Page 2 of What You Never Knew

There was the sound of squealing tires, brakes trying desperately to work; then came a flash of blue, and everything went dark.

I was dead in an instant. I leaked out of my body and into the atmosphere just above the road. I watched as the paramedics pulled me from my car, which was crumpled in the front, curled in on itself. T-boned, I believe they call it, on the driver’s side.

The driver of the white van stumbled along the side of the road, refusing to be stilled. He gestured wildly at my car, called out obscenities. The driver of the blue car sat trapped in her vehicle, alive but looking as though she might be dying on the inside.

I watched it all unfold like some bad TV drama. The black birds continued to circle above the farmer’s field, unaffected by the man-made tragedy only a hundred or so feet away.

One of the three ambulances pulled away from the gory scene, my body inside. My only thought—June’s going to be so mad at me.

JUNE

I fit the plastic cup back into the round indentation of the seat tray. The wine tastes like vinegar, and I can bear only three small sips. My book rests open on the edge of the tray, but only to keep the passenger beside me from making small talk.

I haven’t been able to read since May died. Forty-three days. I’ve lived without my older sister for forty-three days. I wake up surprised by this every morning—it’s like realizing you don’t actually need oxygen to survive. We always said we’d die if the other one did. It wasn’t so much a promise as scientific fact. We just didn’t think one could survive without the other. And yet here I am, on a plane to a place I should be going to with my sister.

The flight attendant drops a bag of pretzels on my tray, then moves on, his plastic smile locked in place. Reflex has me pull the small plastic bag open and bite down on one of the salty twists of sawdust. The wine is the only thing I have to move the dry clump down my throat. I wince as it travels through me.

“The red is just as bad,” the man in the seat beside me says. I give him a polite smile and set my gaze back on my book. I used to be a friendly person, happy to engage in airplane small talk. Now everyone annoys me—all inane intrusions into my grief. Except my teenage daughters and maybe my ex-husband. Actually, no, my ex-husband annoys me too, maybe the most.

Before I got in the cab for the airport, I said to Leo, “Keep our girls safe.”

He did his little you’re a total idiot laugh and said, “Of course I will, June. They’re my kids too.”

You only have to lose something once to feel like every other important thing in the world is in constant jeopardy. He should have known that. He should have put his arms around me and said he’d take care of everything. Instead he followed it up with, “This trip is a good idea. It will snap you out of this thing you’re going through. I think it’s exactly what you need.” He gave me a polite peck on the cheek, and I resisted the urge to punch him in the gut.

I’m not on this trip to snap myself out of anything. Nothing will ever snap me out of losing May. My sister was ripped from my life without warning, no old age, no long illness. One minute she was there and the next she wasn’t, and I had no say in it.

The plane bumps up and then drops suddenly, and the seat belt sign dings. We’re starting our descent. I shoot back the rest of the wine, endure the burn, knock my pretzels onto the floor, lock the tray into place, and put my seat-back in the upright position.

Avril Island. The name whispers through my mind, getting louder the closer I get. My nerves of nostalgia stand on end.

MAY

I was only two and a half when they brought June home from the hospital. I remembered it, though, all through my life—vivid and clear as though memory hadn’t started to matter until the day she arrived.

My mother took great efforts to settle me on the couch. She propped throw cushions on either side of my legs. She put a hand against my stomach and pushed me as deep into the couch as I would go.

Then she placed the tightly wrapped pink bundle into my arms, and I was surprised at how heavy she felt.

“This is your baby sister. This is June,” my mother said softly. She pointed to herself: “April.” Then to me: “May.” Then she pointed to the baby: “June.” She paused to let the understanding sink in. “The three of us are the best months of the year.” She chuckled, the warm, rich sound sending happiness surging through my belly.

I would come to understand much later the narcissism of our names. She was a month, and therefore the two of us must be as well—her month starting things off, our months following right behind.

I looked down at June and she looked up at me, her eyes bottomless pools of navy. We stared at each other, our gazes unwavering while a bond made up of blood, brain waves, and particles, pulled out of the atmosphere from sisterhoods that had come before us, was tightly knit together.

My mother stayed uncharacteristically still, smiling down on both of us. Her scent of French perfume, sour milk, and skin that had sweated out a baby draped itself all over us. Her closeness and unsolicited love, combined with the emotions my new sister inspired, brought me to tears. They rolled down my cheeks and gathered in short, toddler sobs in my throat.

My mother misunderstood, thinking my crying was out of sadness for the new arrival, that I saw June as competition for her affection. She swept my sister out of my arms and against her chest like I was only moments away from chucking the bundle right onto the floor.

My mother didn’t understand unconditional love. She didn’t know what it looked like, smelled like, or felt like. That’s why she could never really understand my relationship with June. She was in awe of it as much as she was suspicious of it, fluctuating between believing it was a coup against her and taking it as an example of her superior parenting. No matter her outlook, June and I stayed steadfast in our love for each other. We had to. It was the only way to survive our mother.

I don’t know if all dead people are assigned to just one person. It makes sense, though, that I’m assigned to June. Basically, I was assigned to her the day she was born, and now that she’s dead, she’s the one I haunt.

Being dead isn’t as bad as everyone imagines. It’s lonely in some ways, but peaceful, and there’s a contentment that comes with it that you’ve searched for all through life but never found. Perhaps because in so many ways we spend our lives running from death, so when it finally comes we have no choice but to accept it. Gone are the fear, the avoidance, and the desperation that living so often brings.

No more insecurities, guilt, shame, or regrets. There’s just no point to them anymore. Full memories have disappeared for me as well, my entire life presenting like a fuzzy dream that happened in the course of one restless sleep. I know who the main players were and have some sense of myself but can’t gather together the full details of actual events that made up my lifetime. The only clear memory I have is of the moment of my death, and I try my best to avoid reliving that one.

My time, which feels simultaneously endless and momentary, is split between the living realm and floating in a beautiful abyss of nothingness. A sea of total darkness, with small bursts of light throughout and no definition between me and the nothingness. I am as much a part of it as it is of me. I’m peaceful in this nothingness, but there’s a sense of limbo. As though I’m in some kind of ethereal waiting room until the universe has decided I’m ready for the next stage.