Noggin (11 page)

I spent most of Thanksgiving break moping around the house and watching old movies on cable. Hatton was visiting his grandmother in Kentucky for the week, and it looked like Kyle wasn’t talking to me. I couldn’t blame him. Even I wasn’t sure what I was trying to get out of confronting him about his sexuality. Ugh. “Sexuality.” That makes it sound like the opposite of what it is, I think. “Lifestyle” is even worse. No wonder he wants to keep it to himself—nobody seems to understand things they aren’t a part of—I guess that’s why I keep getting called a freak on national television.

I just wanted him to be okay. I
needed
him to be okay because, well, I don’t think I was anywhere close to that, and I needed at least one of us to have things figured out. Yeah, maybe I was dying when he told me before and it didn’t matter, but you didn’t see his face after he’d said
it. I wasn’t so naive to think it would be all that easy for him this time. I’m not stupid. But I wanted him to realize that he didn’t have to keep hiding who he was, at least not from me.

And then there was Cate. Seeing her with Turner was like seeing your parents having sex—it’s something you never want to see and after it happens, you’re forever haunted by it, no matter what you do. It’s like someone shaped a branding iron of the two of them kissing in that theater and scorched it right into my skull. The Triton might as well have burned to the ground because it was possessed by the spirits of that night. And I was bound to see her with him again. I knew I’d eventually come face-to-face with the biggest obstacle that stood between us. He’d have to go—that’s all there was to it. Turner who works with computers would have to be a victim of fate. It was inevitable.

Something else inevitable was seeing my entire family for Thanksgiving. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I liked my family okay . . . I just wasn’t sure how they’d react to the dead guy in the room. I’d already seen my grandmother and aunt several weeks before, and that went okay. But this would be different. This would be little cousins who weren’t little anymore and aunts and uncles who’d visited me in the hospital, who’d helped my parents move on with their lives after I’d gone.

Everyone in the family volunteered to drive to Kansas City for our big holiday dinner, instead of the usual trek
to Grandma’s in Arkansas. I was anxious to see what had become of all these people who’d already seemed to age and change so much between our annual visits back before I was gone. Every year there’d be some new growth spurt to marvel at or a cousin with an accompanying girlfriend or boyfriend to whisper about in the kitchen or after they’d gone to bed.

The morning our first guests, my aunt Cindy and her gang, were to arrive, my mom walked into my room and handed me a stuffed elephant.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s for Ethan. That’s Chloe’s son.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s two. Cutest thing you’ve ever seen. Didn’t I show you any photos yet?”

“No. Wait, how old is Chloe now?”

“Twenty. Don’t ask. It’s been a wild couple of years for Cindy and Jim.”

The last time I’d seen my cousin Chloe, she had dyed, jet-black hair and was wearing fingernail polish to match it. She had an eyebrow ring, too, and I distinctly remember walking up to her as she was staring at a candle that was sitting on the windowsill in my grandmother’s den and asking if she wanted any dessert.

“Did you know that if you stare at a flame long enough, you can see its soul?”

“No, Chloe. I did not know that.”

That was also the Thanksgiving she kept bringing
up some “Veronica,” who Mom was certain was her girlfriend. Aunt Cindy would get this look on her face any time Chloe said her name, and I saw Uncle Jim gently set his hand on her shoulder during dinner, almost like he was preparing to hold her down in case she decided to jump up and rip the ring out of Chloe’s eyebrow.

“I thought Chloe liked girls.” I inspected the elephant, rubbed its plush against one cheek.

“That was either a phase or a ploy to get attention and drive Cindy crazy.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes. That girl is the most spoiled human being I’ve ever met. Cindy practically raises Ethan while Chloe goes and hangs out with her friends. Beats all I’ve ever seen.”

“Classy. Is her husband coming?”

“Her boyfriend, you mean. And no, your grandmother won’t allow it. She thinks he stole a spoon from her house last Christmas.”

“Did he?”

“Probably. You know, they use spoons to smoke those drugs.”

“What drugs?”

“I don’t know. Whatever kind they’re smoking these days.”

“Don’t ask me.”

