Early Departures

by Justin A. Reynolds

  “One for you, and one for you,” Mr. Oklahoma says, handing us vacuum-sealed bags, our personal clothes compressed inside.

  “Thank you for your help and your patience. Quincy’s reanimation will be all the better for it,” Dr. Iverson says.

  “So, that’s it? We’re done?” Ms. B asks.

  Mr. Oklahoma nods. “Now you go home and do your best to sleep. We will notify you an hour prior to our arrival.”

  “And you just, what, drop him in his bed and he wakes up?” I ask.

  “In simplest terms, yes,” Mr. Oklahoma answers.

  Dr. Iverson clears her throat. “There is one more thing to discuss. The death window. You understand it, as it was explained?”

  Ms. B nods. “Quincy will . . . there’s a four-hour window, during which he will again . . . expire. And just . . . for emphasis . . . Quincy will not experience any pain?”

  Dr. Iverson nods. “Except maybe the pain of being a teenager.”

  Mr. Oklahoma cuts in. “There is good news to share. Quincy’s projected length of stay.”

  Ms. B holds her hands together, like prayer. “How long does he have?”

  “Quincy’s projected LOS is twenty-four to twenty-eight days.”

  Ms. B cuffs her face with her hands, and I even hear myself gasp.

  Q has nearly a full month to live.

  Dr. Iverson smiles. “Quincy will obliterate our previous record.”

  Ms. B can’t stop crying. “Thank you, thank you,” she says over and over.

  “Of course,” Dr. Iverson says. “We’re honored you’ve accepted our services. You will not be disappointed.”

  “Now, please, go home and rest,” Mr. Oklahoma says. “Time is our most precious commodity. You want to be at your very best when your son, and your friend, reopens his eyes.”

  69

  When we exit the Center, three things carousel in my brain:

  1) I have to make things right with Q. There’s zero time to waste.

  2) Quincy should know the truth.

  3) I wish my parents were also coming home.

  68

  We’re not halfway to the main road when the Center disappears.

  And when we pull out, I’m dizzied with the feeling we’ve left something behind.

  Something we’ll never get back.

  The drive home’s even quieter.

  Ms. B’s face presses against her door; I can’t tell if she’s sleeping or submerged in thought.

  Given the pendulum of the last twelve hours, I’d guess the latter.

  Twenty minutes into the ride, I feel funny.

  And then I realize where we are.

  On the back road to my house.

  The road I’ve avoided for two years.

  Then I see the flashing lights.

  And it’s like my body’s hijacked.

  Like the knob that controls my senses is suddenly cranked to the extreme right, and then the entire panel smashed to pieces.

  And now I can hear the driver’s hands tightening around the wheel as we approach the bend. And I smell burning pine. And then we’re right on top of those lights, they’re in our car, and we’re turning the corner, and every photon is leaping into my eyes.

  And I can’t see.

  But also, I see them.

  I see us, smiling, laughing, our family car filled with blinding light.

  Our love is at an al-pine high! Our love is at an al-pine high!

  “I’m gonna be sick,” I say.

  I barely make it two feet out the car before I torpedo vomit onto the side of the road.

  Ms. B glides her hand up and down my back. “Feel better?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Maybe,” I say. “Just woozy.”

  She frowns. “Takes slow, deep breaths.”

  And so I do.

  I play a game with myself where I concentrate on each breath and pretend as if my stomach and throat aren’t inside-jobbing me.

  “We should get you checked out, Jamal.” She grips my wrist. “Your pulse’s out of control. You’re clearly dehydrated. And . . .”

  I raise my hand. “No. I just need rest,” I assure her. “Like the doctors said. It’s been a long night for all of us.”

  Which, true. Behind us, the sun is escalating, the sky brightening.

  I have to promise that I feel better, that I’ll tell her the second that changes, that once home I’ll tell Whit if that changes, and then I’m slipping back on my seat belt, my phone buzzing in the door pocket.

  I unlock the screen as we angle back onto the road.

  Autumn: Hey, what’s going on??

  Autumn: You there?

