The End or Something Like That

by Ann Dee Ellis

  Trish and my mom worked at Denny’s when they were both pregnant with us. Then my dad finished law school and my mom quit Denny’s and Trish got into some trouble at a casino and had to work overtime.

  My mom was in the hospital room when Kim was born, holding Trish’s hand.

  “It was so scary,” Mom would say.

  “What do you mean?”

  Mom brushed my hair at night and sometimes I’d ask her about it even though I’d heard the story a hundred times. “They had to do open heart surgery right away. And she was just a teeny tiny baby.”

  The bristles of the brush felt good against my scalp.

  “The doctors didn’t think she would make it through the night. Her poor little body with all the tubes and the wires and the pumps.”

  Kim who talked me into putting all the lawn chairs in the pool to see if we could walk across the water. Kim who made a macaroni salad statue for the science fair. Kim who was determined to one day own her own hot-dog truck.

  Mom stopped talking.

  “What happened then?” I asked.

  She sighed. “Then, Trish was crying and I was crying. And a man walked into her room.”

  This was my favorite part.

  “He just walked in like he belonged there. They don’t let you do that nowadays,” she said. “There’s security.”

  “What did he look like,” I asked. Like I asked every time.

  “He was short. He was round. He was bald and he had a bouquet of balloons. He handed the balloons to Trish.

  “‘What’s this for?’ Trish said, her eyes red.

  “He said, ‘It’s a delivery. For you and your baby.’”

  Mom started braiding my hair then.

  “And what did the card say,” I asked.

  It said, “Here’s to many years of joy!!!!”

  Mom stopped braiding. Pulled my hair out of the braid with her fingers and smoothed it down.

  “What happened then?”

  Mom put her arms around me. “Then,” she said, “then your best friend showed she was a fighter.”

  I smiled. Kim was a fighter. She’d had surgery after surgery her whole life and she was still here.

  Fine.

  Perfect.

  Fine.

  • 36 •

  After Ms. Dead Homeyer left my neighborhood and I went inside and sat on my bed.

  My mom came in.

  She sat by me and I could tell she wanted to have a talk.

  I did not want to have a talk. I don’t like to have talks.

  I said, ”Hi.”

  She said, “Where have you been?”

  I said what I always say, “The library.”

  She said, “You were at the library?”

  I said, ”Yes.”

  She said . . .

  I said . . .

  She said . . .

  I said . . .

  She said, “I was worried about you. It’s late.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  She said, “I think I’m done letting you go off places by yourself.”

  I looked at her. “You are?”

  She said, “I worry so much.”

  I said, “I’m okay.”

  She said, “I don’t know.”

  Then I said, “I’m okay.”

  And she said, “I called Dad. He’s going to pick up a pizza on his way home.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  Then she said, “Emmy. Please tell me what’s going on.”

  I nodded. I could feel tears coming on. Like they were right there, right on the edge, and I wanted to let them come out.

  •

  But I didn’t.

  •

  Instead I said, “I’m fine.”

  She looked at me and I looked at my hands.

  Ms. Dead Homeyer said there’d be more. I had to hold it together.

  Mom rubbed my back.

  “Will you come down when Dad gets here?”

  I shrugged. “I’m really tired.”

  She was watching me. I could feel her watching me and I wished everything were different. I never knew what to say to her anymore. What to say to anyone anymore.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  She left.

  • 37 •

  My mom gave me a lecture once.

  I had to get a training bra.

  She took me to Macy’s and bought me a bra in a box that said, My First Bra.

  “Mom. I don’t need this.”

  “You do need this.”

  “Why doesn’t Kim have to get one?”

  Mom had dropped Kim off at her apartment before we came shopping. Usually Kim went with us everywhere but Mom had said, “Kimmer. Emmy and I have some business we have to attend to in private.”

  Kim had given me a look and I had no idea.

  “Okay, Linda,” Kim said. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “From me?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  Mom pulled into the lot of Kim’s apartment. “You can come over tonight if you want.”

  Kim looked hurt.

  “Can I just go wherever you’re going and sit in the car?”

  “Nope,” Mom said. “I’m sorry.”

  Mom never did this. Ever.

  So we bought a bra and in the car I said, “Why couldn’t Kim come?”

  Mom started humming and I said, “Mom?

  “Mom?

  “Mom?”

  And finally, “Mom, why couldn’t Kim come?”

  She slowed at a stoplight and then she looked at me. “Emmy. You and Kim are different.”

  I felt myself get hot and I didn’t even know why.

  She kept going. “I know this is hard to hear but things are going to change. You have different bodies. You have different personalities. You’ll be starting high school soon.

