“Don’t backslide. You’ve picked your moment to relive. Now, move into that moment.”
Louise is right. I need to do this. I think of my moment with Henry and how I was guided to a place where I began to fall in love. There must be a starting point like that for other things. Worse things. I need to go there and confront what it is about myself that I don’t want to see.
“I steal and I don’t understand why. It’s got to come from somewhere. Take me to where it started.”
Before I can think another thought, I am in a tunnel and then I am slamming into the world again. I’m a child. Maybe four years old. And I’m with my grandmother. She is so cautious. So anxious. My grandfather must have just recently died, because I see a picture of him taped to the dashboard. I can remember my mother telling me that my grandma did this shortly after the funeral. It stayed there for a year, until one day on a road trip to Arizona, a gust of wind swept through and blew the picture into a gorge.
“You have his chin,” Grandma tells me. “A perfect profile.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Grandpa’s chin.” I feel myself touching my chin with my finger. This must be a game we’ve played before. My grandma looks very amused.
“Why don’t you wait in the car while I mail these?” She waves a handful of envelopes at me.
I fidget with the seat belt. I want to go inside. I’m a kid. I don’t want to sit inside a car on a hot day.
“Can I come?” I ask, kicking with my legs. I’m sitting buckled into a car seat in back.
“You’d better wait here.” She takes the keys out of the ignition and sets them on the passenger seat. And gets out. I keep kicking with my legs. In this moment, I am young and bored and carefree. With the air conditioner off, I’m able to feel the tremendous heat of the day starting to press itself through the windows. There’s a small Baggie full of cereal next to me, and I pick it up. I lick my fingertip and touch a puffed-oat piece and then carefully place it in my mouth. Crunch. Through the window, I see my grandma rushing to the mailbox outside the post office. She’s wearing a light blue pantsuit and the whitest sneakers money will buy. Years later, my mother will tell me about all the errands I helped my grandma run following my grandpa’s death. Apparently, she liked to drive around and tell me stories about him. But I can’t remember him. He feels like a stranger to me now.
Then it happens. My grandma realizes that she’s locked her keys in the car. And I’m stuck in here. My fingers are wet with slobber. I can’t get the door to unlock. I drop the Baggie, and cereal explodes onto the floor. I use my fingers to press the release button on the seat belt, but it’s old and clunky and won’t budge. I keep trying.
“Open the door, Molly. You can do it,” my grandma calls. Her voice gets louder.
But I can’t do it. I jam my fingers into the metal square. Trying. Trying. But it won’t click open.
“Help me,” I say. I feel the adrenaline really starting to flow.
My grandma becomes frantic. “Help us! Help us!” she cries. Within two minutes, a small group of people has gathered. One is a postal employee with a thick beard. He lowers his face to the backseat window on the driver’s side.
“Can you open the door?” he coos. “Can you press the button and let us inside?”
But there isn’t a button. There are thin knobs on top of the door that I can’t pull up. “I’m stuck!” I say, getting more and more scared.
“We should call the police,” a woman says. “It’s too hot in there.”
I am sobbing in the backseat now. I gasp for air and shudder. My fears are uncontrollable. I want out. I worry that I may die inside the car. I worry that it’s so hot that I might melt, even though my grandma is standing right there, just outside the car.
“Don’t cry,” my grandma says. “The police are coming.”
I hear the sirens. Blue-and-red lights pulse in the background. Then there is a policeman standing next to my grandma.
“She can’t unlock it?” the policeman asks.
“She’s tried,” my grandma says.
I keep pressing on the buckle. It’s getting hotter, and my fingers feel more slippery. I’m sweating. I see the man insert something into the door, but nothing happens. He tries again. And again. I am screaming now.
“We need to break a front window,” the policeman says. “Keep her attention in the backseat.”
I don’t want them to break a window. Even at four, I’m afraid the glass will shatter on me and cut me. “No! No!” I say. I try harder to make the buckle pop open.
“When we get done here we’ll go get a delicious lunch,” my grandma says.
I’m not hungry. I don’t care. I feel like I’m dying.
“Help!” I say. I keep pushing on the lock. It won’t open, and I can’t stay trapped here. I decide to try a different door. The policeman has pulled his arm back to punch something through the window. He doesn’t see me as I scamper into the front seat to unlock the door. He makes impact with the window, and tiny pieces of glass shower onto me. They cut my bare legs. They scrape across my arms and leave bloody lines.
“Oh my god!” my grandmother screams.
I’m screaming too. I’ve fallen into the passenger seat on top of the pebbled glass. I feel the sharp edges bite into my skin. Then a stranger’s hands pull me through the opened door.
“You’re okay,” the policeman says.
I do not feel okay.
Grandma races up and holds me so tightly that her shirt gets smeared with my blood. “We’ll take you home. And clean you up. And take you to the store and you can get anything you like.”
I am sobbing so hard I begin to convulse.
“You’re fine. You’re fine,” Grandma says as she holds me.
I am not fine.
“You should take her to the doctor,” the policeman says. “She’s got a lot of cuts.”
“No!” I scream. I want to go home. I don’t want the experience to last any longer. I screw my eyes closed and gasp for breath.