  Autumn: Will you please update me when you get a chance?

  Autumn: I’d rather know, even if it’s bad. Don’t decide anything for me

  Autumn: OMG, JAMAL CALL ME

  Autumn: JAMALLLLLL, SRSLY?!

  I tap a quick response back, hating that I can’t tell her the truth.

  Me: Hey, I’m so sorry!!!! But everything’s okay.

  She responds almost immediately.

  Autumn: OMG, were you trying to kill me??? You can’t leave me hanging like that, Jamal. Not when the last time I see you, you and Q are in the back of an ambulance!!

  Her next text, a half-dozen rows of alternating angry emojis and crying emojis.

  Me: You’re right. There was just so much going on and we weren’t allowed to use our phones back there with all the equipment and I just wasn’t thinking straight.

  Me: I’m really really really sorry.

  Autumn: Are you still at the hospital? Where’s Q?

  Me: Yeah, they’re keeping him another few hours for observation

  And I feel massively crappy lying to her. But that’s the only way this whole operation works, right? Funny, grown-ups always preaching honesty.

  Autumn: You think it’s okay if I go up there?

  Me: tbh I’d wait. He was mostly sleeping.

  Me: the only reason they let me see him was because I lied and said he was my brother.

  Autumn: Okay. Think it’s cool if you gave me his number? I wanna text him later. Maybe call.

  Me: Yeah, I’ll send it now

  Me: Hey what about you?? You ok??

  Autumn: other than the fact that I didn’t sleep at all because I was worried sick? Yeah, I’m okay.

  Me: And . . . what about us.

  Me: Are we ok?

  Autumn: No.

  Autumn: We shouldn’t be.

  Autumn: You hurt me and that doesn’t just go away.

  Me: Yeah I know

  Autumn: But.

  Autumn: And this is gonna sound real morbid and prolly selfish but whatever cuz it’s real.

  Me: I’ve been warned.

  A few minutes pass and I wonder what she’s doing.

  The wait agonizing.

  Was she trying to decide how to say it, if to say it?

  Was she distracted by another text from someone else?

  Had she fallen asleep?

  Decided I wasn’t even worth a morbid, selfish thought?

  My phone vibrates, but it’s just a text from the library, my books overdue.

  Me: Hey you still there?

  But my phone buzzes the same time I tap Send.

  Autumn: I can’t stop thinking what if the worst happened today . . . like . . .

  Autumn: what if you’d died in that water? On that dumb-ass beach?

  Autumn: Like, that fight would’ve been our last moment together.

  Autumn: How horrible would that’ve been???

  And I want to say, I know exactly how horrible because that’s how I feel right now. About Q. That fight on that dumb-ass beach was our last moment together.

  I tap the crying emoji but delete it.

  Me: I don’t want to think about that.

  Autumn: me either but it’s basically ALL I’ve thought about so thanks for that dude.

  Autumn: story moral: don’t lie to me!!!! LIKE EVERRRR.

  Me: I
won’t.

  Me: EVERRRRRRRR.

  Aside from the earth-shattering lie I just told you about Q.

  But really, what choice do I have?

  Me: do you wanna come over later?

  Autumn: I’m glad you and q are okay but . . .

  Autumn: honestly I don’t really wanna see you rn.

  Which, fair.

  Me: I’m so sorry, Autumn

  And I wait for her reply, but it never comes.

  There are dozens of texts from Whit.

  A few from kids who’d been on the beach too, asking if Q’s okay.

  As far as anyone’s concerned, Q is alive and well; just waiting to be cleared by the doctors, after which he will return home, Mr. Oklahoma had explained.

  I scroll Whit’s thread.

  Her first texts are frantic, worried.

  But then her tone completely one-eighties.

  True to Mr. O’s word, she knows what’s happened, she can’t imagine, can’t believe any of it. Says how bad she feels because she was relieved that I was okay when Q wasn’t.

  Whit: I’m waiting up.

  Whit: You don’t have to talk. Not tonight. But I’ll be here, waiting for you.

  67

  Six Weeks After the Funeral

  For six weeks there were flowers.

