The First Time I Died Read online

  Colby shone out of the pictures — vital, glowing with life and joy, ready to take on the world. I stretched out a finger to trace his face on one close-up, murmuring, “I miss you, Colby. Always and forever.”

  Though I’d touched it lightly, the framed photo fell over. I placed it upright again, shivering at a cold breeze on my neck. I was about to check my bedroom windows for the source of the draft when I saw the family photograph of the Thanksgiving dinner at the Beaumont House. I picked it up and scrutinized it. Colby’s mother stood between her husband and his brother at the head of the table. Colby’s younger sister, Cassie, sat on one side of the table, along with his older sister, Vanessa, and Ryan Jackson. Colby and I sat opposite them, him hugging me, our heads tilted toward each other. Everyone, except Cassie, was smiling. That would have been Colby’s last Thanksgiving, I realized, just weeks before he died.

  A wave of nausea surged in me, and I ran for the bathroom.

  13

  THEN

  Thursday November 22, 2007

  On the ceiling above us, sticker stars, moons and planets glowed in pale luminescence. Colby and I lay in darkness on his bed, light-headed with desire as we kissed and slid hands beneath clothes, impatient for the feel of each other’s skin. Colby groaned and pulled me closer, like he could merge with me, flesh onto flesh, bone into bone. I opened my shirt, unclasped my bra and pulled his head down between my breasts. Trembling, he pressed kisses along the curves and drew a puckered nipple into his mouth. Beneath the ripples of pleasure, I felt something deeper, a primal and ancient connection to all women who had ever felt this bewildering combination of power and vulnerability, who had ever gazed down on the head of a man nuzzling them and felt a fierce urge to protect, intertwined with an overwhelming urge to be held, loved, possessed.

  Sudden bright lights made me blink. Colby cursed. I yanked the duvet up to cover us.

  His ten-year-old sister, Cassie, stood in the doorway, her hand still on the light switch. “Gross me out!” She wrinkled her nose at us and shook her head until her blond pigtails swung.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” Colby yelled, throwing a pillow at her.

  “Mom says it’s dinner time. So, you can’t do sex now.”

  “We’re not having sex!” Colby said, which was true for the state of affairs that night, but no longer true for our relationship as a whole.

  Instead of leaving, so I could get dressed, Cassie stepped into the room and began inspecting the items on Colby’s desk.

  “We’re having roast turkey with stuffing, and buttered mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. And also minty peas and slimy zucchinis” — she shuddered at this — “and cranberry sauce. And cornbread, because Mom says Uncle Roger will ‘not be happy’ if he doesn’t get cornbread and gravy. And gravy! We’re also having gravy. What’s this?” She held up some stapled papers.

  “It’s none of your business, that’s what it is,” Colby said.

  Rubbing her lower back, and peering at the page, Cassie looked, for a brief moment, like a little old lady. “Beaumont Golf Estate development contract,” she read.

  “It’s from work.”

  Why’d he brought a contract home from work?

  “Now put it down and get out of my room. And stay out,” Colby said. “And stop taking my stuff all the time.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh, yeah, so if I search your room right now I won’t find my chemistry set?”

  “You won’t find it, no.” She beamed an angelic smile of innocence at him.

  “Brat!” Colby said, but I could hear the laughter in his voice. “I need that for my project. You bring it back tonight, and don’t mess around with those chemicals, Cas. Some of them are toxic.”

  “Toxic, schmoxic.” She tossed the contract back onto his desk. “Goodbye. I’m off to eat gravy and to tell Mom you two were making sex.”

  She stepped quickly out of the room, and we heard her run laughing down the hallway. Muttering that I didn’t know how lucky I was to be an only child, Colby bounced out of his bed and went to close the door.

  Looking down at the still-evident bulge in his jeans, he said, “Say something to get my mind off your …” — he waved a hand at my chest — “because I don’t have time for a cold shower.”

  I grinned. “Um, okayyy … So, you’ve started your chemistry project?”

  “Yeah, though I can only do the experiments when my brat of a sister returns my test tubes. Have you started yet?”

