Some of the Parts

by Hannah Barnaby

  I think if I was a ghost or a spirit or whatever and I heard someone say they wanted just one more day with me, I’d be really disappointed in them. I would think they didn’t really want me back, and I’d also think they were showing very little imagination.

  If you’re going to ask for the impossible, why not ask for as much as you can? Why not say, I want him back here now and I want us both to become immortal rock stars! Or I want ten thousand more days and a Mustang convertible so we can drive cross-country over and over again and see all of America’s kitschiest tourist attractions.

  Nate would make the world’s longest playlist and I would pack a cooler full of tuna sandwiches and potato chips and root beer. We would have burping contests and he would let me win. We would call Mom and Dad every night to tell them we were okay and we would roll our eyes when Mom said “I love you” at the end, but we’d say it back before we hung up. We’d stay at motels and watch terrible late-night movies and make fun of them. We’d each get one arm really tan from driving with the windows down, sitting in the same spots the whole way because I wouldn’t ever ask Nate to let me drive.

  He would drive, just him, and I would ride along, and we’d keep our eyes on the horizon and we would have all the days we ever wanted.

  Maybe I am only remembering the good things now. Maybe I am idealizing him, like Amy said. But isn’t that how memory works? Our bodies go into shock so we can’t feel the pain when we get hurt, really hurt, and so we can’t remember it later. We protect ourselves. When I did the rituals, I tried to remember bad things, too, because I thought it meant that I was being honest with myself. But I’m the one who should have been in that passenger seat. It should have been me, and I like to think that if Nate was here, if he was the one doing the remembering, he’d make me better than I really was.

  When I wake up, it’s still dark outside. The days are getting shorter—there’s frost on the windows in the mornings and dusted across the grass like glitter. I wonder about Thanksgiving, about Christmas morning, if we will even acknowledge the days or if we will cocoon ourselves in denial. I wonder where Red Circle Day will take us. Five days away. Principal Hunter and Ms. Doberskiff aren’t on my side anymore. I have a mission, but that will not matter if Dr. Blankenbaker gathers all of this evidence—what if she knows Dr. Abbott? What if she finds out about what Dr. Fikri wrote to me? A new school might not be enough for them then. They might just go ahead and commit me. Dad has been going to therapy again, and I have heard him trying to convince Mom to go with him. And now she doesn’t argue about it. She listens to what he says, lets him lay down his reasons like stepping-stones to somewhere better than where they are.

  I won’t follow that path. I am making my own.

  But the time to make my own choices may be running out.

  Last night I compiled as much information on Dr. Fikri as I could find in the webiverse. Her bio from the hospital website, various references from bygone medical conferences, articles she wrote on organ donation protocols and the psychological effects of transplants on living donors and recipients. Her current study, I learned, is the first she has done with people whose donors are deceased.

  I stared at the words—recipients, donors, deceased—until the letters swam like tiny fish, rearranged themselves on the screen. Ripened. Dirt. Sores.

  I printed out Dr. Fikri’s picture from the hospital site and slid it into the codebook, which I stashed behind my computer monitor. Now, sitting down at my desk, I can see a corner of the red cover peeking out, teasing me with its secrets. Reminding me that I never could understand its language like Nate wanted me to, that I failed him even before I killed him. I push the book so I can’t see it anymore and check Mom’s dummy email account.

  Just one new message, from Jennifer. I managed to put together a fairly coherent email, striking a balance between enthusiasm (“universal donor, how amazing, I never knew”) and subtle requests for personal information (“I don’t get to Boston as much as I’d like but I love it there—what neighborhood do you live in?”). But her response ignores all of that, focusing instead on a recent support-group meeting.

  It’s just so frustrating. They all act like they’re so much more important than me because they were sicker than I was or because they got a bigger organ. Those heart transplant people are such snobs. Like the heart is SO much better than everything else. It’s like they don’t even want to know what I went through.

