The View From Who I Was

by Heather Sappenfield

  The skiers neared enough that she could see they were both men. Sixties maybe.

  “Thanks!” said the one on the left.

  “Up that?” the other said and blew out his breath. “Blimey! You’re trying to kill me!”

  Corpse wrestled against a smile, but a crooked one took over her face. She waved to the guys and started up the trail. She glanced over her shoulder at where I hovered. “‘You’re trying to kill me,’” she said. “‘Blimey!’” She laughed, hard enough to wipe her eyes.

  The snow corridor was about the same height along the sides as on the night of the winter formal, and she considered those spike heel prints buried under feet of snow. She held her hands in front like she was lifting a gown and tried to propel herself along using the same trees’ trunks, tried to feel that night’s Rapunzel sense of release and resolve. Instead, she heard her breaths as she’d climbed the mountain behind the Indian school’s dorms, kept seeing red dirt and rock beneath her snow boots.

  She passed through the bare aspens’ ripples of light and shadow as she traversed toward the spot, and instead of despair, she felt the emergency workers’ urgency as they raced along. Today this trail was tranquil.

  The rock we’d died on was at shin level now, and Corpse lowered onto it and scooched back. I hovered at her shoulder as she pulled out the crown and slid it onto her head. She pulled her knees close and crossed her arms around them. She rocked forward and back, trying again to summon that night’s despair. I concentrated with her, but some noisy, yellow-breasted finches that landed in the branches above distracted her. She unzipped our coat and leaned back, the rock warm beneath her palms. She tilted her altered face to the sun.

  “I died here,” she said and willed those words to weigh her down, but the sun felt so friendly. She started to say I’m sorry, Ash, but “What the hell, Ash?” came out.

  I pictured the guy trapped under that burning trunk, the dead one on the stretcher, yet Corpse sat up and considered what had just flown from her mouth. “What the hell?” she said again. Each word conjured Ash’s mom’s fingers against her cheeks. She felt Ash’s dad blaming her, felt all the years of Ash’s manipulation come to a head.

  “Bullshit!” Corpse shouted.

  I flinched, and the finches burst into squeaking flight.

  She lay on her back. Branches webbed the cloudless sky. After a while, her eyes transformed those branches to roots in the blue.

  She sang: “Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah.” Tried to make her song more beautiful by adding richness from her chest’s depth. I rose to the branch I’d perched on that night and listened. A finch returned to a twig near me and chittered. Another joined it. They craned their heads and peered at me with beady eyes.

  “See, Ash,” she said. “They came.” She listened for her heart’s beat. “I’m not a user,” she said. She glanced toward me. “Not anymore.”

  She thought of how easily she could talk to Angel. And William. And Clark. We’d always had to be careful what we said around Ash. If Ash had wanted us to be her roommate at Yale, she’d have been prodding and prodding us. Our friendship had been running on fumes.

  Corpse tried to keep thinking about Ash, but Roberta not dancing anymore took over. William going back to Harvard this summer was close behind. Angel wanting to be our roommate came next, which made me nervous because it would take about a month for Angel to grow sick of us. She thought of Gabe loving us. Mom just wanting to be loved. Sugeidi with her hand over her corazón. Dad tugging his hand from hers.

  Corpse drew out her feather and held it against the sky. After a while she sat up, palming back her hair, and her hand bumped the crown. She traced its outline with her fingers, and smiled softly at how it echoed the jagged peaks’ ridgeline.

  She turned her face to the sun’s rays and closed her eyes. It felt like the touch of God, or whatever it was that watched over this world. “Thanks for letting me live.” She drew in the biggest breath she could hold. Let it out and yelled, “Blimey!” She tried not to laugh, but it leaked out as a raspberry.

  Laughing felt bizarre when she was navigating grief. She looked down the valley and imagined Crystal High, could see the ski mountain with Crystal Village nestling against its base. She imagined the currents of Crystal Creek as it flowed past the stretch of homes beyond town till the trailer park where Sugeidi spent her weekends, beyond to the airport sheltering Dad’s private jet. This landscape had watched us die. Today it seemed to forgive.