  I fastened my bra and shirt. “Just with the theory. I’m going to test the sugar content of supposedly healthy drinks like fruit juices and sports drinks, and compare them to sodas to see which is the sweetest.”

  “Let me check something.” He gave me a long, deep kiss. “Uh-huh, thought so. You’re the sweetest.”

  I play-punched him on his arm. “Bet you say that to all the girls.”

  A barrage of knocks rattled the door. “Mom says if you don’t come now, you won’t get any turkey, you’ll just have to eat vegetables. And all the zucchini,” Cassie shouted gleefully at the keyhole.

  By the time we got to the dining room, Colby’s parents and sisters were already seated at the table, along with his uncle Roger, and Ryan Jackson, who was dating Vanessa. Domino sat under the table, thumping his tail in anticipation of dropped scraps or sneaked treats.

  Mrs. Beaumont dished up the food, but before giving us the go-ahead to start eating, she said the grace, and then insisted we each say something we were grateful for.

  “I’ll start,” she said. “I’m thankful for my beautiful family.”

  “I’m grateful for the land development deal we’re putting together. It’s going to bring a much-needed injection of money to this town,” Roger Beaumont said.

  Vanessa rolled her eyes.

  “I’m thankful for the stars and moon above us, which allow me to see the things below,” Colby said, with a wicked grin and a squeeze of my thigh under the table.

  I giggled, while Mrs. Beaumont said, “Lovely!”

  “I’m grateful for Colby,” I said.

  Mrs. Beaumont beamed at me; Vanessa snorted.

  “I’m not grateful for my sore back or these gross zucchini,” Cassie said, making a face at her plate. But at a look from her mother, she added, “But I’m grateful for potatoes and gravy.”

  “Ryan?” Mrs. Beaumont prompted.

  “I’m thankful I’m not on duty today. I’d much rather be here than manning the phones at the police station.”

  Vanessa, who — by her expression — seemed to think we were all being way too sappy, said, “Well, I’m extremely grateful I’m not at Camp David having dinner with George Warmonger Bush!”

  “Vanessa,” her mother said in a warning tone.

  “Who found time between pardoning and eating turkeys,” Vanessa continued, “to call some servicemen in Iraq and thank them for their service to our great nation in a war without basis—”

  “Vanessa,” her father said. “Please don’t.”

  “—in a country we should never have invaded, and from which we now seem unlikely ever to withdraw!”

  Colby grinned. He was used to his sister’s politics ruffling the feathers of his parents.

  “That will do, young lady,” her uncle said sharply. “It’s rude to discuss politics at the table.”

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” Vanessa protested. “You’re not my father!”

  “Well, I am,” Mr. Beaumont said. “And I agree with your uncle.”

  “Don’t you always?” Vanessa muttered under her breath.

  “Bon appetit, everyone! Tuck in,” Mrs. Beaumont said, and we all began eating.

  Cassie hid her vegetables under a slice of turkey breast, poured herself a glass of Beaumont’s Very Berry water, and blew bubbles into it through her straw.

  “Stop that, please,” her mother told her.

  “Vanessa says you work at the town clerk’s office every Saturday?” Ryan asked Colby.


  “Yeah, just back-office admin. My father says I need work experience.”

  “We wanted you to work at the bottling plant,” Colby’s father said.

  “And how’s the job going?” Ryan asked.

  “It’s okay, a little boring.”

  “What’s it like working for Michelle Armstrong?” Vanessa asked.

  “She’s very energetic and enthusiastic,” Colby said, sounding like he was choosing his words carefully.

  Smiling inscrutably, Vanessa exchanged a quick glance with Ryan.

  “The best place for you, Colby, would be working alongside your father and me in the family business,” Roger said.

  Colby cleared his throat. “Yeah, about that …”

  “It’s our legacy to this family and to the town. Do you know that we employ almost thirty-six percent of Pitchford’s residents and contribute majorly to the taxes which support the town? And now that we’re taking it nationwide, why — the sky’s the limit!”