“Here you go,” a woman says. She presses something soft into my hands. I open my eyes. It’s a toy. It’s a stuffed bear. “I bought it for my own granddaughter just now. But you can take it.”
And somehow holding this soft new thing that was intended for somebody else lets my anxiety flow out of me. I’m not trapped anymore. I’m out. I’m not going to melt to death. Glass isn’t going to cut me to ribbons. My breathing slows. I hold the bear.
“That’s a good girl,” my grandma says. Then she turns to the woman who gave me the toy. “I need to call my daughter.”
The woman hands my grandmother her phone. I keep holding the bear. When we get home, my mother decides not to take me to the doctor. She calls a friend who’s a nurse and they pick the glass out of my skin with tweezers and apply alcohol to sterilize my cuts. All I will need is a few Band-Aids. But my stuffed bear will be taken from me. The toy, spotted with blood, and given to me by a stranger, will vanish that night. My mother will toss it in the trash while I sleep and offer me a different toy the next day. But it won’t be enough. That sense of panic and loss will dwell within me for the rest of my life.
“You’re okay,” my grandma repeats as she sets me down on the sidewalk. The heat of the day is fading. My scrapes are losing their zing of pain. My last memory is ending. I don’t quite feel that I’ve confronted anything. The moment traumatized me. I never got over it. The feelings I had inside that car are incredibly familiar. They are the same anxieties that ricochet through me before I steal. That’s why I do it. I started stealing things in an effort to calm my escalating anxiety.
If I’d lived, maybe even just a year longer, I bet I would have told somebody about my problem. Maybe Henry. I imagine a therapist would have helped me develop other strategies. And maybe just telling people would have cured some of it too. While alive, I was so hard on myself for taking things. Too hard. Even here I’ve been pretty scared about what it means to be a thief and to be dead. But it’s not like the
people who love me would suddenly stop if they found out. Sadie didn’t. Henry didn’t. That’s not what will damage my connections. And it’s not going to determine what happens to me here, either. I’m not going to be shipped off to some terrible place and punished forever. Anxiety issues don’t determine what happens to a soul. The fact that I was a kleptomaniac doesn’t have anything to do with my fate now.
I don’t return to Louise or the transition room. Yes, I’ve had a big breakthrough, and I look forward to telling her about it eventually. But there’s also that matter of recently possessing Sadie. Taking over a body just sounds bad. Telling Louise about that incident feels like it would be a huge mistake. So I decide to do something else.
I arrive at my body’s side. Before, when I stood next to it, I felt like I was dying all over again. Having to confront my pale, stiff corpse was too much. But I don’t feel that way now. I am just here, and I watch as my grandma and Aunt Claire apply the last of my makeup. It’s a relief to see that they’re doing it right. I was afraid they’d make me look fake, like a doll. But I almost look like me. Almost.
“Less is more,” Aunt Claire says, dotting my cheek with a light blush.
“I don’t know how we’ll go on,” Grandma says.
They stand in silence, looking down at me. That’s when I realize that I’m wearing my burial clothes. It’s my green dress. I knew they’d make me look too formal. I only wore that outfit once, to a luncheon with my mother at a fancy hotel. Jeans would have made more sense. And a nice casual top. That was who I was. Why did I ever buy this green dress? It’s the color of a pine tree. I stare at my dressed-up body and feel as though I’m about to enter a grief trance. I could stand here and feel sad for the rest of my existence. And I suspect I’d feel that way no matter what I was wearing.
“When you die in high school, wherever you go afterward, I bet you feel completely robbed. Like your whole life got stolen.” My grandma tries to restrain her emotion when she speaks, and it makes her voice shake. “It’s different when old people die. We lived. But Molly…There was so much ahead of her.”
“I found something in her room,” Aunt Claire says guiltily. “Remember when we grabbed the garment bag and I forgot the blush brush and I had to double back for it?”
My grandma dabs at her nose with a tissue. “Yes? What did you find?”
“A note.”
It must have been the note I wrote when I was inside Sadie.
“It was about a boy,” Aunt Claire says.
Grandma sniffles. “That sounds right. I think Molly might have been falling in love.”
“With Henry?” Aunt Claire asks.
My whole soul feels alive with electricity. I’m not the only one who knows. And Henry’s not the only one who knows. Other people now know that we were falling in love. Why does this make me feel relieved instead of doomed?
“What does the note say?” my grandma asks.
“She says she wants to ask him to the Sweetheart Ball,” Aunt Claire says.
My grandmother starts sobbing. “She’s missing prom. She’s missing high school. She’s missing her whole life.”
“Shh,” Aunt Claire says. “I know. I almost didn’t say anything. But I wonder whether or not we should tell him.”
My grandma nods. “Of course we should. Right?”
Aunt Claire smiles. “Her mother said Molly had planned on asking her date out with a pint of ice cream.”
“Should we give it to him?” my grandma asks.
“Nice idea,” I say. “But it’s too late. Mom already gave it to Tate.”
But then I remember that I bought two pints. Why not invite both guys? So Henry will get not only the note from Sadie, he’ll also get the ice-cream invitation. Maybe it will help him understand that we had something real. Something that was going somewhere. Because my note tells him that.
