A nurse comes in and lifts my mother’s hospital gown, exposing her hard, taut belly. The skin ripples like the surface of a pond. My mother lets me touch her. I feel an arm, a leg. My sister is reaching for me. I’m supposed to be in there with her. Not in some medical-waste bin, waiting to get tossed in an incinerator with amputated limbs and diseased organs and other lost babies. Reduced to ashes like my father. We’re alike in so many ways. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life fighting the darkness I inherited from him. But I’ve got my mother in me, too. She lives in the light. For me it is an endless cycle of light and dark. Right now everything is gray. The birds on the window ledge, the dying light in this room, the hair at my mother’s temples.
The nurse leaves and my mother closes her eyes. I watch her belly rise and fall, and my ears fill with a sound like water rushing down a storm drain.
ninety-three
My mother is home, asleep in her bed. I’m in my bed, too. But I’m not alone.
“What are you writing?”
“Nothing.”
“Can I read it?”
“No.”
Autumn shrugs, scratches Thing behind the ears, and goes back to her plans. The clubhouse is gone, but she wants to rebuild. This summer, she said, when her brother is home on leave. Something bigger and better and sturdier. I hope she picks a different spot. The surrounding trees are scorched black, the bark blistered, permanently scarred, like me. The cuts on my face are nearly gone, but the others will be with me forever. My wrists remind me of what I almost gave up: my life. The ones over my heart, who I am: ME. EM when I look in the mirror. Elanor Moss. Not Old Ellie or New Ellie or Madeline’s Sister. I’m broken but whole, like my mother’s favorite lamp. There’s a fine crack down the center but it still works. That story about the gods splitting us in two—maybe it’s not what it seems. Maybe your other perfect half isn’t roaming the earth. Maybe your other perfect half is closer than you think. It would be just like the gods to send us in the wrong direction, dooming us to an eternity of searching for ourselves in others, looking outside when we should be looking in. Stupid, right? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.
I’ve been thinking about Autumn, too. She is my friend. My one and only friend. She’s not Madeline, but Madeline isn’t Madeline anymore. My mother’s naming the baby Francine, after my father’s mother. My mother was right. We’re a lot alike—Autumn and me. More than I want to admit. That’s not how it sounds. It’s just that it’s hard sometimes, looking at your own reflection. Rad and Jess and Kylie—they weren’t ever anything to me. And Scilla … was she ever really my friend? Yes. When we were little, but then we grew up, and she changed and I changed. And maybe someday Autumn will change, too. But right now we have each other. That means something, right?
Tomorrow, after school, I’m buying a new journal. I’m tired of this one. I don’t care if it’s only half full. So I guess that’s it for now. I have to work on my endings.
about the author
BARBARA STEWART earned an MFA in creative writing from Wichita State University. The In-Between is her first novel. She lives with her husband in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE IN-BETWEEN. Copyright © 2013 by Barbara Stewart. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio
Cover photograph © Oleg Oprisco/Trevillion Images
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Stewart, Barbara, 1970–
The in-between / Barbara Stewart. — 1st. Ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-250-03016-0 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-250-03017-7 (e-book)
1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Best friends—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Near-death experiences—Fiction. 5. Grief—Fiction. 6. Single-parent families—Fiction. 7. Moving, Household—Fiction. I. Title.
PZ7.S84873In 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2013025064
First Edition: November 2013
The In-Between Page 17