  I can’t even formulate a response to this through my aching disappointment. She doesn’t have his heart. She has something else. Is it even worth pursuing her now? Do I even want to know? But this group that she’s a part of—the person with Nate’s heart could be there. It could even be Dr. Fikri’s group at Brigham and Women’s.

  I close her message and stare at the screen, at Gerald’s name on the emails I’ve already read, and remember when I first saw it, when I opened that first letter and realized what it meant. I was so sure that he could help me, and I guess, in a way, he did. The spark that started the fire.

  There may be reliable laws of this universe, but the rules are not so clear when it comes to those of us who inhabit it. There is no law of physics that will tell me how to feel, no mathematical formula for right and wrong. I’ve been looking for exceptions to the rules, stretching and pulling at my conscience so it expands to fit the choices I’m about to make. So I can tell myself that what I’m doing is okay. Even if it’s not.

  I turn the monitor off so I can’t see his name anymore, then get ready for school.

  I keep myself calm while I’m walking in the hallways by focusing on the bland vanilla floor, which is blessedly the same throughout the school. The library being the one exception, with carpet that is cruelly patterned and bright and is almost enough to give me vertigo. I walk to my lucky desk with my eyes closed. If Ms. Huff notices, I don’t see it and she doesn’t interrupt me. She, like all the other adults, just leaves me to my stricken self.

  We learned about this in health last year. It’s called the bystander effect. When there’s an accident or a crime happening, everyone who sees it assumes that someone else in the crowd will call for help and then no one actually does. It’s why they told us that if we’re ever attacked, we should yell “Fire!” instead of “Help!” because a fire is a threat to everyone else, too. And people will help themselves even if they won’t help you. Even if they think they would help you, they won’t. Because they figure that someone else will.

  It doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It means they think other people are just as good as, or even better than, they are.

  In a twisted way, it’s a sign of their faith in humanity.

  When my hand touches down on the desk and I finally open my eyes, I can see through my haze that Chase is lurking behind the encyclopedias. I am tempted to yell “Fire!” to see what he does, but I’m not sure Ms. Huff could handle the excitement.

  I make my way over to the shelves, trying to keep my eyes from moving too much. He has one of the volumes open and appears to be reading it. His bag is on the table, the edge of the black binder peeking out like a curious pet. “H for Houdini?” I ask.

  He smiles without looking up. “I already know everything about him,” he says. “I’ve moved on to T for Tesla.”

  “Another magician?”

  “Sort of.” Chase marks a spot on the page with his finger and fixes his eyes on me. “He was an electrical engineer. He invented the alternating-current induction motor and some of the earliest components for radio transmission.”

  This sounds incredibly dull, and I am about to tell him so when he says, “He also had some kind of mental condition that made him see things.”

  I trace my scar, try not to sound too interested. “What kinds of things?”

  “Um…” Chase checks the encyclopedia. “I don’t know. It just says he had ‘visions’ about problems he was trying to solve. Supposedly he got trapped under a dock when he was a kid and saw a way out in his mind. There’s a story
like that about Houdini getting trapped under the ice in the Detroit River, too.”

  Some of my favorite saints had visions, but I keep this to myself because I don’t want to talk about religion right now. “You seem to have a fascination with people who escape from places,” I say.

  He closes the book, slides it carefully back into its slot on the shelf. “I guess so,” he says. His eyes are lit up by the sun coming through the window, like orbs of stained glass.

  “I’ve been working on an escape plan of my own.” The words come out quickly, before I can think about holding them back.

  “Am I invited?”

  “Don’t you want to ask where I’m going first?”

  He shakes his head. “Escape isn’t about where you’re going. It’s about what you’re getting away from.”

  “You make a lot of definitive statements about things,” I tell him.

  “I find that most people won’t argue with you if you sound really sure of yourself.”

