Hereafter

by Terri Bruce

  She tossed her purse onto the table, unbuckled her watch and necklace, and tossed them on top. She got a glass from the cupboard and mixed herself a gin and tonic. She glanced at the blinking light on the answering machine and did a double take. Fourteen messages? How could she possibly have fourteen messages since last night?

  She checked the caller I.D. Sure enough, dozens of missed calls. Alexia. Work. LaRayne. Alexia. Work. Work. Work. Alexia. Her mother.

  She hit play.

  “I hope your headache is as big as mine,” Alexia said the first time, in the subdued voice of one with a throbbing hangover.

  The first message from her boss contained irritation. “Irene, it’s past ten. Wondering if you’re coming in today.”

  LaRayne’s message was simply, “You are the devil.”

  “Yo! What the fuck? Where are you?” There was no real anger in Alexia’s second message, just mock indignation. “Been trying work and the cell all day. Please do not tell me you called in sick. I dragged my ass out of bed this morning. Not cool!”

  Her boss’s tone had changed to concern by her third message. “Irene, I hope everything is okay. I’m really worried since I haven’t heard from you. Please call me as soon as you can.”

  Confusion almost hid the regular absent-minded vagueness in her mother’s frail voice. “Irene? This is your mother. Somebody from your work called asking if you were okay. Well... call me, I guess.”

  The last message was also from her mother. “Irene... I do wish you’d call.” Her mother sounded both worried and annoyed.

  Unease prickled under Irene’s skin. She took a long swallow of her drink. She had planned to take a nice, long bath, but she should probably check on her mother first. She headed back down the hall, intending to go upstairs and change her clothes, but the sight of mail cascading through the mail slot brought her to a halt.

  “What the...?”

  The mailman had clearly already been by once today. What was he doing back again? Setting her drink absently on the hall table, she slipped and slid her way through the pond of mail to the front door and wrenched it open. The front stair was empty. She stepped out and looked around. The mailman was casually making his way down the street.

  “Hey!” she shouted, but he continued unabated. She started down the steps and then realized her feet were bare. She turned to go back into the house but paused, mid-step. Something seemed out of place. She scanned the driveway, Jamaica’s yard, the street. Then she looked up. The sun was shining brightly overhead, as if it was mid-day, even though it must be late afternoon. She was no Galileo, but even she knew that at this time of year the sun should be much nearer to the horizon.

  She ran back into the house, searching for a clock. She started toward the living room, remembered the microwave had a clock, and changed directions toward the kitchen.

  She stared at the unwavering blue numbers, glowing iridescently against the black of the microwave with rising panic.

  Eleven o’clock? How could that be? It was two o’clock when I woke up in the car.

  She paused—no, that wasn’t right. She hadn’t woken up in her car. She had woken up beside it.

  That couldn’t be, either. Maybe she had pulled over to be sick. Maybe she had thrown up and then passed out right there on the side of the heavily trafficked main drag that was pretty much the only way into Boston from here.

  How had no one seen her or stopped to help or call the police?

  The date rape scenario flashed through her mind again.

  Her heart began to pound. She tried to quash the rising panic. Get a grip, she told herself.

  She went through the house, looking for her watch. She found it on the kitchen table.

  Two o’clock, it insisted.

  She shook it and then held it up to her ear.

  Nothing.

  “Crap,” she said aloud, her shoulders drooping with relief. The watch was broken.

  She probably would have had enough time to get to work after all. She pursed her lips in frustration, feeling stupid. “Double crap.”

  A niggling bubble of doubt floated to the surface. What about all the voicemails? Donna had called three times and her mother twice, all before eleven a.m.? That didn’t sound right. Plus, there was the mail.

  She shook her head. No. No way. This had to be a joke.

  It had to be

  She left the kitchen and sprinted up the stairs to the bedroom. Carelessly, her movements frenzied, she pulled clothes out of drawers and changed her clubbing dress for a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. She shoved her feet into a pair of flip-flops and fled for the front door. She only just managed to remember her house keys before closing the door behind her. She walk-jogged the four blocks to her mother’s house with grim determination, keeping all speculation and worry tightly suppressed.

