The Everafter (16 page)

I’
M BACK IN
A
M
,
surrounded by all the objects that have taken me on so many journeys.

Strange…

They don’t attract me at all anymore. I don’t want to go back and see any of those scenes of my life.

They all end the same way.

If I changed any of the individual scenes, eventually, it would all end the same, wouldn’t it? I could go back to the final scene and try again to save Gabe and myself, but I’d only be prolonging my life. I might find out what happens with Kristen and the baby. Or who my friends go to prom with. I might even marry and have children of my own.

But eventually I’d have to die, wouldn’t I?

And no matter when I left, I’d always wonder about someone. Would it be any better to be in Tammy’s situation? I mean, wondering whatever happened to your own children?

I don’t think I’m any better off knowing how I died than I was when I didn’t know. Finding out is kind of deflating, actually. It seems like I haven’t accomplished anything by solving this mystery.

Except…I realize that’s not quite true. Because what I’ve accomplished is understanding that mystery can be a
good
thing. There are some things it’s good not to know, because when you don’t, the Universe is full of possibilities. I guess I now realize, too, that…well, it’s okay to die. I didn’t
want
to die. I’m glad it’s not my fault that I did, but what’s happened has already happened. There truly
is
a time to live and a time to die. Maybe all that is what I actually needed to know—not
how
I died.

Besides, knowing how I died has brought me pain and regret, too. I recognize how destroyed Sandra must feel about what happened, and I don’t have any way to let her know I understand this is not her fault. I can’t tell her that even though I’m dead, I’m fine. Not unless I want to leave her a note at the death scene, which would probably scare her half to death and make her think she’s losing her sanity. She probably already thinks she is, anyway. No. A note would just be too cruel. I have to wait to stumble upon her
out here in the Universe somewhere before I can have that conversation with her.

In the meantime, I have to trust that somehow she’ll be fine. Like I am.

Now it’s time to find Gabe.

Even though I never saw what happened after Mrs. Simpson shot me, I know Gabe died, too, even after I tried to change things. I can sense his spirit in the Universe with me. I locate my physics homework…. “Well?” he wants to know as soon as I arrive at the picnic table.

It feels good to be back with him, but for all my newfound love of mystery, there are still some questions I wouldn’t mind having the answers to. “How did it happen,” I ask him, “those final moments? I mean, in the original version? Because I tried to change how things turned out and now I wonder what originally happened. From the time Mrs. Simpson raised the gun, I mean.”

“I don’t exactly remember because I changed the moment, too. I wanted to prevent us both from dying. I remember that, and I remember going back to change things. Only it didn’t work. We still ended up dead. And when I got back to
Everywhere,
I had already lost all my memories of the original events. I could only remember the new ones—that and the fact that I’d somehow changed things. And now all I can remember from that final scene is what happened when
you
changed it.”

“I tried to save you but ended up killing me. Did she shoot you right after she killed me?”

“Yeah. I remember that for a split second she seemed surprised, and then she turned on me and shot me.”

“Do you think we could ever change the outcome of that scene?” I ask him. “Maybe we can work together to do it somehow.” I know, even while I’m saying it, that we shouldn’t, but I need to hear that from Gabe.

“I don’t know. No matter what we do, we might end up dead. The question is, do we want to risk trying again and again to save ourselves? We could end up killing Sandra, too.”

This is a horrifying idea. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it back when I was trying to save Gabe. That wild shot hit me, but it was only inches away from hitting Sandra instead. I tell Gabe, “There’s no way I’m going to risk that happening. I know that whatever time Sandra has left to live will be shadowed by what she saw her mother do to us, but I want her to live. I know she’ll make the world a better place.”

“You did, too,” Gabe tells me.

I’m taken off guard by the compliment. It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. “You, too,” I say, meaning it. “But our chance at that has passed. I don’t want to spend eternity trying to change what’s already happened. I want to move on.”

I’m ready.

Ready to allow what might have been to remain a mystery. Ready to check out the Everafter. Ready to find out if immortality will “unveil a third event to me,” as Emily Dickinson said.

Maybe I can hang out with her in the Everafter…her and my mother and Gabe’s father, all of us really understanding what life and death mean.

“I want to move on with you,” Gabe tells me.

We float there for a moment uncertainly. “Do you know how to get to the Everafter?” Gabe finally asks.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Tammy said we’d be able to do it when the time was right. I think it’s like everything else. We just let ourselves
be
there.”

And suddenly that’s what we’re doing. Everything hums and buzzes with peaceful electricity. Warmth without heat, satisfaction without gain, being everything and nothing all at once…and losing language. I feel it slipping away from me, but I don’t miss it as it floats off on a wave, my life and all its words closing for the second time.

Thanks many times over to my husband and daughter for putting up with me during the writing, revising, and editing of this novel. I also want to thank my parents, sister, and brother-in-law. Your support through the last few years has been invaluable. I’m further grateful to my sister for the language expertise she contributed to this book.

April, Ann, Deb, Kay, Lori, Ruth, and Tim: You really are the World’s Greatest Critique Group; I’d have been lost if you hadn’t adopted me. Special thanks to Donna Dunlap for being the first reader of this manuscript and encouraging me to keep up with it. I’m grateful to John Olstad for looking over my physics sections. Any of the mathematical incompatibilities between Einstein’s theory of relativity and the theories of quantum mechanics that still appear in this novel are due to my use of poetic license; he gave me fair warning.

I’m grateful to my agents, Josh and Tracey Adams, for believing in this novel. I’d also like to thank my editor, Donna Bray, for pushing me to make this a better book, and Ruta Rimas, her assistant, for helping to guide me through this process.