  A mound of daisies and tiger lilies, a heap of sunflowers and dandelions, a bouquet of roses with thorns intact, in assorted states of decay.

  Decay, a slow march to oblivion.

  A month after we buried Mom and Dad, the city added rows of bright flashing lights at the bend, affixed a large sign: HIGH ACCIDENT AREA.

  Which seems odd, right?

  Shouldn’t they add USE CAUTION?

  Or SLOW DOWN?

  At least a generic DRIVE SAFE?

  Instead, they’re politely tapping your shoulder, hey, so um, I see you’re busy driving recklessly and endangering the lives of others, but listen, just so you know, and please do with this what you will, but uh, there are *whispers* a decent amount of accidents right here, so.

  DRIVER: Oh. Wow. Thanks for letting me know. Should I slow down? Use caution?

  That’s entirely up to you. We’re empowering you to use your own sound judgment.

  The city also made a plaque, a vertical oak rectangle with a high-gloss bronze plate, like the ones in our school display case that read: Charles County Division II Softball Champs. Except this one was stop-sign-sized and drilled into the tree closest to the road.

  In fancy lettering:

  JADA & ANDRE ANDERSON.

  NEVER FORGET.

  Never forget what? I asked Whit. That they’re gone? That Dad’s body was flung somewhere in those bushes? Not to mention, it’s ridiculously weird. Like, who immortalizes a tragedy with a tree plaque?

  You’re overthinking it. It’s a nice thing, Whit said.

  Which is what people resort to when there’s nothing real to be done, nothing useful—something nice.

  Two nights after the city workers put it up, I snuck over and crowbarred it off.

  It left gashes in the tree. Plus holes where they’d sunk the screws. I was still working on the fourth screw when the plaque splintered. I tossed the screws into the woods and nearly sent the plaque in after them.

  I’m not sure what stopped me.

  But there was no way I was keeping it.

  At home, I tossed it in our trash bin.

  And later, when someone from the city stopped by to apologize for the vandalism and to assure us a replacement plaque would be mounted, I told them thanks, but no thanks.

  You sure, he’d said, his eyes looking behind me, waiting for confirmation from a grown-up. But Whit wasn’t home.

  We’re sure, I told him.

  Because Mom and Dad died there.

  In the bend beside that thicket.

  They didn’t win a tournament.

  66

  Approx. 24—27 Q Days Left

  “Hey, welcome back to the land of the living.” Whit winces. “Jeez, terrible choice of words.”

  I uncrust my eyes. “How long was I out?”

  But I never hear her answer.

  My bedroom spins like a runaway carousel. The ache in my head crescendoing.

  Shutting my eyes doesn’t take away the pain, but it slows the whirling.

  My exhaustion so heavy, yawning feels like work.

  “Whit, I’m sorry . . . I’m so groggy . . . I . . .”

  And then, silence.

  Sleep caving in on m—

  65

  “This is Earth to Jamal. Earth to Jamal, do you read me?”

  My cereal’s officially cream-of-flakes soup.

  I barely remember entering the kitchen.

  Clearly, I opened the fridge. Unstacked a bowl and spoon.

  Except how I got here, when I got here—I can’t tell you.

  Like when you’re suddenly at your destination only you don’t remember driving.

  It’s that wake-up-in-the-middle-of-a-dream feeling.

  Where you have to touch your nose because it was just being eaten by zombies.

  You look out your window because a meteor just leveled your garage.

  “Jamal, hey.” Whit shakes my arm. “Hey, man, you still with me?”

  Whit tries disguising her worry with a smile, but keeping feelings wrapped isn’t her specialty. I like to tease her she’s the fashionista of feelings, always wearing them on her sleeves and leggings.

  I shake my head. “Huh? Sure. What?”

  “I didn’t know you took your cereal well-done. How is it?”

  I spoon up the brown gruel, gulp it, lick my lips. “Actually, it’s under-soggy.” I eat another scoop. “Yep, definitely needs more sog.”