  “Forgive me,” Corpse said to Ash. “El mundo es arruinado siempre!” She laughed sadly. “Blimey.”

  She lay back on the rock, took in the clouds. “I forgive you,” she said to Ash. She looked at the finches, then focused on me. “And you.”

  Twenty-Five

  From Oona’s journal:

  In German, the spinal column is known as the spiral column, and vertebrae are known as vertices. All this is related to vertical movement. A mirror of the DNA molecule, which determines the human body.

  It is the path energy wants to take.

  —Viktor Schauberger

  Sugeidi set a sliced brisket on the dining room table, its barbecue sauce in a gravy boat beside it. Mashed potatoes, corn, salad—comfort food. She rested her knuckles on her hips, took in the meal and then Corpse, Dad, and Mom. Her eyes said Now you all behave, but only Corpse’s seat faced her.

  Dad cleared his throat and reached for the brisket. “Thank you, Sugeidi,” he said, but she didn’t leave. He looked over his shoulder at her. So did Mom. Their eyes had a conversation:

  Sugeidi: You two need to straighten up.

  Mom: She’s right.

  Dad: You’re the maid.

  Sugeidi: I’m not afraid of you.

  Dad: There’s nothing wrong with me.

  Mom: Like hell.

  Sugeidi: See what I mean?

  Sugeidi’s gaze traveled to Corpse, and Dad’s and Mom’s followed it. “Oona hike today. On the trail she died.”

  “Thanks, Sugeidi.” Corpse sent her a glare but found pride on Sugeidi’s face and the trace of a smile. Sugeidi had watched her return, Corpse realized, saw her swinging arms and light step. Sugeidi was showing Dad and Mom that their recently dead daughter was handling things better than they were. I sensed she was also reminding Corpse to be strong on this sad night.

  “I thought returning there would suck,” Corpse said. “But it was fine.”

  “Why did you go?” Dad said.

  “Because some things you just have to face.” She gave him that truth stare.

  He concentrated on and reached for the mashed potatoes. Corpse remembered William taking a bite of potatoes. I worried Dad might smash the bowl with his gaze.

  Sugeidi snorted and left.

  “She’s getting bold,” he said.

  Mom and Corpse looked at each other. Corpse scooped corn onto her plate, the steadiness of her right hand making her smile.

  “What made it fine?” Mom said.

  Corpse shrugged. “I expected to feel out of control or depressed or something. To relapse, you know? But I just couldn’t get myself to feel that bad.” She laughed. “I really tried. I just couldn’t. I mean, it’s so awful about Ash. The guilt presses … ” Her hand rose to her chest. “But—”

  “I know what you mean.” Mom sighed. “It’s a strange feeling. Survival, I guess.”

  Dad stared at his food.

  “Poor Ash,” Corpse said. “I seriously wanted to kill myself and failed. She just wanted attention and—”

  Dad flinched.

  “How are you faring, Tony?” Mom said, totally nice. I had to admire her.

  He shrugged. “Fine.”

  “That’s great,” she said.

  “What?” Dad said.

  “Nothing.” Mom picked up her fork and knife. “I’m glad you’re fine.”

  “What’s that sup
posed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” Mom tucked a bite of brisket into her mouth.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.” She smiled at him as she chewed.

  It occurred to me that she’d crossed a boundary, couldn’t care less how he was doing, and the same realization took over Dad’s face.

  “We should have Gabe and Frank to dinner soon,” Mom said.

  “Frank?” Dad said.

  “Gabe’s father,” Mom said.

  Corpse said, “Did you know Gabe’s dad fixed our front wall when that car drove into it?”

  Mom’s eyes twinkled. “Then we really must have him over.”

  Dad watched her with calculating eyes.

  “Sounds great.” User echoed in Corpse’s head. “Do either of you know what happened to the crown I was wearing the night I died?”

  “Crown?” Dad said.