  “The thing is, I don’t want to go into business.” I could tell Colby was making an effort to keep his voice calm. It wasn’t the first or even the twenty-first time he’d had this discussion with his father and uncle.

  “You know, not everybody subscribes to the exploitative economics of capitalism, Roger,” Vanessa said.

  “Uncle Roger,” her father said.

  Obviously hoping to forestall an argument, Mrs. Beaumont turned to Cassie, whose straw was making loud slurping noises as she sucked the empty bottom of her glass. “Cassie, why aren’t you eating your food?”

  “I’m not hungry. Can I get more water?”

  “May I,” her mother corrected. “And you’re probably not hungry because you’re always filling up on water.”

  “May I?” Cassie said.

  Her mother sighed. “Of course.”

  Cassie bolted to the kitchen. Colby, meanwhile, stared his uncle straight in the eye. “I want to go into law enforcement. I want to do what Ryan does.”

  Ryan raised his eyebrows at this, but Roger shook his head as if the very idea of wanting to be a cop instead of taking over the reins at Beaumont Brothers was absurd.

  “Want doesn’t always get, Colby,” he said. “Being an adult means you need to make the occasional sacrifice.”

  “Occasional sacrifice? I’d be giving up on my dream.” Anger was creeping into Colby’s voice now.

  Mrs. Beaumont, wearing an increasingly forced smile, offered Roger the serving dish. “More turkey? Or perhaps another spoon of creamed potatoes?”

  “Your father, for example, wanted to be a veterinarian,” Roger persisted. “But he let that pipe dream go in the interests of serving the family and the town.”

  Mr. Beaumont nodded, but I thought he looked kind of sad. Cassie returned to the table, where instead of eating her peas, she began surreptitiously flicking them at Colby and me, in between feeding her turkey to Domino.

  “I would be serving the town and its citizens — including this family — if I became a cop,” Colby pointed out fiercely.

  “So, you want to put me out of a job?” Ryan teased, clearly trying to defuse the growing tension.

  “I guess so,” Colby replied.

  “Then you should definitely investigate the water business!” Ryan said, grinning.

  Everyone laughed, except Colby. I could tell he was still mad.

  Under the table, I took his hand and placed it back on my thigh, then moved it higher. A smile teased at the edges of his mouth. Staring straight ahead, I placed my hand between his legs and rubbed. His smile widened.

  “Wait! We need a family photograph. Squash together, everyone,” Mrs. Beaumont said. She set her camera on the sideboard, fiddled with the timer and then hurried to take her place between her husband and her brother-in-law.

  I cuddled up closer to Colby, keeping my hand between his legs.

  “Everybody lean in and say, ‘Cheese!’” Roger Beaumont said.

  “Or squeeze,” I whispered into Colby’s ear, suiting the action to the word as the flash went off.

  14

  NOW

  Monday December 18, 2017

  I leaned over the toilet, ready to throw up, but the sick feeling settled as quickly as it had come. Was transient nausea another symptom of concussion?

  At the basin, I switched on the light above the mirror to check my eyes. The iris of my left eye was unmistakably darker than the right. The contrast — more marked than it had been yesterday — changed my whole appearance. I didn’t look like me.

  I washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face. Immediately I was back in the water, sinking, thrashing, drowning. Feeling the pull of the pond, its frigid, watery kiss, the embracing darkness. And then the radiating light and sense of peace.

  I bunched my hands into tight fists, and the sharp pain in my fingertips brought me back to the present. I made a mental note to go online and research near-death experiences. In the meantime, I’d be careful not to mention a word of the golden glow, the pervading calm or the beautiful music of silence to my mother. No doubt she’d believe the light was a bridge to the beyond, plus she’d have a host of hunches about why I’d been returned to my life, and I had less than zero desire to hear any of them.

  The light above the basin buzzed and flickered and then went out. I tapped the fluorescent tube a few times, but it was dead. Switching on the main bathroom light, I stripped and took a long shower, making the water as hot as I could stand it, and losing a few of the fingertip bandages in the process. The skin underneath was raw and red, and one still oozed blood.