  We laugh, which immediately reminds me that my skull still hates me. I massage my temples.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Whit frowns. “You mean like a person who watched his best friend die last night? Is that the look I’m giving you?”

  “Nailed it,” I reply. And before I can reel off more groggy retorts, she’s third-trimester walking around the table to me, unable to wrap her arms around me because she’s growing a baby. But she tries anyway. Settles for a tight side hug.

  “Look, J, I’m so sorry for Q, for everything that’s happened. I don’t know where to start, but . . .”

  I squeeze her shoulder. “Don’t be mad, but can we put a pin in this?”

  “Umm, Dad much?”

  I shrug. “Dad was the king of postponed conversations.”

  “Yeah, and we both loved it. Dad, can I go to the movies with Carla?”

  I fall into Dad voice. “I’ll let you know, Whitney.”

  “Deeper. Dad’s voice was, like, way deeper. Almost guttural.”

  “How’s this?”

  “Better, but deeper.”

  “This is all I got, Whit.”

  “Fine.” She sighs. “Okay, but the movie starts in two hours.”

  “Two hours? Well, you shoulda let me know four hours ago. You know I hate to be rushed.”

  “If Dad was here, we couldn’t talk about last night because we’d still be catching up on stuff from two years ago,” Whit says.

  And she’s right. And we do this sometimes, riff on our parents. Make fun of them the way the four of us always teased each other. Except right now it feels off.

  Our normal broken, again.

  “Whit, I know there’s a lot to talk about, that last night is a thing I’ll be talking about for the rest of my life, but right now I just wanna sit here and not eat my cereal and hang out with my sister like a regular morning. Can we please do that?”

  “Okay, I hear you, but I just think we should probably . . .”

  “Whit, please.”

  “We can’t keep sweeping things under rugs, Jamal. We can’t let the bad things fester inside. Remember what Dr. Ocean said, ‘If we’re gonna heal, then we’ve . . .’”

  “I know. I’m not asking for fo
rever. Just not now.”

  She sighs, and I feel it coming. “You know, it’s one thing to skip school. But it’s another thing entirely to lie to me about it.”

  “Really? You wanna throw that on me now?”

  “Jamal, you’ve been throwing that on me for two years.”

  “Don’t you get it? I could die on my way up those stairs. In the shower. You could . . . What if you . . .” But I can’t say it.

  And honestly, I couldn’t survive that.

  “What’s the point of school, Whit? Of calculus or biology or any of it?”

  “Jamal, as lonely and as personal as losing Mom and Dad feels to you, to me, we aren’t the first to ever be dealt a crappy hand. And we aren’t the last. And you’re right. You probably don’t need calculus. But life isn’t only doing the things you want. And you definitely don’t get to use our parents’ deaths as an excuse to detonate your life. If you wanna fail high school, own that. If you wanna make poor choices, do it in your own name. Not theirs. Don’t dishonor them.”

  And I want to run out of this kitchen. Climb the tallest mountain. Scream every curse word I can think of, and when those run out make up my own, until my voice gives. Except life isn’t only doing the things I want, so I’m told.

  Whit takes my hand, lowers herself onto the chair beside me.

  I can’t tell you how many minutes go by before either of us speaks again. I take out my phone, cycle through a few apps, try to pretend I’m unfazed, but.

  “Angeles hopped in his car, soon as I told him what happened.”

  My brow arches. “Wait, word? But it’s finals week, he can’t just . . . he doesn’t even know Q.”

  “No,” Whit says. “But he knows you.”

  It’s easy to picture Angeles running to his old sedan, driving down whatever road it was that took him from Chicago to Ohio.

  “I mean, I get it. And it’s, like, really cool of him, but also not something he should do.”

  “Oh, you’re worried about someone missing school, huh?”

  And I try not to laugh, but Whit’s got that look on her face, like Mom when she called us out.

  And we both laugh.

  “Don’t think because I’m laughing, we’re done with all that. We’re meeting with your counselor tomorrow.”

  “Damn, tomorrow? Can’t it wait until next week?”

  But Whit shoots me a different look, this one entirely her own, and I let it go.