When mom worked at the bar, Aunt Carrie took me to work with her. It was like Take Your Daughter to Work Day only cooler. I always came back with stories no one believed. Plus I enjoyed my time more when I was around Aunt Carrie because she was bolder than a mother figure and better than an older sister. As my aunt turned on her theatrics at the sight of a coffin, I would stroll comfortably around the cemetery as if I were swinging from the monkey bars on a playground.

In 5th grade when Steve Batlin’s father died from a brain aneurysm in his sleep, I didn’t share my condolences. Instead, I slipped my aunt’s business card into his brown paper bagged lunch by tagging it to the top of his SnackPack pudding. Mrs. Lewin, our teacher, immediately called home for a parent-teacher conference. My mother ended up taking the next two weekends off at the bar so Carrie wouldn’t have a reason to take me with her.

It wasn’t that I took death lightly-- it was no big surprise everyone was going to die. I learned to read in a cemetery by sounding out the words on each tombstone. “Sleeping with the angels” became my favorite because having a sleepover with angels sounded like fun! Another one that caught my eye was “Death is only a shadow across the path to Heaven.” This epitaph sounded upbeat yet left a sour taste of darkness at the same time.

Sundays were the busiest day for Carrie and they were also the day of my travel soccer games. Unlike my mother who was never a fan of spectator sports, Carrie did everything in her power to attend each game but sometimes she would apologize by saying, “I’m sorry Nora-bee, but death doesn’t follow a schedule.” Before the 8th grade championship game, Carrie got a last minute phone call from Pastor Jeff to work a job. Bessy Westmore had been an elderly nun who died of old age in her sleep.

“I’m sorry, Pastor but I’m not able to make it,” I heard Carrie say into the phone she held between her face and shoulder. She was braiding my hair in French braids, my lucky hairstyle, before the big game.

“I understand Bessy was a beloved member of the church, but I already have another commitment.”

I turned my head. “It’s okay, Aunt Carrie, you can cry for Sister Bessy.”

She waved me off as if I made a ridiculous request and sighed loudly. “Fine, Jeff, but you owe me. One hymn, two Bible readings and ten minutes of tears then in the ground she goes. I’ve got a soccer game to catch.” We arrived at the cemetery with me in my soccer cleats and bright orange jersey and Carrie in her conservative black skirt and blouse. It was the quickest ceremony I had ever been to. Carrie’s tears seemed to slide down like the water on the slip-n-slide I played with in the summer.

When I was 14 years old, Aunt Carrie started her own consulting business because her work started to be too much for one Mourner. She made me her personal assistant so we put a Help Wanted ad in the Penny Saver and almost immediately started getting calls. Together, we began interviewing potential employees with certain criteria and a grading rubric at hand like my teachers did in school. We tested their ability to cry on demand, assessed their blowing nose ability and judged their reaction to the color black.

Ellen Schumer came to the interview in her high school cheerleader uniform and sobbed to the beat of ‘Hey Mickey.’ We thought her to be too peppy for the requiem so we dismissed her application. She cried after being rejected and we realized she was a natural! Terry Manning, the most miserable woman I had ever met, was a large ogre with mangled frizzy hair and black eyes. She was perpetually depressed, rude and snippy, yet she and Carrie worked best together.

In high school I studied the Ancient Romans and Greeks who saw funerals as a superstitious ceremony in human society. In these cultures, the absence of a proper burial became an insult to human dignity. Women had to conduct the ceremony and participate in rituals like viewing the body and giving the soul away to the much-awaited afterlife. It was common for Ancient Roman females to mourn for long periods of time sporting black veils. It occurred to me then maybe Carrie was born into the wrong century.
I explained this hypothesis to my mother and asked her to tell me about Aunt Carrie as a young girl but she dismissed me and grumbled, “You shouldn’t be reading those sorts of things, Nora.”

I was sixteen when Carrie first found out about the cancer. She organized a party and sent out invitations to the entire family inviting them to something she called “Carrie’s Will Weekend” where everyone could partake in the funeral preparations.