  And I guess he’s right, because I don’t feel like contradicting him even though I know that my escape is absolutely about where I’m going. So maybe I chose the wrong word. Maybe I should be calling it a quest, or a journey, a word that speaks of pulling me toward something instead of driving me away. Suddenly my brain feels like a Scrabble board and I’m trying to find the right letters to put on the tiny squares. I close my eyes, try to clear the picture. And either Chase steps closer to me or I step closer to him or both—because when I open them, we are inhabiting the same few inches of space. Our faces align, mirror images of sad and sweet.

  “So, am I invited?” he asks again softly.

  I study him—dark hair, eyes reflecting all the light they can gather—and I think of my mother gazing at that Victorian, imagining a whole new set of chances. Maybe I could fall in love with him and feel it happening, and let him fall in love with me. But this is like the Chinese finger trap, the two of us stuck in either end and pulling in different directions. I don’t want to do this alone. But I know how he feels about keeping secrets, and if I have to tell him everything, then there’s no protecting him if I end up doing something really awful. Carefully I say, “I’ll get back to you on that.”

  “Is there an application I can fill out?”

  It’s another one of those moments, a question that could kick off a volley of flirtation. If only I could peel another version of myself away and set her aside, give her the guilt and the sadness and the quest so I could just talk to a cute boy, play this game again.

  His eyes are liquid, muddy pools. There could be hundreds of secrets under the surface. Or there could just be water.

  I say a silent prayer that he will still look at me this way when this is over.

  “I have all the information I need,” I assure him. “You’ll be hearing from me shortly.”

  And since a statement like that requires an exit, exit is what I do.

  —

  All the way home, Mel rails against the hypocrisy of a school that claims to support freedom of speech but has forbidden Scud from performing a song called “Hung Like Jesus” at Battle of the Bands. Mel and her fellow band members are, apparently, the latest population of the disenfranchised and misunderstood.

  “I’m going to get online and mobilize our fans,” Mel huffs. “The world needs to know our art!”

  It turns out that Chase is right. Mel sounds one-hundred-percent sure of herself, and there is no arguing with her. I make a note to practice sounding inarguable.

  She turns into my driveway smoothly, which is surprisingly considerate, given her mood. Just as I close my hand around the door handle to let myself out, Mel locks all of the doors. “You’re coming tomorrow, right?”

  “Where?”

  “The taxidermy show,” she says, stung.

  “Oh. Well…”

  “You said you would be there. C’mon, you have to see Raccoon Zorro in all of his glory!”

  My choices may be morally questionable these days, but I keep my promises. I can still claim that much. “I’ll be there.”

  “Great,” she says, and the doors click once more. I’m free to go.

  I gather the mail (nothing from Life Choice, another kick in the gut) and make my way into the house. Dad’s car is in the driveway, so I know he’s around here somewhere, and I’d like to spare us both the how-was-your-day talk or, worse, another series of self-help platitudes designed to jump-start our healing. Mostly because everything still seems to be moving, almost vibrating, and I am not entirely sure of my ability to act normal. I set the mail silently on the hall table and am about to tiptoe up the stairs when the quiet is shattered.

  “Tallie.”

  It isn’t his kinder, gentler, make-things-better voice. It is his you-are-in-serious-trouble-young-lady voice. Weirdly, my first response is to smile. I haven’t heard this voice in so long. But my smile is dashed when he says it again, even more forcefully. “Tallie.”

  I drop my bag and step into the kitchen. Dad is sitting at the table with his back to me.

  “Dad?”

  “Sit down.” No sweetheart. No please.

  I sit across from him, and I can see the red circle peering at me over his shoulder, pulsing like a heart.

  “I was getting your laundry today,” he says. “Giving Mom a break. And I noticed you hadn’t turned your computer off. So I thought I’d shut it down for you. And when I saw what was on the screen…” His voice cracks, steadies, and his eyes find me. “How could you do this?”

  He found it. The email account in Mom’s name. Every email between me and Gerald—and SparkleCat76, and the others—left right there for Dad to see.

  I forgot to log out. Shit.