  “You can’t do everything together forever, Emmy.”

  I sat.

  We couldn’t do everything together forever.

  Or could we?

  •

  When school started, I realized Mom was right. Things were changing.

  I felt like I was living two different lives. The one where it was just me and Kim and we talked about the afterlife and Dr. Ted Farnsworth and chocolate fountains, and the one where Gabby was around and Kim was louder than usual and went to the mall all the time and wore eye shadow.

  Maybe we wouldn’t do everything together.

  •

  There was a passage in those books. I don’t remember which, but not Dr. Ted Farnsworth’s. One book said, You are never alone.

  •

  Is that true?

  38.

  I sat for awhile.

  Then I went to my computer and typed in SALTAIR DANCE CLUB.

  Immediately there were 68,900,678 results.

  The first one, a history of Saltair, said this:

  Located on the southern shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, The Saltair Pavilion opened its doors for business in 1893. The girth of the resort rested on over 2,000 pylons, driven into the bed along the lakeshore. Many of the original posts can still be seen today, over a hundred years after the resort’s initial construction.

  The Coney Island of the west, couples could visit Saltair by taking a short train ride and dance the night away without becoming victims of indecorous rumors.

  I stared at it. There was a Saltair.

  You could dance there and not become “victims of indecorous rumors.”

  Ms. Homeyer met her husband there.

  He was perfect.

  She was pretty.


  It was real. This was real.

  I googled his name, Ed Homeyer.

  This one was harder. Ed Homeyer in Culver City wants to be your real estate agent.

  Ed Homeyer, ppl directory.

  Ed Homeyer, editor in chief of Poughkeepsie Daily News.

  And then I saw it. Ed Homeyer. Carla Homeyer. Salt Lake City. Ancestry.com

  I stared at it.

  Ed Homeyer was a real person which meant everything that was happening was real.

  I’d seen a ghost.

  This was real.

  Dad came in my room then. He was in his suit and he looked tired.

  He said, “Hey.”

  I said, “Hey,” and tried to be calm.

  “What you looking at?”

  I clicked the screen closed.

  “You okay?”

  “Yep.”

  He kept looking at me, so I picked up a flyer from school that said, HOW MANY POUNDS OF FOOD WILL YOU DONATE? PALO VERDE FOOD DRIVE.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “Food drive.”

  “Oh,” he said. Then he said, “I got chicken alfredo pizza. It’s downstairs.”

  I said, “Is there bacon?”

  He said, ”No. I forgot the bacon.”

  I said, “That’s okay.”

  He closed the blinds.

  I wished he hadn’t closed the blinds.

  He said, “Emmy. What’s going on?”

  I said, ”Nothing.”

  He said, “Nothing?”

  I said, ”Yeah. Nothing.”

  He said, “Your room is pretty bad.”

  I said, ”Yeah.”

  He said, “It seems like maybe you should clean it up sometime.”

  I said, ”Yeah.”

  He said, “It’s really messy.”

  I said, ”Yeah.”

  He said . . .

  I said . . .

  He said . . .

  I said . . .

  He said, “Okay. I’m going to go back downstairs.”

  I said, “Okay.”

  He said, “Your mom and I are going to watch a movie. You should come down.”

  I said, “No thanks.”

  He sighed and I thought maybe he’d try to talk to me too. Like Mom.

  But instead he just turned and left.

  And I was relieved.

  • 39 •

  It didn’t work on my birthday. Kim didn’t appear and I’d done everything right. So then I tried her birthday—only two months after mine. September.

  I reread the chapter on visitations and special occasions.

  I got the cupcakes.

  I got the Fresca.

  I got Ladyhawke.

  I got the Snickers, Skittles, and this time peanut butter M&M’s because if it didn’t work again, I thought I should be left with candy I wanted to eat rather than stuff myself with ones I didn’t really like.

  It was the third week of ninth grade.

  I walked to the school bus stop; Gabby was there. Skeeter. Other kids from our neighborhood.

  I crossed the street and kept walking.

  “Hey,” Gabby yelled as I passed.

  I kept going. What did she want? Why would she try to talk to me now? Today? She hadn’t even glanced at me for weeks. Months.

  “Hey. Emmy!”

  I turned to look and they were all staring at me.

  “Where are you going?” Gabby said.

  I felt bile coming up my throat. I should have waited. I should have walked out my door and sat in the bushes until the school bus was gone. One time I sat in my bushes for three hours while I was waiting to scare Joe after one of his dates. I can hold very still.

  I should have sat in the bushes.

  I stopped on the sidewalk and tried to decide what to do. The Red Rock bus stop was a mile away.