The entire week before, my mother complained about how morbid her sister’s idea was. “Is this really necessary, Carrie?”

Carrie answered, “If it was up to you the ceremony would be full of black, tears and death.”

I could hear my mother’s taunting voice as we sat around the dinner table-- “And the Emmy goes to…”-- but I knew Carrie’s job was not to put on a show or turn death into entertainment.

To appease Carrie we all met early on a Saturday morning at Gutterman’s Funeral Home, where the director gave us a tour of the morgue they had recently added to the basement to improve business. He also showed us sample caskets, floral arrangements and makeup styles. It was essentially a sales pitch for the dead.

“All for a low low price of….” my mother said chuckling from the back of the chapel as she, my father, and I hung behind the rest of the family. “People will do just about anything for money.”

Carrie scoped out each aisle of caskets and tested the wood by running her hand along the top of the cabinet. “I want an orange coffin.”

“I, well…” Steve, the director stuttered in confusion.

My mother sighed deeply, “Don’t be ridiculous, Carrie.”

“We tend to stick to the black, oak, and brown woods.”

“It has to be orange,” Carrie persisted.

“Why?” I asked.

“As a peace offering for my buddy, God.” She winked at me.

Ellen Schumer, Terry Manning and the rest of the Mourners that worked for Carrie arrived late to Carrie’s funeral that Sunday afternoon dressed in togas. They reeked of stale cigarette smoke and booze, a scent I had grown accustomed to since beginning college. Long sheets draped over their bodies and dangled in the mushy mud at the ceremony. Ellen came prepared with her cheerleading pom-poms and Terry with her scowl.

“Everything okay, ladies?” I asked as they joined the precession.

“Mind your business,” Terry snapped, and I smiled thinking of how many times Carrie had rolled her eyes and told Terry it wouldn’t kill her to be nice.

Even without Carrie’s lively presence and extraordinary personality, I was able to find comfort and accept her death because I could feel her spirit surrounding me. As I walked to the altar and stared into the blank faces of her friends and family, I imagined Carrie’s voice: “Now Nora-bee I’m putting you in charge. I do not want my ceremony to turn into a damn pity party.”

I looked around the crowd. I’m not sure if Terry blinked during the entire service and Ellen raised one pom-pom then stopped as if she didn’t have enough strength to raise the other. No one looked to be in mourning. They looked like college students during finals week with droopy eyes, like they were thinking too hard about trying to avoid cranial combustion.

I forced myself to climb the stairs to the microphone and stare into the orange coffin. Carrie looked like she was ready to go roller-skating in the 1950’s. Even her pink poodle skirt couldn’t distract from the fact that she would never mourn again.

“Despite her wishes,” I began, “I think we owe Carrie a brief moment of silence.”

“Should this moment of silence occur before or after the playing of ‘I’m Too Sexy?’” My mother shouted from the first row of the pew.

“Mom,” I scolded as I felt my cheeks flush, “I don’t think—”

“I’m just trying to follow protocol, Nora.”

An onlooking mortician might conclude the ceremony to be a ridiculous event of bizarre activities and roll his eyes before mocking the toga-wearing ladies and the Sesame Street balloons that were tied to the car doors of the stretch limo.

I bashfully cleared my throat because I knew how silly the words sounded as they left my mouth. “She, um, didn’t want Right Said Fred played until we lowered her into the ground.” I didn’t have a choice but to put my mother’s and my own feelings aside in order to focus on what Carrie wanted.

Nobody except my mother moved to hang their heads, fold their hands or even giggle. People just gawked into the dead abyss like robots waiting for their next order from the mother source. They looked like they had never been to a funeral before. They didn’t know what to do if they weren’t crying. Was there anything else to do at a funeral? Sing? Color? Sew? Bake cookies?

My mother’s head hung morosely chin to chest. I couldn’t not follow my own request so I joined her in bowing our heads. If I learned anything from Carrie it was her passion for respecting the dead. It wasn’t what Carrie wanted, but I knew it was what she deserved. It seemed Mom and I had finally come to a consensus. We mourned her spirit alone.