  When the mustard-yellow aluminum siding of her childhood home came into view, she suddenly felt foolish and thought about turning around and marching straight home. What, exactly, had frightened her? What was so scary about a lot of voicemails and a big stack of mail?

  She worried her lip with her teeth for a second. Well, since she was here, she might as well check on her mother.

  Irene skirted the front of the house, heading for the back door. Some leftover teenage resentment made her avoid the hated front door to this day. She remembered her angry flood of tears when she’d seen it and the matching shutters the day her father had brought them home. She had been twelve.

  “Why can’t we have white? Brown and yellow? Together? It looks like dog poo.”

  “That’s enough out of you. Why don’t you go to your room until you cool off,” her father had said in that gentle, unruffled, authoritarian way of his. Disguised as a suggestion, it was, nonetheless, a command. She’d flopped down on her bed in a sulk that had lasted for a week, until it had faded away to join the stock of smoldering resentments she had cherished throughout her adolescent years.

  Irene glanced absently at the yard. The last of her fear evaporated, replaced by long-standing exasperation. The grass needed mowing. She sighed.

  Ever since Irene’s father had died ten years ago, her mother had not been able to keep up with the yard or the maintenance on the house—or, for that matter, day-to-day requirements, like paying the bills on time. Weeds sprouted up through cracks in the asphalt driveway and the paint around one of the Cape’s dormers was peeling badly. Irene had concerns about the condition of the roof, too.

  People had started to notice the neglect. Nice Mr. MacKenzie next door had taken to trimming the grass whenever an aura of abandonment pervaded her mother’s house and that helped—at least, with all things lawn related.

  It wasn’t enough, though, and her mother wouldn’t let Irene hire someone to help. “Oh don’t fuss so, Irene. I’m fine,” her mother said every time Irene brought it up. What she really meant was she wanted Irene to do it. Irene didn’t understand the logic—it was better that it didn’t get done than to have a stranger do it? She suspected her mother thought Irene had a lot of free time on her hands, time she was greedily keeping to herself.

  What else did the woman want? Irene had given up her apartment in Boston because it had been too hard to make the daily trips back and forth that were necessary in order to take care of everything that had fallen on her to do. There was only one Irene to go around and not enough hours in the day to do everything.

  Irene pulled out her back door key, but as usual, it wasn’t necessary. Lately, her mother had taken to forgetting, among all the other things, to lock the back door. It sprang open when Irene twisted the knob. She sighed again and stepped into the house, rapping on the door as she entered. “Mom?”

  Irene crossed through the kitchen that time forgot: teal-blue kitchen, Barbie-pink bathroom, and all the modern conveniences and kaleidoscope colors of the post-war era.

  Irene found her mother in the living room, as expected. However, she was on the phone instead of watching TV. Something serious must have
happened. It was time for “the soaps” and someone had to be dying for her mother to miss “her shows,” as she called them. Good God, had someone died? That would account for all the phone calls.

  Irene rapped on the living room doorframe to get her mother’s attention.

  “Hey,” she said in a subdued voice, not wanting to interrupt the phone call. Her mother didn’t seem to notice. Irene stepped forward and stood right in front of her.

  Deborah looked at her lap, twisting the phone cord between nervous fingers. “No, nobody’s heard from her.”

  Irene reached out and tapped her mother’s shoulder. “Mom?”

  No acknowledgement.

  “Well, Irene can be thoughtless...”

  “Hey! I’m standing right here.”

  “... but she would never go away without telling me,” Deborah continued, as if Irene hadn’t spoken.

  “Mom?” Irene’s voice faltered. “Mom?” She leaned down so she was eye level with her mother. Still, her mother didn’t look at her.

  “Mom? Give me the phone.” Irene reached out and tugged the phone out of her mother’s hand. Deborah made a wild grab and pulled it back.

