Exit Point

by Laura Langston

  “Herb’s gonna live to be eighty-four,” Gran says in disgust. “No, it has to be your dad. Besides, he’s the perfectionist who made you afraid to take risks in the first place. You might want to talk about that while you’re down there too.”

  It is the week before Christmas. I have been dead seven weeks, two days, twelve hours and fourteen minutes.

  I have been following Dad around for three days. When I think the time is right, Wade will help me take form. I’m not exactly sure how. He said to leave the details up to him.

  I know tonight is the night. Because tonight has always been our night. Tree night. In the past, we would chop the tree down together, haul it home for Mom and Amy. It was a guy thing.

  Dad did it by himself this year. And he’s thinking about that. He is thinking about me.

  That will make it easier for me to reach him.

  He sits in front of the Christmas tree, drinking his scotch. Everyone else has gone to bed. There are no lights in the living room, but the dying fire brightens things enough that I can see the familiar brown couch, the piano in the corner, the bare tree waiting for tomorrow’s decorations.

  I stare around the room, once, twice, three times. I want to memorize every detail. Because as soon as I do this, I will leave here and never come back. They say I can come back under special circumstances if the Council lets me. I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Even if I had one.

  On the mantel is the last family photo taken of the four of us. When I study it, a lump forms in my throat. I see the innocence in Amy’s eyes and I know: The picture was taken one month before Herb started abusing her.

  I turn and look at Dad. I can’t put this off anymore.

  I’m ready, I think. Or as ready as I’ll ever be.

  Send your dad love, Wade replies. And wait.

  It doesn’t feel so weird anymore, the idea of love being a real, physical thing.

  The room grows cold. I start to feel heavy. I look down, expecting to see my body take shape. All I see is the same old blur where my arms and legs used to be.

  Dad puts his scotch down. He’s about to get up, but he looks at the tree and he sees me. I know the exact second it happens. His eyes widen. There’s a strangled gasp in the back of his throat. He falls back into his chair.

  “My God.” He shuts his eyes, rubs them, opens them again. “Hoooolllly shit.” He shakes his head just a little. He can’t believe what he’s seeing.

  I speak, even though I know the words won’t come out in any kind of sound. Wade says Dad will hear them in his head. “I love you, Dad. Tell Mom and Amy I love them too. And tell them I’m okay. I’m really okay.”

  Dad is thinking a million things at once. I’ve had too much scotch. I am dreaming. I need to wake up. This can’t be real.

  And I know I have to make it real; otherwise he won’t believe me about Herb. So I grin and say, “Dad, you should have gotten the taller one.”

  And Dad gets it. I was there with him when he cut the tree down tonight, when he was trying to decide between the tall one or the short one he chose. He knows.

  Dad’s eyes fill, spill over. His tears run in two straight lines down his cheeks to the edges of his mouth. He knows what he is seeing is real. And he knows, he finally accepts, that I really am dead.

  His grief is so huge it’s like a kick to my gut. I could drown in it, get swept away. But I can’t let that happen because Wade has told me I have to be fast.

  “Herb is hurting Amy.” I plant a picture in Dad’s mind to show him what I mean.

  Dad pales, wipes his face, stares at me. His mind flips back to logic. He does not believe what he’s seeing. What he’s hearing. I try again. “He’s doing things to her. You have to stop him.”

  Dad is unsure. He wavers. Then he rejects the thought. He rejects me.

  His disbelief makes the room grow warmer; it takes away my power. My heaviness starts to lift. I feel myself growing lighter. Soon I’ll fade. I’ll never be back. And I haven’t helped Amy.

  An icy sweat grips me. It cannot end like this. It can’t. I have to make Dad believe me. I have to give this one last shot. My best shot. For Amy.

  Because failure is not an option.

  Then it comes to me. I know exactly what to say. How to give Dad the proof he will need.