At the time, I didn’t know much about politics. I had only turned 18 the month before, and hadn’t been able to vote in the election. No one in family did, apparently. Daddy was dead-set against it. “This country’s gone to hell,” he said. “Not only is a nigger running for office, but now McCain’s got some Alaskan whore running with him? She ain’t even that pretty.” He said that mean stuff early in the summer, before he kicked me out. Before he knew about the baby.

Since Daddy kicked me out in September, I moved in with Paulie. Paulie didn’t mind. He had a steady job at the garage, and I had gotten a job at the diner, so we knew that, financially at least, we could support our baby. And Paulie’s mom was willing to help us too, if we needed it. She was happy as a clam to be a grandma, although she was a bit unsettled that we were very, very young to be parents.

On that cold January morning, I was pretty far along in my pregnancy, but I wasn’t due for another week or so. Which is why, at around 10:30 that morning, I was very shocked when my water broke in the middle of Moe’s Diner. One of the waitresses called Paulie at the garage and Moe himself drove me to the hospital. Which was very nice of him, considering how mean he could be at work.

Anyway, so we got to the hospital and they set me up in a room with a TV. Paulie got there a little after I did. At that point, my contractions were about twenty minutes apart, so in between them, we watched the Inauguration on the TV in the room.

When Paulie arrived, they were showing all the former Presidents and First Ladies walking out and sitting down. They were showing Jimmy Carter and his wife when the nurse said, “I wonder where Hilary’s sitting? With Bill or the rest of the Obama Cabinet?”

“Hmm,” I said. “Hard pick for her. Probably where the view’s better.”

Then I got hit by another contraction, and I stopped paying attention for a little while. When I paid attention to the TV again, they were showing Obama, standing inside the Capitol building, waiting to walk out and address the country.

“Look at all the people there,” Paulie whispered. “Can you imagine being out there today?”

He was in awe. Unlike my father, Paulie was a huge Obama-supporter. He even had one of those ringtones on his phone. He thought that the Obama family was the new Kennedys. I didn’t know whether or not that was true, I only hoped that things with the Obamas wouldn’t end the same way they did with the Kennedys.

Then it started. There was a prayer, then Aretha Franklin singing “God Bless America,” (and let me tell you, we had a great laugh over her hat). Then another contraction, and then I was able to hear some of the lovely song John Williams wrote for the occasion. I swear to God, that song brought tears to my eyes. It made me remember what one of my customers, a girl from Kenya, had told me once when we were talking about Obama.

“You know his name, Barack, right?” she said. “Well, it comes from the Swahili word ‘baracka,’ which means ‘blessing’.”

I remember thinking, when she said that, how ironic it was, and how much more ironic it would have been if his name has meant hope instead.

And then, the big moment. First, Joe Biden. They had to get him out of the way, and they swore him in quickly. Then, time for Barack Obama. The room was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop. Even the baby inside me was quiet, waiting for the new President.

And then- someone messed up. Next to me, Paulie’s mouth hung in shock as Obama stumbled over the Oath of Office. Later, we learned that the person reciting the Oath of Office was reciting it wrong, so no wonder Obama sounded bad. At the time, I just giggled. But it didn’t matter, because seconds later, Bush was out and Obama was in. A new era had dawned over America.

And then he started his speech. The three of us- well, four if count the baby- listened to his speech. And for the first time, I really paid attention to the politics. And I felt emotions swell inside of me. Maybe it was the hormones, but as Obama spoke, I began to feel hope. I began to feel like maybe me and Paulie weren't making a mistake. Maybe my baby would have a bright future, brighter than mine anyway. Which was good. I wanted my baby to have endless possibilities, and endless chances to rise above and beyond success and achieve dreams. And if the new President could help my baby achieve her dreams and give her a future, then I would support him.

Right around the end of Obama’s speech, the contractions started to hit more frequently. I didn’t pay much attention to the Inauguration anymore, I just focused on the birth of what turned out to be a beautiful baby girl. But those feelings I felt during the speech, all that hope, stayed with me.