I’ll admit that when they all arrived and were standing in the driveway, I was completely speechless seeing Chloe
as an adult holding a two-year-old on her hip. I was even more shocked to see her younger brother, Toby, who was no longer a Dr. Seuss–quoting and adorable eight-year-old but a full-fledged skinny teenager with shaggy hair and big headphones around his neck.

“Toby?” I walked up to him, and he looked over at his mom before doing anything.

“Toby, don’t be rude. You remember Travis,” Cindy barked.

“Hey, man,” I said. “I can’t believe you’re so
old
. You’re almost my age now. Trippy.”

He still didn’t say anything, but he smiled and exhaled a subtle laugh, holding out a closed fist. I bumped it and walked over to give Chloe a hug.

“Ignore him—he pretty much hates everything,” Chloe said into my ear.

“This is for Ethan,” I said to her, holding up the stuffed elephant.

“Elwapunt?” he said. I laughed and let his outstretched arms grab it.

“Yeah, elephant,” I said. “He’s cute.”

“Quality genes, you know,” she joked.

I liked her immediately. I mean, I’d always liked Chloe and we’d never had any problems or anything, but she was one of the cousins who stayed pretty distant during my whole illness, and I guess I just thought it would be weirder than it was. But we were laughing and joking already.

“You look great, kid.” Uncle Jim shook my hand just as
firm as ever, and I could be mistaken here, but I’m pretty sure he had tears in his eyes.

“We certainly have a lot to be thankful for this year, don’t we?” Aunt Cindy said, moving in to hug me.

The next group to arrive was Uncle Pete, Aunt Mary, and their twins (the aforementioned Chase and Chad), along with my grandmother, who they’d picked up on the way. Pete was my mom and Aunt Cindy’s only brother, but you’d never have guessed that from the way Mary so easily fit in with her sisters-in-law. When I say fit in, I mean that she talked nonstop and a little loudly, just like my mom and Aunt Cindy. And I loved it. The chaos of their combined voices seemed to make me forget all about my situation for once, if only for a few minutes. It was like if I closed my eyes and didn’t look at any of them, didn’t see how they’d aged and changed, then I could pretend away the dying and the surgery and the waking up to a new world. If every moment could just have this effortless familiarity, then I could be okay.

Chase and Chad were now fourteen, still identical in every way, and even though they both gave me a hug when they walked in, I could tell they weren’t quite sure what to say to me or even if they believed that I really was me. They sat next to Toby on the couch and were discussing movies by the time I walked in and took a seat across from them in my dad’s recliner.

“Dude, the CGI was so epic,” Chase or Chad said.

“I know, right? What about that last battle scene? The
Troll King? So cool.” Toby sat up and grabbed a chip from a bowl on the coffee table.

“What movie you guys talking about?” I asked.

“
Troll Wars
. Dude, tell me you’ve seen it,” Toby said.

“Haven’t even heard of it.”

“Holy shit. Holy shit,” one of the twins said. “We have to go. We have to leave this house and go right now.”

“I don’t think they’ll let us,” I said.

“Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow you’re taking us to see
Troll Wars
. Settled.”

“I don’t have a license,” I said.

“What? You’re sixteen, right? Like, almost seventeen?” Toby asked.

“Lame,” one of the twins added.

“So lame,” the other agreed.

“I have to wait ninety days before they’ll let me take the test. It’s a medical thing.”

“You didn’t have one before?”

“Ran out of time,” I said.

This made the three of them get quiet, that weird quiet where everyone thinks the same thing and waits for a brave soul to creatively change the subject. So I knew I had to just go for it if this day was going to work out at all.

“Here,” I said, standing up and lowering the collar of my shirt. “This is where they did it. This part is me and this part is him. No, it doesn’t hurt and yes, it feels exactly like it felt when I had my first body.”

They all stood up and stepped closer. Chase and Chad,
as if they’d discussed this beforehand, each stuck out a finger and slowly went in to touch the scar. As they did this, Toby held up his phone and snapped a photo.

“This is the single coolest thing I’ve ever experienced,” Toby said.

“Get in here, then.” I pulled him over beside me and smiled as he held his phone out above us and snapped another shot.

“You guys are so weird,” Chloe said as she walked into the room.