  Drying myself, I took stock of the damage. There were bruises on my hip and knees, a long scrape down the underside of one arm, and my head still ached dully, but all in all, I reckoned I’d got off lightly. I stuck new Band-Aids on the worst of my fingertips, swallowed a couple of Tylenol, and got dressed. When my father called impatiently that the food was ready, I gave my unbalanced eyes a last glance and headed downstairs.

  The food — vegetarian chili with bread rolls — was already on the dining room table.

  “I thought we should eat here, rather than in the kitchen, since it’s a special day,” my mother said, smiling at me. “It’s such a treat to have you back with us!”

  I didn’t know if she meant my being back at home, or back in the land of the living, and I didn’t ask, just took my old seat at the table.

  The dining room hadn’t changed much, either. A low basket of dried flowers still gathered dust on the chestnut sideboard, and the old spinning wheel sat in the corner as it always had, though now my mother’s crutches rested up against it. A large cut crystal, dangling from a ribbon near the window, refracted shards of rainbow light around the room.

  “Please get rid of that revolting thing, Bob, it’s bringing bad energy to our meal,” Mom said, frowning at the book lying on the table beside Dad’s place setting.

  I glanced at the title as, with a resigned sigh, Dad picked up the book and took it through to the living room. Richard Ramirez: America’s Night Stalker. Robert McGee was a mild and gentle man, but you’d never know it from his reading tastes, which ran to the brutally violent and macabre. The bookshelves to the right of the fireplace in the living room were packed with true crime volumes and biographies of all the famous serial killers — Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy — plus a host of more obscure murderers. My father could tell you more than you ever wanted to know about dreadful ways to die, and the only time he’d ever gone overseas had been to attend RipperCon in London’s East End with like-minded obsessives from around the world.

  The bookshelves to the left of the fireplace were filled with my mother’s tomes on the tarot, crystals, intuitive psychics, “true-life” hauntings and mediumship. On their London trip, while Dad had attended seminars on the possible identity and motivations of Jack the Ripper, Mom had taken day-trips to Stonehenge, Glastonbury and Tintagel.

  I buttered a roll and took a big bite. There was no trace of the nausea I�
��d felt upstairs, but I couldn’t resist a huge yawn.

  “Tired?” Dad said.

  “Nah,” I said, although I was. “That was just a silent scream for coffee.”

  “I’m on it.” He hurried back to the kitchen and returned with a pot of the good stuff, plus three mugs.

  “My old cup!”

  Delighted, I grabbed the large red mug printed with a Turkish proverb: Black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as an angel’s kiss — just how I liked my coffee. I poured myself a large cup, declined Mom’s offer of cream, and stirred in sugar.

  Dad frowned at me. “Three spoons, kiddo?”

  “Garnet always was excessive,” Mom said, apparently ruminating to herself. “Extra chili, more salt, ice even in winter. And way too much black eyeliner.”

  Irritated, I waved a hand in front of her eyes. “Sitting right here, Mom.”

  “I’ve read up on it — well, you have to when you get to my age,” Dad continued. “They say sugar is the new fat. Seems it’s a bigger factor in heart disease than cholesterol!”

  I took a sip of the brew and almost shuddered because it did taste very sweet. “I don’t think I need to worry about lifestyle choices, Dad. The way yesterday went, bad luck will kill me before cardiac arrest does.”

  Immediately, Mom perked up. “Why? What happened yesterday? Apart from your dying in the pond, I mean?”

  “She didn’t die, Crystal, stop saying that, will you?”

  “Oh yes she did! She was as dead as a doorknob.”

  “Nail,” I said.

  “What’s that, dear?”

  “Dead as a doornail.”

  “I don’t think that can be right. What’s a doornail, anyway? The point is, you absolutely, positively left this life, and I want to hear all about what that was like, too.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  She pulled a tragic face.

  “First-time nerves. Next time I die, I’ll be sure to take detailed notes for you,” I said sarcastically. Then, because she looked ready to apply thumbscrews to hear about my adventures in the world of spirit, I threw in a distraction. Pointing to my eyes, I said, “Notice anything different?”