  “Find Pookie! He’s buried by Herb’s hot tub.” I am getting lighter. I rush the words into Dad’s head. “Herb cut him up and buried him. To scare Amy.” I am fading. Fading. “Ask her.”

  I am gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  But I hang around.

  Surprising, because I didn’t expect to.

  I figured I’d be in front of Dad one minute and on that cosmic conveyor belt the next.

  Not so.

  Don’t ask me why. There are still way too many things I don’t understand.

  Wade is around. I feel him. And the others too. They are becoming more real to me than my own family. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Sad or glad. Maybe a bit of both.

  They tell me I have done good. I have done all I can do. They tug on me, urge me to leave, to come to the other side. Not yet, I say. Not yet.

  They give me a little more time. Just a little.

  Dad does not go to bed. After I fade, he goes into the kitchen and pours himself more scotch. A double. He checks on Amy, on Mom, lets the cat in, out and back in again.

  And he paces. I know he is trying to make sense of things, trying to rationalize away what he has seen. What I have told him.

  But he can’t. Because I am beside him, whispering in his ear. And I believe—I have to believe—that my words, my thoughts, my love for him, have power.

  Outside the living room window, the sky turns. Dawn is coming. Night is fading. I think again of being in a planetarium and watching the sky lighten when the show is over: black to indigo to gray to pearl. And pearl is so close to that milky white of the round place that it reminds me I am running out of time.

  Dad puts on the coffee, goes down the hall to shower.

  I go to Amy. She is curled up on her side, the covers up to her chin. I brush the hair out of her eyes, smell her baby powder smell, kiss her cheek. She wakes up with a start because she feels something. She feels me, only she doesn’t know it. Uneasily, she stares around her room. Then she pads down the hall and crawls into bed with Mom.

  When Mom pulls her close, I wish I were nine again. That I could do things differently, make better choices, hang on until exit point five.

  But I can’t.

  I drift into my room, sit on the edge of my bed, stare at the pictures on my dresser, the swimming trophies on my shelf, the ball caps I collected. All the details of my life mean so little now. I can hardly relate to them. To the person I was. Maybe because I’m not that person anymore.

  In the kitchen, Dad pours coffee, adds sugar, then cream. I hear him slurp. I taste the hot liquid scalding the back of his throat. I smell the tang of his aftershave.

  My senses are hyped. I see and hear and feel everything. I hear the cat scratch at her dish, the drip of the faucet in the bathroom, the march of an ant on the sidewalk outside. I feel the steam in the shower stall, the clutch of Dad’s fingers around his cup, Mom’s arm around Amy.

  And even though I am going away, I know I will take a part of this—a part of them—with me.

  Dad goes into the bedroom, bends down, kisses Mom’s cheek. He whispers in her ear, “I’m going out for an hour. Coffee’s made.”

  I shoot up through my ceiling, out of my roof. I see my yard with the basketball hoop that Dad hung and the garden where Mom grows tomatoes. I see the shed where we store our bikes, our camping gear, our tools.

  I float higher. I see Garvin delivering the morning paper, the Christmas lights still on at the Turners’ one block over and Hannah’s house. She is still sleeping. I feel her breath as though I am breathing myself. I know that she and Tom will end up together. Once that would have angered me. Now I’m glad she’ll have someone good in her
life.

  A slam draws my eyes back to our garden shed. Dad has come out and shut the door. In his hand is a shovel. He goes to his car, opens the trunk, tosses the shovel inside.

  He is going to Herb’s. He is going for Pookie.

  The thought frees me. I relax and drift up. Up.

  Below me the streets flow and connect, weaving and linking like the silk of a spider web. Only this web is never-ending.

  I see Paine Field and the Space Needle. Lake Washington and Pike Place Market. I see the Cascades, the Snohomish River valley. The Olympic Range and Vancouver Island. Portland, Oregon, and then Utah.

  I soar higher, and higher still.

  I am dead.

  And, yeah, I did die at the wrong time. But it doesn’t matter now.

  I am going home.