“He is one of
two
people in history to come back from the dead,” Toby said to her. “I think we have the right to freak out a little.”

“He was never actually dead, dumbass,” Chloe said to him.

“You know what I mean. And watch your mouth. You’re a mother now, you b-word.”

By the time they were done pretend fighting, Chloe had Toby in a headlock and was asking me if I thought he’d make a good candidate for head transplant surgery. You have no idea how amazing that felt either. To joke about this thing that everyone took so seriously was such a relief. I was so afraid that everyone would get there and we’d all be sad and moping around and talking all about when they lost me and everything.

When dinner was ready and the scent of the turkey was wafting its way through the house and causing us all to turn ravenous, my cousin Thomas finally arrived.
Thomas was Chloe and Toby’s older brother and had been twenty when I last saw him. He was dressed in his fatigues, hat and all, and gave my uncle Pete, a former Marine, a salute after he’d given everyone else a hug.

“Travis,” he said, hugging my neck. “So good to see you, cousin.”

“Alive and well, huh?” I tried to joke.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Damn, you look exactly the same.”

“Look at his neck,” Toby said.

“I’ll kick his ass for you later, Travis. Food ready?”

I sat at the flimsy card table with the other kids, where I belonged, and watched Chloe and Thomas at the grown-up table. I’d been outranked. They did not mention this in the cryogenics brochure. Chad, Chase, Toby, and I waited for our moms to fix our plates, and even though it all happened the way I’d always remembered it, it still felt strange to be a part of this new generation of cousins and not sitting across the room with the ones I’d grown up with.

“So you mean to tell me,” Toby began, quite loudly, “that if someone in this family gets frozen for a bunch of years, they still have to sit at the kiddy table until their new body is old enough to graduate?”

“Yes, Toby. Eat your food,” Aunt Cindy said to him.

“If Travis wants to sit over here, we can make room,” my grandmother said.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Really. This is nice.”

“Come on, Travis. Thomas, move over. Travis, you belong over here.” Chloe stood up and held her plate, making her way to our table.

“No. Really, this is silly. I’m sixteen. You’re twenty. Stay put.”

“You sure?” she said, her head tilted a little, a half frown on her face.

“I’m sure. Everyone, eat. Please.”

“Well, I do want to make a toast,” Grandma said, standing up. “To Travis.”

“Oh man,” I said. I still hadn’t eaten a bite. My stomach was about to attack my spleen for nutrients.

“No, now you only get to come back to life once, so we’re going to toast you all we want tonight,” she said.

“Here, here.” Uncle Jim raised his glass of iced tea into the air, and everyone followed suit.

“Sharon,” my grandmother said. “Would you say grace?”

“Everyone please bow your heads,” Mom began. “We thank you, God, for all the miracles in this room tonight. For little Ethan, for Chloe. For Toby, Chase, Chad, and Thomas. And, Lord, we especially thank you for bringing us our Travis back. We missed him so much.”

When I opened my eyes, which were fairly wet, I saw that everyone in the room had the same expression, one of those sad-but-happy ones that you see when there’s a good memory or joke shared in a eulogy or when your grandparents talk about their childhoods. This look they all shared, some with tears and others with shaky lips, it made
me realize something that I hadn’t quite thought about up until that moment. It made me realize that no matter how often you see or talk to someone, no matter how much you know them or don’t know them, you always fill up some space in their lives that can’t ever be replaced the right way again once you leave it.

“Travis,” my sweet grandma said. “I always knew you’d come back.”

It’s always weird going back to school after a holiday. There’s this strange sort of feeling in the air and this distant look in everyone’s eyes—like no one really knows how to catch back up with their routines, from walking down the hallway to turning locker combinations. You see people stopping to remember what books they need for which classes, and sometimes you even see a kid or two wander into the wrong room at the wrong time. As I sat in my desk in geometry that morning, I wished I could raise my hand and explain to the teacher and to everyone that this feeling they all had, this out-of-time-and-place feeling, was exactly what I felt every second of every day. I wanted them to know, just for a second, what it might feel like to be this way, to be unable to catch back up, to make sense of the littlest things going on around you.