  “Hello? Are you still there? Oh, I’m so sorry. I just dropped the phone. It just slid right out of my hand.”

  “What? No, Mom, that was me!” Irene clamped a tight lid on her rising fear and confusion. She needed to call Aunt Betty. Something had clearly happened to her mother. A stroke, maybe? An aneurysm? Something. No, not Aunt Betty—nine-one-one.

  Wait, does this constitute an emergency? Her mother wasn’t bleeding or unconscious.

  Irene gave herself a mental shake. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She could drive her mother to the emergency room—Salem Hospital was just down the road.

  “Okay, Mom, stay here. I’m going to go get my car and I’ll be right back. I’m going to get you to a doctor.”

  She ran across the living room, flung open the front door, and raced down the stairs. Her flip-flops slapped the sidewalk as she pounded down the street.

  Two

  Irene’s heart raced. She was running blind, without any other thought than to get her mother to the emergency room. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a boy appeared in her path. She veered around him, intending to continue on, but something about him made her skid to a halt. She turned around to look at him and realized he was staring at her, his face a mask of astonishment, his mouth hanging open.

  “Hey kid, watch where you’re going,” she said, more confused than annoyed.

  He was maybe fourteen and nearly as tall as her, at that “beanpole” stage, as her grandmother had called it—the tall and scrawny look of one growing too fast. The little bit of his face visible under a curtain of straw-colored hair was pointed and sharp—cheekbones, chin, and nose. His hair, cut in an asymmetrical bob that left it longer in the front than the back, was parted on the side and hung in his face, concealing his left eye. Somehow, the way one washed-out hazel eye was visible and the other hidden reminded her of Pete, the dog from the Little Rascals.

  She realized he hadn’t moved a muscle and was still staring at her gape-mouthed.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked.

  He gave a little shake of his head, as if he was doing a double take. The motion caused the curtain of hair hanging over his eyes to sway. “Yeeesss,” he said in a slow, cautious, drawn-out way.

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  “Well, it’s just, because... you know. You’re...” He trailed off.

  Irene narrowed her eyes. “I’m what?”

  The boy turned beet red and took a step back, giving a hard gulp that made Irene fear he had swallowed his tongue. “Well... dead,” he stuttered.

  Irene looked around sharply, scanning in both directions. She expected to see kids jumping out at her with squirt guns. It sounded like the kind of thing they’d do. They would soak her and shout, “Ha ha, got you! You’re dead.”

  Only there was nowhere to jump out from. There weren’t any trees or parked cars here, only Mr. MacKenzie’s lawn, cut with Stepford-like precision, in one direction and the Robella’s confusion of flowers, which had progressed from neat raised beds to tangled jungle over the years, in the other.

  Irene turned back to the boy and looked him up and down with a critical eye. He didn’t look like a troublemaker—he was dressed neatly in khakis, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and sneakers. The exposed wrists and ankles—the telltale signs of a boy growing too fast for his clothes—and the dusting of freckles across his nose helped to cement an air of vulnerability and sincerity. She pursed her lips.

  “Okay, you know what, smart ass? I’m having a bit of a personal emergency at the moment—my mother is having a stroke or something. You might want to remember that next time you decide to try and play a joke on someone.” She turned away, ready to move on, but his voice, vibrating with hurt, stopped her.

  “It’s not a joke. You’ve got the... the... aura, like the book said. That means you’re dead.”

  “I what?” Irene’s voice rose in disbelief. Reflexively, she looked down at herself. There did seem to be a faint flicker around her, a pearly blue-white, sparkling like faded opals. Her heart began to beat faster. She spun around.

  “What the...? Did you put something on me?”

  He blinked at her, surprise opening up his face, and his mouth formed an O again. “So you don’t know that you’re dead? Huh.”

  “I’m not dead!” she cried, throwing up her hands again. “Stop saying that.”