  Mom pressed her lips and shook her head.

  Discomfort stole the room’s air. There was only the sound of silverware against plates. The day’s weight, the weight of the whole last few months, settled over them.

  Corpse assessed Mom and Dad. Bodies braced against one another. “Blimey!” she said.

  “What?” Dad and Mom said.

  “Sugeidi’s right,” Corpse said. “You two need to shape up. I mean, look at you.”

  Mom looked at Dad and down at the fork clenched in her fist. Her head dropped and she laughed. “Thank you, Oona. And Sugeidi,” Mom called over her shoulder.

  “Come on, Dad. Smile once in a while. It won’t kill you.”

  His eyes widened, turned jittery. He started nodding. He didn’t talk after that, just concentrated on his plate. So annoying. Mom and Corpse marveled at the packed memorial service and Crystal Village’s support of Ash’s family.

  “Such a tragic thing. Ash’s parents will carry this burden the rest of their lives.” As Mom wiped tears with her napkin, her face seemed weighed down with lost things. I heard her blaming herself that day in her Range Rover, and Corpse started crying.

  “So much for feeling okay,” Mom said.

  Dad eyed them like ruins. I turned mad.

  “Have you ever cried for anything, Dad?”

  His fist banged the table, rattling the plates and silverware. He stood.

  “Have you?” Corpse said.

  His inky glare swung between them.

  “Say something!” Corpse said.

  He straightened, inhaled half the room’s air through his teeth, and left.

  Corpse groped along the windowless wall toward the observatory. Darkness pressed against her. The wall ended, so she stopped, listening for Dad’s breaths or the clink of ice in his highball glass. The tiny lights over the built-in bar that usually illuminated the room like a dream were dark, and for once that woman wasn’t singing. Corpse waited. After a few minutes she discerned the room’s contours in the stars’ dim glow.

  She entered the observatory, imagining Dad listening, yet she avoided words. She reached the arm of his recliner and stood over him. He slept. We’d rarely seen him sleeping, and her eyes traced his brow’s relaxed lines, his parted mouth, his unclenched jaw. Until we’d tried to kill ourself, he’d been like a king. Distant, hard-edged, and unquestioned. Mom had been the evil witch. How had we been so blind?

  Dad whimpered. Corpse had never imagined he could whimper. He whimpered again, and though his breath reeked of alcohol, in her eyes he transformed to that boy. She lifted the highball glass from the loose hand on his belly and set it on the end table next to her. I remembered that hand banging the dining room table. He wasn’t as big as Gabe, and she considered that maybe each of us was just a kid, playing at being adult.

  This made Corpse crawl over the recliner’s arm and stretch herself along Dad. I came down close, despite my dark memory of him. He stirred as she nestled in. She put her arm on his arm and matched her breaths to his. She watched the stars till she slept.

  “Muriel?” Dad said.

  I shot to the ceiling.

  “Oona,” Corpse said, eyes closed, reaching back toward sleep.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Snuggling.”

  I warned her, but she yawned.

  “Oh.” His face assumed its daytime lines.

  “Don’t, Dad.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Why can’t you just snuggle?” Corpse rubbed her drowsy eyes.

  “I’m snuggling right now,” Dad said.

  “Were. You’ve turned to edges,” she said.

  She felt him try to relax. He fidgeted his legs, his arms. She finally said, “Why is this so awful for you?”

  “It’s not awful.”

  “Today at Ash’s memorial, you wiped off the feel of holding my hand on your pants.”

  “I did not.”

  “I watched you. So did Mom.” She moved her head from Dad’s chest to the recliner’s edge, making space between their faces so she could see him.

  He snorted.

  “Don’t pick on Mom. She’s got it hard.”

  “Hard? She’s richer than—”

  “Money doesn’t matter, Dad.”

  He gave her a piercing look. “You have a great life, Oona. You want for nothing.”

  Corpse shook her head fast. “Right. Nothing. Just love.”

  “Love? Oona, this is—” He started to rise, but she moved faster and sat with all her weight on his belly.