  And there’s nothing I can say. This is one of those conversations parents start, with questions that aren’t questions, disguised as a search for answers when, really, they do not want to listen. They only want to speak, to lecture and rant. So there’s nothing I can say, but I have to say something. Something that’s not the entire truth, but something that isn’t a lie either.

  “I found a letter in the mail. That’s how I knew about Nate.”

  “You said you heard us arguing—”

  “I did hear you. So I knew something was going on.” I can’t get my voice above a whisper. I sound contrite, at least. “But I didn’t know what it was until the letter came from Life Choice.”

  Dad pushes air from his throat, a backward gasp. “And you’ve been writing to these people? You’ve been pretending to be your mother and lying to all of us?” He doesn’t sound as angry as he first did. Now he sounds sad, which is worse.

  That about sums it up, I think. “Yes,” I say.

  I know how these conversations go: The crime is verified, disappointment is expressed, punishment is issued. I grip the table to keep it still, and wait.

  “This is…”

  Disappointing, I think. Unbelievable. Very troubling.

  “…an important moment for all of us.”

  Oh no.

  “Obviously, I’m not happy that you would deceive us this way, or that you would mislead someone like Gerald. Or this SparkleCat woman. They have probably been through a great deal already and they don’t deserve to be lied to. But we have an opportunity here, to move forward as a family. I just have to figure out how to tell your mother, because she may not see it quite the way I do….”

  He goes on, about how he has finally embraced the chance to communicate with the recipients, how we could use this to learn to communicate with each other again, we’ve all been so isolated, et cetera. Now he sounds excited, which is even worse than sad. The worst. Because I’ve just given him the last piece of the puzzle he’s been trying to complete. It is all I can do to keep my eyes in one place. It’s like I’m on a carousel, with the red circle passing my vision over and over again. It’s reminding me, chanting Time to go over and over again. All this time I’ve been dreading October fifteenth, but now it looks like the finish line for a race I’ve
been running for weeks. If I can just get across it, I will be free of the dread, the fear of it, the terrible anticipation.

  It’s not my parents’ circle anymore.

  It’s mine.

  saturday 10/11

  After I assure her several times that I will seek medical attention if I start feeling sinkable, my mother says that I can go to Mel’s taxidermy show at the town hall. My father says nothing to contradict her, but insists on driving me instead of letting me ride my bike.

  “And you can text me when you’re ready for me to pick you up, okay?”

  Again, the question mark is pure formality, tacked onto the end of Dad’s statement so it sounds like I have the option of objecting when we both know that I don’t.

  Walking around a room full of eviscerated animals is absolutely the last thing I feel like doing, but dammit, I promised. I wish Chase could come with me but he is still under house arrest. And I doubt he could convince Dr. Abbott that attending a taxidermy competition was a required school assignment.

  Dad informs me that he will drop me off on his way to Lowe’s.

  “Big project?” I ask.

  “Just a few things for the house,” he says. There’s a list sticking out of his shirt pocket of items that would need to be fixed or replaced before the house could be sold. “If that’s what we decide to do,” I heard him say to my mother before we left. “Just want to be ready.”

  If she said anything in return, I didn’t hear. Only the sound of cardboard boxes bumping against each other as she climbed the stairs to Nate’s room. I tell myself that it doesn’t matter if she puts his things in boxes, that I have Matty and the codebook and the rest is hollow. But it feels like there are rocks in my stomach anyway.

  “Thanks for driving me,” I say. My voice sounds strange. I think of the cold night when I saw the banana moon, before the séance. Before all of this.

  “Yep,” he says. It’s curt, but he looks relieved, to utter such regular things. To know what’s coming.

  We don’t talk much the rest of the way, but the weight of all that we’re not saying fills the car like water, making it hard to breathe. When he stops to let me out, Dad offers, “See you later, alligator.” Which is something he used to say when I was little, and now it seems so out of place, a phrase in the wrong language. The world is not the same. But I pretend, I play along and reply, “In a while, crocodile.”