Free Meet Me at the River by Nina de Gramont Page A

unbent.
    “Hello. I’m Francine Kingsbury.” Her voice got a little louder on that last name.
    Hannah didn’t look surprised. She just looked tired. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Hannah Earnshaw.” My mom relaxed a little. Hannah didn’t look like much of a threat. Her skin looked broken out and her eyes looked red. Her legs were bony and covered with scratches. She had her hair in a ponytail that looked tight enough to hurt.
    My mom was so wrapped up in looking at Hannah that it took her a minute to notice the little girl, standing outside the screen door.
    *   *   *
    Sometimes I get tired, looking back. It takes so long for everything to happen. But that’s the day it starts again, and I can’t help watching. Me and Tressa standing in the backyard by the butterfly bush. My mom and Hannah watching the two of us like regular moms at a regular playdate. Like reasonable, civilized adults who won’t wreck each other’s lives.
    And then my dad comes home. The sun’s very bright. I see him park his car in the driveway and get out slowly, slamming the door. He’s not in any kind of a hurry. I can tell from the way his shoulders slump that he’s had a long day. I watch him walk up the hill toward his wife and the woman he thinks is a stranger.
    And then he recognizes her.
    He recognizes her, and everything changes. He doesn’t look tired. He doesn’t move slow. He drops his briefcase and breaks into a run, until he realizes what he’s done and stops short. It’s too late. Mom’s face has fallen and won’t ever go back to normal. Hannah’s body relaxes. I think I even see her smile.
    Don’t get me wrong. Nothing is official. Hannah’s still got plenty of disappearing left to do. But that’s the day my mom figures things out, and she’ll never forgive him. But you know what? I kind of do. Forgive him, that is. At least for that one second, when I see him run up the hill.
    Because I understand. I know exactly how he feels. I can’t stand to watch. I want to live.

( 7 )
TRESSA
    For three nights in a row I open my window to find the same message written in the snow. It looks to me like an accusation, which can’t possibly be how Luke means it. Never once, in all the times he has visited, has he shown any sign that he blames me for anything. But tonight when I push my window open to face the cold air instead of his warm presence, I feel angry. Angry at Luke for the first time since he died. How could he ask me to go to the river, when I am trying so hard to stay alive?
    Once again I sweep the message away. The snow falls to the ground below with a shuffling whoosh. Then I lean out the window and yell, “Don’t you get it? I can’t go there!”
    It feels weirdly like the same kind of fight we used tohave, and the second the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. Not because Luke might stop coming back. I know him, and the two of us, and a few angry words won’t separate us when even death can’t.
    But my mother—she’ll have heard, and she’ll come running, endangering her baby by taking those steep steps too fast, and she’ll fling open the door and I’ll be caught. I’ll have to find new ways to convince her that I’m okay. That I’ll never do any of it again. I jump back into bed, pull the covers to my chin, and stare at the ceiling. I wait for her frantic footsteps, and after a while I guess she hasn’t heard.
    It takes a long time for me to get back to sleep, so when I do hear Mom climb the stairs, it’s to wake me in still-dark, early morning. H. J. and Evie have arrived to take me skiing. I sit up in bed, startled. Evie wasn’t at school on Thursday and Friday, and neither was H. J. When I walked past the classroom where H. J. usually teaches freshman English, I saw Mr. Tynan through the window, waving Lord of the Flies in his left hand. Later that day, after my English class, I stopped to ask Mr. Tynan, trying to sound disinterested: “Where’s Mr. Burdick today?”
    “On