Free Some of the Parts by Hannah Barnaby

star?”
    “You know a lot about Houdini.”
    “Biographies. I’m addicted.”
    Then he tells me about Harry Houdini’s movies, in which he played a series of characters with
H
-names. “Harvey Handford, Harry Harper, Howard Hillary. You get the idea. I guess he could never really let go of being himself even when he was supposed to be acting like someone else.”
    I let him talk, his voice floating around me like a cloud, and I think about how I wished so much, in the early days of after, that my brother would send me some kind of sign. A sign that he forgave me, or at least that things were going to be okay. Could this be it? A boy who looks like him, who is a bottomless well of words about magic and possibility? Not a reincarnation of my brother, of course, but maybe a representative.
    Then Mel scoots her chair noisily up to our table and shatters the calm. And before I can even register feeling silly about such hopeful thoughts, she says loudly, “Hate to interrupt, but it’s about time I get this little lady home. Can’t worry the parentals, y’know?”
    Chase smiles stiffly. “I do.”
    I stand, sling my bag over my shoulder, and turn to go. I know I should say something but I’m afraid of what will come out, so I just reach down and roll the finger trap toward him.
    “Keep it,” he says.
    “Are you sure?”
    He smiles, for real this time. “You obviously need to work on your escape technique.”
    I pick it up carefully—keeping my fingers away from the ends, as if it might grab on to me by itself—and tuck it into my pocket. Stand there, shift my weight.
    “Ohfergodsake,” Mel mutters. “Let’s go.”
    But something won’t let me move. Now that my brain has brought me the idea that Chase has been sent, I’m afraid that he’ll disappear as suddenly as he arrived. What if I walk out of Common Grounds and never see him again? What if there’s something I’m supposed to do or say and I miss my chance?
    He knows something. He has to, because he stands up, too, and says, “I’ll walk you out.” And then a miracle happens. Chase waves to Cranky Andy and calls, “G’night, man,” and Cranky Andy actually lifts his hand and waves back.
    Mel gasps. “Unprecedented,” she whispers.
    I stroke the finger trap in my pocket.
    “Indeed,” I say.
    —
    Mel drops me off and roars away, revving her engine to show her disdain for people who go to bed before eleven. I watch her taillights shrink into the darkness and turn the corner, and then I stand in the black for a moment, letting it envelop me. Darkness was one of my trials after the accident, a penance I tried to pay. I blocked all the light from my room and imagined I was buried, trying to scare myself. It never worked. Now I can see a perfect square of light at the base of my house, a sign that my father is in his basement workshop, sorting his nails and screws into tiny labeled drawers.
    I stop to get the mail before I go inside. The mailbox has been my domain for the last few years—my dad pays all the bills online and my mother does her shopping the same way, so neither one of them cares anymore about what shows up in our green plastic receptacle. Even my report cards are delivered by email, though the last one was all screwed up because of our arrangement with the school. I imagine I’ll have to explain that someday, if I’m applying to colleges. But that particular someday seems impossibly distant. The depth of one dark mailbox is about as far as I can reach right now.
    Awaiting me is the usual assortment of junk: shiny postcards from various politicians and real estate agencies, coupons for lawn care and gutter cleaning, catalogs. But then I notice a large manila envelope with a white label on the front. TO THE FAMILY OF , it says, and then my brother’s name and our address. The return label in the upper left corner says LIFE CHOICE .
    They’re a little late,
I think. I tuck the envelope under my jacket so my father won’t see it if