Page 59 of Dearly Departed

Both bags. Mine and Jacob’s. They’re both as clean as the day we bought them, and when I open mine, it has my stuff inside. My mini-pack of tissues didn’t survive the trip in the ocean, and neither did a couple receipts I had in my wallet, but everything else is polished and shined and⁠—

Are the twenties pressed? With an iron?

Yes.

Even our phones are there.

Mine has a sticky note on the screen.

REPLACEMENT DUE TO OCEAN, it reads in bold, blocky handwriting. SHOULD WORK THE SAME. RECOMMEND A WATERPROOF CASE

A doodle underneath looks like waves.

“Ma’am?” The flight attendant is at my elbow. “Do you have everything you need?”

I have several questions, but I’m pretty sure I won’t get answers, so I just smile.

“Almost.”

We pull up in front of Gabriel’s brownstone at sunset. I keep my arm around Jacob’s waist. We walk through the frigid winter air together, the nurses close behind.

As soon as we’re at the door, I knock.

The hum of voices from inside stops.

Footsteps rush for the door.

It flies open, and there they are—Gabriel and my sisters and Gabriel’s brothers and his sister and everyone.

“Oh my fuck! You’re alive!” Gabriel sings, and they all surge forward and crush us in massive hugs. “What the fuck was that letter, Jacob? Jesus Christ!” My sisters’ arms are around me so, so tightly. “You’re home!”

We’re home.

16

JACOB

This isn’t what arriving home after a series of near-death experiences is supposed to be like.

No, no, that’s not what I meant. I meant—this isn’t what arriving home after a series of near-death experiences is supposed to feel like.

The welcome we get from Catherine’s sisters and by extension all of the Hills is picture fucking perfect. As genuine as anything. They did think we were dead. They are happy to see us alive. They do fold me and Catherine into the sort of group hug that verges on dangerous, what with all the flying elbows and clinging hands.

It might as well be happening to someone else.

I can feel the hug, obviously. Gabriel has crushed the air out of my lungs and then some. Everyone’s happiness is palpable.

And I…

Watch it from a distance, groggy and ill and undeserving.

Any moment now, they’ll realize there’s no need for a show like this. Not for me. Elise and Lydia can’t stop touching Catherine’s face. They stroke her hair and look into her eyes and lean back to make sure that all of her has arrived.

I just don’t understand—can’t understand—why anyone would bother with me.

Or perhaps I think they shouldn’t bother with me.

Perhaps it’s only as we’re dragged bodily into the entryway of Gabriel’s townhouse and the nurses who have been sent along to prevent me from dying have to gently suggest moving to a larger room so that they can shut the door and stop letting the winter in that it dawns on me: this simply can’t be.