  I looked over at them.

  Gabby had her hand on her hip like usual. Skeeter was standing near her, also watching me.

  I turned and kept walking. Fast. The school bus passed me, and I heard Gabby yell something but I didn’t look back.

  When I turned the corner I had to stop and catch my breath.

  •

  Catch my breath.

  •

  Catch my breath.

  •

  Then I heard someone and if it was Gabby I didn’t know what I was going to say. But then he came around the corner and it was Skeeter.

  “Where are you going?” He was breathing hard and I was sort of happy to see him. I don’t know why.

  “You’re going to miss the bus,” I said.

  “I don’t care.”

  He had sweat dripping down his face, and I said, “Did everyone see you run after me?”

  He said, “I don’t care.”

  I said, “I’m not doing anything fun.” And he said, “I don’t care.”

  •

  So me and Skeeter sat at our rock on Kim’s birthday.

  We ate the Snickers bars and I told him—he was the first person I told, the only person I told—about Kim. About how I was supposed to meet her here. I thought he would laugh but instead he said, “How is she going to come? Like from the clouds?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t say how, or anything. It just says if you do the right preparation, the veil will thin and she’ll come here.”

  “Like sit here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked up at the sky. “Did you do the right preparation?”

  I shrugged. “I tried.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure you did.”

  We ate some more Snickers and sat.

  It felt good to have someone with me. To not be alone.

  “My brother totaled his truck,” he told me. “He had to go to the ER.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Then I said, “Joe and his girlfriend got caught making out in my dad’s car.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Mustang.”

  He laughed.

  We talked about whether Snickers or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were better. He told me he hated washing dishes at his dad’s Little Caesars and I said I always felt bad he had to work there and he explained Guns N’ Roses is actually a really good band.

  “They just scream.”

  “They don’t scream,” he said. And then he started singing “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

  So we sat there all day long while everyone else was in school.

  We sat there all day long and waited for Kim.

  Every hour on the hour I made him be quiet and I sat with my legs crossed and my eyes closed and he said, “Should I hum something.”

  “Shhh.”

  “Should I close my eyes?”

  I looked at him. “Uh. Yeah.”

  He closed his eyes.

  And every hour on the hour, she didn’t come.

  • 40 •

  I sat on my bed and watched outside for more dead people.

  Or for Kim.

  I was waiting for Kim.

  I put on my ratty nightgown. Kim had the same one. I put it on and shoved Mom’s sequin dress under my bed. Then I sat.

  The streetlight that Ms. Dead Homeyer used to be sitting under stayed the same.

  All night long.

  No Kim.

  No other ghosts.

  No nothing.

  By five in the morning, my legs were aching and my head hurt.

  I wrapped myself in an old Disney Princess blanket, stepped into my bunny slippers, and went and sat on the front porch to watch the sunrise.

  There was a bird.

  Another bird.

  The sky was gray and no one was
out except for an old lady with a dog that barked at me, and the lady said shut up, and three more birds.

  •

  Today is the day my best friend died.

  •

  Today is the day my best friend died.

  •

  Today is the day my best friend died.

  •

  The sky slowly turned to pink with purples and blues and oranges.

  It seemed like it shouldn’t be so beautiful.

  I put in my earbuds and turned on Dr. Ted Farnsworth’s CDs that I’d downloaded. I hadn’t listened to them for months. I carried his book in my bag, just in case. But I hardly ever listened to him. His voice made me itch.

  But now I thought I should. I should try harder.

  I closed my eyes.

  You must be present during the visitation. You must concentrate. They want to be with you. They want to visit you. They yearn for it. You are the one stopping it. YOU.

  I tried to concentrate. I tried to be present. I tried to let her come.

  Please let her come.

  Please let her come.

  Please let her come.

  She wants to come.

  You must believe. Believe it. Know it. Be it.

  Believe it. Know it. Be it.

  Believe it. Know it. Be it.

  I whispered the words, trying to fill myself with pure thoughts.

  Waterfalls.

  Mountains.

  Rainbows.

  Then I heard something.

  I turned off the iPod, goose bumps all over my body. I looked around.

  There was nothing.

  I stood up and looked down the street.

  Nothing.

  I looked the other way.

  Nothing.

  I looked up in the sky.

  Nothing.

  I tried again.

  Let yourself blend into the environment. Integrate yourself with the whole. Forget the past and the future and focus on the now. Only then will the veil become thin enough for someone to enter.

  I turned it off.

  Blend into the environment.

  Be part of the whole.

  Focus on now.

  Now.

  The morning.

  The pink sky.

  The birds.

  The sound started up again.

  My heart fluttered.