They walk toward the exit, and both of them look back at me. “So we just bum-rush the boy at the funeral with a pint of ice cream and tell him that Molly wanted to ask him to the prom?” my grandma says.
“When you say it that way, it sounds like a bad idea,” Aunt Claire says.
“Well, I don’t want my grief to cloud my judgment,” my grandma says.
I’ve grown attached to the idea of Henry’s getting the ice cream. It’s the better option. “You should give it to him,” I say.
“I think we’re both having a hard time accepting that Molly’s life is really over,” Aunt Claire says.
My grandmother tears up again and nods. “Things happened the way they happened, and now we all have to live with them.”
“Let’s not invite him,” Aunt Claire says.
This isn’t right. It’s like the world is conspiring against me and Henry. Like I was never meant to stay connected with him. I know what I need to do. Even though I’ve only done it one time and I’m still uncomfortable with the overall concept of it, I need to possess Aunt Claire and make her invite Henry to the dance for me. After you possess one person, I imagine that each subsequent possession only gets easier and easier. I mean, it really shouldn’t be a problem. When I have my next meeting with Hilda, I’ll need to ask her some questions about the logistics of possession. Clearly, there should be some sort of time limit. Like, I can’t just stay and inhabit another person’s body for an entire week, or even a day.
I move toward Aunt Claire and get ready to pounce on her. Then I reconsider. Maybe I should wait until she gets closer to Henry. That makes more sense. It would be too weird for my grandma if I possessed Aunt Claire and made them both drive to Henry’s right now. I can’t do that. Though I’m not sure how to predict when Aunt Claire will get closer to Henry. I should probably wait until my funeral. I hear a door slam. Aunt Claire has left. My chance to possess her is basically over.
I’m ready to leave when I realize that Ruthann is walking into the room that holds my body. This really shouldn’t be allowed. Don’t funeral homes have attendants to keep people from walking right in off the street? She approaches my casket cautiously, as if I might jump out from my cushioned box.
“Hi, Molly,” she says, lamely waving at my casket. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here.” She’s standing near my head, staring at my dead face.
“I came to say I’m sorry.” She bites her lip and keeps looking at me like she thinks I’m going to respond. “You probably think it’s crazy that I’m apologizing to you. But I’m not actually apologizing for anything I’ve done, because that wouldn’t really make sense. This is a preemptive apology for something I’m going to do.”
She sniffles a little and turns her back to me. Never in my life did I ever expect anybody to deliver a preemptive apology to me. Especially Ruthann Culpepper.
“I’ve developed feelings for somebody you care about. Real. Serious. Romantic feelings. And while a part of me thinks the honorable thing to do would be to shelve them and deny my heart what it wants, so I don’t violate our awesome friendship, there is another part of me that thinks the right choice would be to act on these feelings.”
Oh my god. If she tells me that she’s going to pursue a romantic relationship with Henry, I’m going to have to figure out a way to possess somebody who has the means and equipment to lock Ruthann Culpepper in a box. Forever.
“I think you probably saw the chemistry already between me and Tate. And I think if everybody involved could just be honest with each other, the real reason he fired me probably had more to do with all our sexual tension than with any other excuse he gave.”
She really is crazy. For the first time since my accident, I’m sort of glad I’m dead so I don’t actually have to respond to her during this awkward confession. “There is no way you and Tate had sexual chemistry,” I say. “Zero possibility.”
Ruthann reaches out and places a hand on my casket. I don’t like watching her invade my body’s space. She needs to stand back. “So I’m hoping you will give me your blessing. And I’m just going to stand here for a second until I feel
like you’ve delivered that.”
And so she just stands there. Next to my body. At the funeral home. Waiting for some sort of sign that is never going to appear. This is nuts. So I tell her. Except I don’t use those exact words.
“You don’t need my permission to explore something with Tate. I mean, he’s going to reject you, because he’s repulsed by you. But you don’t need my blessing. Tate and I didn’t really have anything. Things wouldn’t have gone much further than the first date, had I lived.”
“Thanks,” Ruthann says. “I totally think I just felt you give me your permission.”
“This is classic,” I say. “You hear me as well in death as you did in life.”
Ruthann exhales dramatically and keeps talking. “And also, I wanted to let you know that I’m not pursuing any charges against your cat. My mom and I think it wouldn’t be the right thing to do under these circumstances.”
This is great news, but it’s odd that Ruthann is standing over my dead body to deliver it.
“So, I think we’re done here,” Ruthann says. “Bye, Molly.” She pulls her hand away from my casket and waves. Then she walks out. I could follow her to see where she’s going, but I don’t really want to do that. It’s over. I need to let Ruthann leave. I need to let her go off and live her ridiculous life.
After she goes, I stand by my body. Partly because there is this comfortable hold that it has on my soul. Partly because it’s one of the last times I’m going to see it. Louise told me that my friends and family would heal and go on, and it looks like that’s already starting to happen. I’m not even buried and people are planning the shape they want their lives to take without me.
Death of a Kleptomaniac Page 18