Shadow

Chapter One

Katie

It rained all of August, but the day of the funeral was so bright and sunny that my family struggled to mourn. They waved their programs back and forth, pulling at the necks of their tight dresses and their choking black neckties as the sweat poured down. Black was the worst possible choice on a record-breaking day like this. Mom had always hated black, and I felt like the heat was her way of having the last word.

At least I knew what she’d want. I wore red.

It was strange watching our living room fill up with mourners—strange and horrifying. It didn’t feel like our space anymore, Mom and me, but like a moving picture of a place I’d once known. I hadn’t been back in the house until two days ago, and then only to pluck the red dress from my closet. I’d been staying with Mom’s friend Linda, not because I couldn’t fend for myself at sixteen, but because she worried the silence of the empty house would be too much to bear.

She wasn’t wrong. The only way I’d found to survive was to numb myself to the loss, the icy cold sting of it freezing my heart until the reality of her death was merely something disorienting, something I couldn’t really fathom.

Mom couldn’t be gone. That wasn’t something that could even happen to me. She had been totally fine before I’d found her that morning. I’d even poured myself a bowl of cereal, thinking she was just sleeping in late.

I knew that wasn’t like her, but it’s not like you expect people to die. You somehow think they won’t, that life will just carry on the way it is now. You get too comfortable.

And then life shatters, and you pull the shards around yourself so you can pretend it’s all fine.

As much as the quiet of the house had creeped me out, seeing the living room full of people was somehow worse. Watching half strangers grind their sweaty bodies into the fabric of our cushions, sipping punch on the good couch where Mom never allowed food—it was like I was a ghost, like the house had somehow shifted into a new future where I didn’t belong.

If I couldn’t stay here, then thank god I was going back to Canada with Nan. My own space wasn’t comfortable anymore. I was a stranger to myself.

“Cocktail weenie?” came a loud voice and I looked up. I’d been huddled in the corner by the stairs, but I guess with my red dress I still stuck out.

“Aunt Diane,” I said. She was the only other burst of color in the room, wearing a black dress covered in purple flowers and a too-dark purple lipstick to match.

“Have one,” Diane said, wiggling the silver tray at me. She had a forced smile on her face, but even then she looked way too cheerful. “You look like you could use a bit of a pick-me-up.” I didn’t think we’d even owned a tray like that. Mom would have thought it tacky and cliché.

“A pick-me-up?” I said, staring at her. “My mom is dead, and you think a cocktail weenie is going to help?” It was snarky, and I knew better, but the room full of strangers was stifling. I was starting to feel claustrophobic, when there’d always been enough room in the house for Mom and me. It was like all my relatives had brought little pickaxes to chisel away at the barrier I’d built around myself so I didn’t have to face the truth. Couldn’t they just leave already?

“Trust me,” Diane said, thrusting the tray closer. “I’ve lost my sister, and the last way I want to remember her is cramped in a room with sweat and bad breath and a bunch of people she wouldn’t have wanted here anyway. You and I need some calories to get through this.” I looked into the sea of black as the mourners trampled around our living room and spilled into the kitchen. There was no space for memories; there was no space to breathe.

I reached a shaky hand toward the tray and loaded a couple different snacks onto a napkin. “Thanks.”

“Okay,” she said, and then she was gone, shoving the tray into the face of one of Mom’s coworkers.

I didn’t know Aunt Diane very well. She’d moved to Japan to teach English when I was eight, and before that, she’d moved around the States teaching in a bunch of small schools. She had a nomadic streak, restless the way Mom was, but unlike her, Diane longed to see other countries. Mom liked to stay where things were predictable and safe. I wondered now if she would have regretted that choice. If she’d known she’d die so young, would she have lived differently?

The anxiety trickled through me. When would death come for me? Would I suddenly stop existing in the night, leaving a trail of restless mourners to share memories over puff pastries and room-temperature punch? The minister had talked about Mom’s legacy to us, her compassion and giving—she was always volunteering for things, helping people out in the community, although she often turned around and made human interest stories out of the experiences for her newspaper gigs. What was my legacy? Would my life matter?

Did I matter anymore, now that Mom was gone?

Deep thoughts for a sweaty living room but the panic rose in me anyway.

Oh god. Mom is gone. She’s gone. I felt like I would break into a million shards, all pinpricks and a blood-red dress and pain, clouds looming over me, raining only on me in the whole room.

“There’s my Katie.” Suddenly Nan was towering over me, which she could only do if I was curled in the corner the way I was. It felt as if reality swirled on either side of her, the cracks holding together like fragmented glass as I stared at her hopefully, like she could fix it somehow.

“Nan,” I said, getting to my feet and then towering over her.

“You’re like a bright red rose in a garden of wilting flowers,” she said, rubbing the fabric of my dress between her fingers as I hugged her. “Don’t you look pretty in that dress?”

“Mom never liked black,” I said, and Nan grinned.

“I know,” she whispered, and pulled back the neck of her dress to show the bright magenta camisole underneath. I smiled, though I felt like crying. “You and me, we’re a couple of troublemakers.” She gave me a sly grin.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re rebels.” I relaxed a bit as Nan held my hands in hers. She understood. She knew what I was feeling. And I was so glad to have her here, because I knew enough to know I was breaking.