  “We can’t go on like this! Our family is dying!”

  Dad collapsed back. She could feel his breathing’s rise and fall beneath her. She braced herself and said, “I’m begging. You’re the key.”

  He went limp, and I felt sick at her words but also felt their truth. He turned his head to the wall. Ash’s death pressed down on them like an ultimatum.

  “Oona, I … ”

  “What, Dad?”

  “I’m trying. Really, I am.” He ran his pinky and ring finger across his brow. His words rushed out. “I love you. Okay?” Pain ruled his face.

  Corpse’s mouth dropped open, and then she smiled. “I love you too.” Easy, those words. Before I knew it, she said, “Why do you spend every night in this room? Alone? Instead of with Mom? Or me? Or both of us? Like a family?”

  “Your mother—”

  “Yes, I’m sure she’s done things, but Dad, since I died, life’s gotten clearer each day. It’s like I see my world now through a microscope. All these invisible things that were going on. You’re afraid of something. That’s what’s keeping you from trying.”

  His eyes flickered, and I saw she was right and he knew it. It scared me even more. “You’ve never even made pancakes.”

  Confusion filled his face, but then the kitchen was there in his frown.

  “Dad,” she said. “I forgive you.”

  His brows pressed together and he tried to massage them apart. “Forgive?” His breathing turned shallow and fast.

  “I want to go on a trip with you for spring break,” Corpse said.

  “A trip?”

  “Yes. To Portugal. I need you to try with this one thing. Can you do this one thing?”

  “Yes, but Portugal, Oona.” He shook his head, eyes black. Corpse took it for confusion.

  She sifted her words. “Those kids from the Indian school, some of them have it so hard. But they have their people. Sugeidi has her people. Gabe has his people. You know? Maybe you just need to return to your people.”

  “No!” He heaved to the side and out of the recliner, tossing Corpse over its arm.

  “Okay,” she said. “But I’m going. Mom’s family is hateful. I want to see where you come from, find your family. I wish you’d come with me.”

  Dad looked like a cornered animal, but she walked to him. “Be strong,” she said. “Right here
.” She put her hand over her heart like Sugeidi.

  He turned away. Corpse moved to the door but looked back. His shoulders had such an odd set. I wished we knew more about his past. Corpse returned, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his back. He tensed, but she held on.

  “It’ll be okay, Dad,” she said.

  His body seemed poised to cry, yet no tears came. How long ago had Dad become desert? At the bar’s tap, Corpse filled a highball glass with water. She carried it to him.

  “Here,” she said. “Don’t worry. You can do this. I’ll help you.”

  Twenty-Six

  From Oona’s journal:

  Water is more than just fluid, it is alive. It is healthiest when it curves and it often needs to spiral. The spiral is essential to water’s health. The vortex cools it and the circular motion purifies.

  —Viktor Schauberger

  Gabe and Corpse strolled along the bike path. Crystal Creek murmured from between gaps in the March ice. They’d tried holding hands, but the cold bit their skin, so they walked with their hands in their pockets. Their breaths hung over them like dialogue bubbles in a comic strip, forcing me above their fog.

  A mom, dad, and two boys came toward them, the two boys yelping and running ahead to pelt each other with snowballs. Corpse reached down and scooped some snow, formed it into a loose ball; its crystals were too cold for good adhesion. She stopped, but Gabe kept walking. She nailed him between the shoulder blades.

  “Hey!” He arched his back. He spun, darted to the path’s side, scooped snow, and pelted her on the hip.

  She bounded for cover over the pile of plowed snow and ducked. Gabe catapulted over the mound. Through me.

  He paused, brow furrowed, as his determined goodness filled me.

  He lurched forward. Corpse squealed, and he flattened her into the snow. But I’d given him such a sad expression.

  Corpse squirmed and laughed. He grinned at that and put his lips on hers. I tried to gather myself. First Corpse, then Roberta. Then Dad. Now this? Each lingering touch a window to understanding I did not want.