Free Life Before by Michele Bacon Page B

while I ran to the basement for a clean pair of jeans. If I made the trip without releasing or drawing a breath, I was safe. Safe from what, I’m not sure. In my experience, real people are more dangerous than whatever supernatural horrors could be concealed in my basement.
    Today I have no interest in heading upstairs, either. Some part of my brain believes Mom is still lying on the kitchen floor, just at the top of the stairs.
    Deputy Nolton, who walked us to my house to get more of my stuff, keeps watch on the porch while Jill steps into my house.
    She bounds upstairs. Nothing improves her mood like hijinks. “You coming?”
    Do I have a choice? On my slow ascent, I focus on Jill’s feet and turn the corner at the top of the stairs without looking into the kitchen. She follows me down the hall.
    In my bedroom, Jill touches my shoulder. “You okay?”
    “Yup, fine.”
    Jill disappears back down the hall while I survey my room. It really is kind of a sty. I find my black duffel and empty the dirty clothes—oops—before filling it with non-distinct ones: cargo shorts and plain T-shirts. Nothing with a Laurel Woods Lions logo. Nothing about Ohio. Nothing that remotely stands out.
    Jill darts in and out of my bedroom, dropping off things from her list: extra contact solution, toiletries, clean underwear from the dryer.
    The dryer. Where Mom put them shortly before she died. I hold them gingerly, as though they’re art instead of Fruit of the Loom. These are some of the last things Mom ever touched. I wish I could reach into my underwear and back through time.
    I close my eyes and wish it again.
    “You okay?”
    I lie to Jill and keep packing. My copy of On the Road goes into the backpack with other stuff to keep my brain busy. Again, nothing that screams Xander. If Gary starts asking around about me—at the bus station, for instance—I don’t want anyone to remember me.
    Jill returns with diet granola bars, which I reject.
    “Are those the shoes you’re taking?”
    My brown Teva knockoffs seem fine to me. It’s summer.
    “For traveling, and for walking around New York, you need real shoes.” Jill pulls my grungy Chucks from the closet. “Closed toe. More support. Trust me.”
    I add them—and some clean tube socks—to my duffel. I’m almost done.
    Looking to supplement the sixty bucks from Mom, I raid her favorite cubby holes: inside the toilet paper cylinder, the gap behind the tall bathroom towel case, and between twin copies of her favorite novel, Midwives .
    With nearly three hundred dollars cash in hand, I bid a silent thanks to my mother’s distrust of banks.
    It’s not stealing, right? Even when I was hard up for cash, I never touched my mom’s stash. Never. But if she’s dead, all her money is mine, right? Mom would want me to be safe and far from Gary. Pooling our cash is crucial. That’s what people do in emergencies.
    Mom’s whole freaking life was an emergency. If she hadn’t wound up pregnant at nineteen, she wouldn’t have married Gary. And she wouldn’t be dead now. Of course, that means I wouldn’t be alive now, but let’s put that aside. Any way you slice it, her life was over the second she became pregnant with me. That’s a lot of guilt to put on a guy.
    I launch my duffel from the top of the stairs to the landing at the front door. Jill is back in the basement, so I’m up here alone. Steeling myself, I close my eyes and turn toward the kitchen.
    Deep breaths.
    I open just one eye.
    And the kitchen is normal. Quiet. No scent of cilantro. No ghosts. No chalk outline or little evidence tents. Laurel Woods cops aren’t CSI , after all. When I muster the courage to step onto the linoleum, nothing happens.
    I am in my kitchen alone. Mom is gone.

F OURTEEN
    Dale and Janice have left us alone in the house with a cop on the front porch. Six hours before departure, Jill and I sneak into the garage. Dale thought Neapolitan was too conspicuous, and taking a squad car seemed ridiculous,