Leaving Albany would suck. I’d managed to get into the Advanced English class I’d wanted at school, and there’d been a waitlist a mile long for that time slot. And leaving my friends and my home—leaving my life with Mom...

But at least I had a few friends I knew from summer vacations in Canada. And being with Nan and Gramps was familiar and comfortable. Their house was small, an old converted log cabin that they’d built on to, but I was sure they’d find room for me somehow. Maybe the attic that Nan always talked about fixing up when Gramps was better.

“I better go say hello to Linda,” she said. “Thank her for pulling things together, you know.” Linda had done most of the organizing for the funeral because Nan had her hands full with Gramps’ health.

“Okay,” I said. “Where’s Gramps? I want to say hi.” I hadn’t noticed him at the funeral, but then again, I’d spent most of the service staring at my lap, pretending it wasn’t happening.

Nan didn’t let go of my hands. Then she squeezed them, her mouth a thin line.

“He couldn’t come, Katie.”

“But” I scanned the room for his smile, the curve of his back as he stumbled along with effort, but of course Nan wouldn’t lie about it. “How are we going to drive to Deep River?”

“Let’s talk after, okay? It’s been a long day for you.”

I wanted to ask how they were planning on getting all my stuff back to their house if Gramps wasn’t here. Had someone else driven Nan to pick me up? Were we going to fly? I opened my mouth to ask, but the serious look in her eyes silenced me.

“Okay,” I said. “After.” Nan squeezed my hands one more time before she dropped them. She walked into the kitchen calling Linda’s name, and I was left to wonder just how sick Gramps was. I thought the last round of chemo had finished a while ago, but if he didn’t come with Nan, it couldn’t be good news. At least I’d be able to help Nan take care of him when I moved up. How much time did he have? I thought he’d be in remission by now.

The thought was too much to handle in the middle of Mom’s funeral. Death surrounding me, pressing in from every angle. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes as I rubbed the rough fabric of my dress between my fingers. I was drowning, the room starting to spin. I leaned against the banister for support.

“Katie,” called someone, and I looked up. My mom’s coworker from the newspaper, with a wine glass in her hand and a deeply concerned look on her face.

“Hi,” I managed, but my heart was pounding in my ears.

“You poor sweetie,” she whined, and suddenly the spindles of the staircase felt too solid against my back, like the bars of a cage. “How are you doing?”

My mom is gone, Nan’s acting weird, my house is full of people who suddenly care about us and my whole life is destroyed. How do you think I’m doing?

“Um, I’m okay.”

“It will take time,” she said, swirling the punch around the wine glass. “But time heals all wounds, you know. She’s in a better place now, your mom. I know she’s looking down on you and smiling.”

I wanted her to butt out. How did she know what I was feeling? It’s not like I didn’t hope it was all true, that Mom was in heaven and happy and all that. But I didn’t need this clueless woman reassuring me. She didn’t know anything. She barely even knew me.

I had to get out of there before I lost it. I didn’t want to cry in front of all these people. I didn’t want them to swarm me with their empty consolations.

“Thanks for coming,” I said quietly and squeezed myself past her outstretched arm as it swirled the punch round and round. I walked along the wall to the foot of the stairs and bolted up them.

I shut my door behind me, sliding down to the floor. The air was familiar here, cooler than the living room. My eyes glazed over as I stared at my bookshelf, running my eyes over the colored spines and letting my mind go blank.

I was nothing now. I didn’t have to be angry, or sad, or confused. I could fade away, barely here at all.

It lasted about five minutes before I burst into tears.

I forced them back, unwilling to accept the truth. When my heart had calmed down and I could hear the birds chirping outside instead of the pulse in my ears, I mulled over why Gramps hadn’t come. He loved Mom, his eyes always shining when we visited. There’s no way he would’ve missed the funeral unless he was really sick.

One of the books on the bookshelf stuck out farther than the others, and my eyes kept drifting back to its odd shape. I rocked forward onto my knees and reached for it. The novels on either side of it toppled over with a thud as I pulled it out. No wonder it stood out beside them—it was the thick travel guide Diane had sent from Japan for my twelfth birthday, hoping she could convince me to visit. She’d just about given up on Mom, but at twelve I could fly without an adult.

“No way, José,” Mom had said when I’d asked.

“Why?” I’d whined.

“Send my baby girl to the other side of the world? You’re dreaming.”

“Just for a week, Mom!”

“And then? What if you want to live there forever? What if you never come back?”

“Like that would happen.”

“Diane never came back, honey. Why do you think you would?”

It was such a strange thing to say, I remembered thinking. Who wouldn’t come home from a vacation? But Mom’s eyes had filled with tears.

“We need to stick together, Katie. You’re everything to me.”

She was afraid. Dad had left her, and she was terrified I’d leave her, too.

“Okay, Mom. I’ll stay with you. Promise.”

I flipped the pages mindlessly, past glossy photos of cherry blossoms, Buddhist temples, markets filled with rows of gleaming fish.

When my tears fell, they wrinkled the pages until I couldn’t even read the words.

I’d kept my promise. I’d stayed.

And after all her worrying, it was Mom who’d left me.