  Some of his surprise seemed to have worn off and now he studied Irene with relaxed interest, seeming to assess her much the same way she was assessing him. He balanced on one leg and scratched the back of it with the sneakered-toe of his other foot. “I’m really sorry,” he said, and he really did sound sorry.

  For some reason, his sympathy frightened her more than anything else. She backed away, shaking her head in disbelief. Then she whirled away from him and fled, racing for home.

  Behind her, she heard the sound of sneakers slapping pavement. She looked over her shoulder and saw the boy, at an unhurried pony-trot, following her.

  She slowed as she approached her driveway. The boy came to a halt beside her.

  “Stop following me,” she said, unafraid but exasperated, as if speaking to a stray dog. Somehow the scrawny, pale, interested boy was about as frightening as toothpaste.

  “Car accident, huh? That sucks.”

  She stared at him. He was studying her house and yard with the same rapt fascination with which he had regarded her.

  “What? What are you talking about?” However, as she glanced at her car, she could see that it had the same pearly blue glow that seemed to surround her.

  The boy shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “I’m not dead!” she shouted in exasperation, but her heart was thumping uncertainly.

  Then how did you end up on the side of the road? a small voice inside her head asked.

  He frowned at her. “You didn’t kill yourself did you?” he asked doubtfully. “I heard how you can kill yourself by sticking a hose from the tailpipe into the car—”

  “Of course I didn’t kill myself. Jesus!” She shot him a look of deep disgust. “And I’m not dead.” Despite her words, the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach worsened as she looked at her hands and arms again, confirming that the weird glow was still there.

  Something dark in the grass of Jamaica’s yard caught her eye. Kitty was lying with his head cushioned on his front paws, a droopy, depressed look on his face. Jamaica must be home.

  Squaring her shoulders and shooting the boy another look of reproach, she marched up Jamaica’s front walk. “I’ll prove it,” she said, more to herself than to him.

  Kitty’s ears perked up and he jumped to his feet, watching Irene. He gave a small, inquisitive growl and thumped his tail again. Irene mounted the steps and rang the bell. Kitty followed her movements with interest. As the doorbell chimed
, he let out a short bark and his tail began to wag furiously.

  A sound behind her made her turn her head. The boy had followed her up the stairs.

  “Why are you following me?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. You seem kinda... lost. Like you might need some help.”

  “Well I don’t, so go away. Shoo!”

  He retreated to the sidewalk. Irene rang the bell again.

  “Coming!” Jamaica called from inside.

  The boy was still there, watching her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I want to see what happens.” His tone intimated that he was expecting it to be something, if not exactly bad, at least interesting and possibly quite amusing.

  Irene sputtered incoherently. The door opened, interrupting anything she might say.

  Jamaica frowned and then leaned past Irene to look in both directions, calling out, “Hello?”

  Irene waved a hand in front of Jamaica’s narrow, angular face. “Jamaica! Can you hear me? Hello?”

  Kitty barked again and turned in a small circle, quivering with excitement.

  Jamaica stepped back, as if preparing to shut the door. Irene heard her mutter, “Odd” under her breath. Without thinking, Irene put a hand to the door to stop Jamaica from closing it.

  “I don’t think you should do that,” she heard the boy say.

  Jamaica frowned at the stuck door. She pushed harder, trying to force it past the resistance. Irene stood firm, holding the door with both hands. “Jamaica,” she pleaded, “come on, you have to be able to hear me.”

  Jamaica pulled the door open again and Irene’s heart leaped, but Jamaica only peered at the front of the door, looked down at the threshold, and then tried to shut it again. Irene pushed back even harder, trying to wedge the door open enough to slip into the house. As soon as she put a foot over the threshold, Kitty let loose with a rapid-fire burst of high-pitched, staccato yapping like machine-gun fire. He launched himself at the fence, barking furiously.

  Jamaica yanked the door open. “Kitty, stop that! Stop it!” She bolted down the stairs. “Kitty! Naughty! No!”