And sweetheart, that is how you got your name. Hope. Because all those years ago, on a cold January morning, a man on TV gave me so much hope for your future. So Hope, go on out there and make us all proud. Me, your Daddy, and the man who gave you your name.

There's so many, like bees buzzing around
and I laugh and cry and push rewind
and pump the volume louder as they fade,
I don't want them to go away.

Not yet, not yet, my precious dears,
these little voices that echo my words,
mocking the ones I spoke to you,
torturing me with the ones you told me.

And some don't make sense anymore,
our inside jokes that lost their bottom line
sound like a foreign language I once knew,
too long ago to put the pieces together.

The chorus is coming up,
the sounds of sweet piano
and the noise of a broken accordion,
hideous and haunting, resembles
the echoes of the wails that

my heart cried out to you once.
But this is quickly replaced by
the dripdripdrip of sorrow
which once echoed off the walls of doubt.

And then the silence comes,
the break in the whispers on record,
and only one question speaks out;

I was yours, right?

But then your mouth opens, and words that burn
and words that break me come flooding out.

I feel my heart crack like eggs as the
violent bloodlust bird pecks its way out
and I start to realize that your silence was
my salvation took for granted and I wish for it back.

Sometimes, I realize always too late,
not knowing is so much better than hearing
the truth, the knife that plunges into my most
vulnerable places and draws out the best parts of me,
making me weak and hurt and wounded,
my heart limping around in my chest like a
beaten dog, your words bite just as hard.

But soon your doubt, it changed to want
Your depravity you chose to flaunt
And I took for myself the pleasures of your skin

I whisked your willful soul away
I led your petty heart astray
And watched your spirit grow ever more gaunt and thin

To keep you from their happy cries
I filled your head with empty lies
So you couldn’t figure who from where from when

And now as you’ve begun to mourn
Your love for me replaced with scorn
I’ve tied you fast with promises thick and thin

But as the light is slowly fading
I’ll no longer bear this endless waiting
While you forget all that was and been

So now as you lie broken here
No courage to stand, no fire to fear
I’ll show to you the joy that hides in sin

For cancer ate Christmas right along with mom
And never once did my mother shed tears
I slept wrapped in blankets floating on the sea
Mom slept wrapped in cancer floating on air

And never once did my mother shed tears
Mom’s flesh withered and veins drooped
Remember this body returns to the earth
Winter crept closer in cracks of the house

Mom’s flesh withered and veins drooped
Remember this body returns to the earth
Winter crept closer in cracks of the house
New spring was coming bringing with it fear

Remember this body returns to the earth
Mom will return to her open prairie
New spring was coming bringing with it fear
The weeping prairie grass grows over us all

The contour lines start with Commonwealth Basin,
you know, that side trip off of the PCT up by
Snoqualmie Pass,
then I penned in the valley,
with a dotted line of trail switchbacks
crawling up the ridge.

As maps go, this one’s in autumn
and there are tamaracks, maples, and huckleberries
in hues so fiery, they bounce off the chill in the air
that says, “Maybe snow.”
I drew some asterisks for flakes.

There’s a little lake below the trail,
with ice on the edges. In fairy tales,
water often means the subconscious,
so I scrawled a large sea monster
breaking the ice, thrashing.

I inked your spirit into the subalpine fir,
our witty jokes into the lupine,
and every piece of sadness got stuck
to the mountain blueberries.

At the top of the basin,
there’s a little point on the ridge.
No trail, but I drew it in with the crags,
the broken talus slopes that seem
like headstones.

There’s a crack
in the summit, a small crevice
that looks like an ink blot
between the wavy contours.
No wider than a billfold, really.
That’s where I hid the map.<

And if you’re still lost,
still drifting around those cold windy summits,
I hope you find it. I hope you sit down up there,
where you can see Alpental, I-90,
the North Cascades.
I hope that you pull my map from the rock,
orient yourself, and see a trail
that you can walk.