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Mayday

Jonathan Friesen




  ONE MORE CHANCE

  Lightning crackled, and the silhouette of Adele slowly walked away with Mom’s arm around her shoulder. Adele. One hellish minute had changed her world. She believed in me, counted on me, and I had failed her, let a monster lay hands on her. I could make Addy’s life right.

  I could stop both Maydays from happening.

  “Take me back,” I whispered. “Real back. Real everyone-can-see-me back.” I glanced over my body. “Take me back to April. When I was thirteen. Just before Mayday.”

  Sadie raised her eyebrows. “You want to be thirteen? That would place you in middle school? What was so important?”

  “You gave me a choice. I chose. Can you do this or not?”

  “Spunk you never lacked.” Sadie thought a moment. “April of your thirteenth year? So be it. You’ll be needin’ these.” She handed me newly knitted mittens. “Minnesota can still be cold in spring. Now go on. Best hop in back and get changed.”

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  USA * Canada * UK * Ireland * Australia

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  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Jonathan Friesen

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE SPEAK EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Friesen, Jonathan.

  Mayday : a novel / by Jonathan Friesen.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “Seventeen-year-old Crow has devoted her entire life to protecting her sister Adele—even putting her own life on the line. But when an attempt to rescue Adele from a suitor puts her soul into a limbo between life and death, Crow is given a chance to inhabit a loaner body to go back and change the past”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-14-241229-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  [1. Soul—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Coma—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F91661May 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013017913

  Speak ISBN 978-0-698-15257-1

  Version_1

  Contents

  ONE MORE CHANCE

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM JERK CALIFORNIA

  TO LOST SOULS EVERYWHERE

  Let’s start with where I’m not.

  I’m not in a dark tunnel walking toward a bright light.

  I’m not drifting toward heaven, looking down on my body.

  I’m seated in the front of an ambulance—alone—waiting. I’m not sure if this is a normal rest stop before the long trip; I’ve never died before.

  A series of notebooks spreads across the dashboard. On the cover of each, the scrawl of green permanent marker. Josh, Gertrude, Jordan—each tablet has a name. Mine simply says Crow. There are no instructions, but when I saw the pen that rested on the driver’s seat, I knew what my notebook was for.

  I’m writing out my life. Maybe someday everyone has to give an account. Maybe this is how it’s done. Maybe this is how secrets leak back from the other side, and end up newspaper headlines. Addy, please, if the insanity of my last weeks reaches your hands, read it through with an open mind. Don’t be afraid of what you’ll discover. I want you to know it all.

  I didn’t love you well, sis. I didn’t know how. You have every right to remember me as a freak or a philosophical head case. Both are true. But for me, it’s time to own up, and as I don’t know where this ride ends, this may be my last opportunity.

  I know you don’t like reading Nietzsche, but he got this one right: “The complete irresponsibility of man for his actions and his nature is the bitterest drop that he who understands must swallow.” It’s hard to accept what I did, harder still to accept how I hurt you and the others. So after you read this, please share it with all those concerned.

  Especially Dad.

  Here’s what I did.

  Here’s why I did it.

  I’ll start at the beginning, which, of course, was my end.

  Please remember I loved you,

  Crow

  CHAPTER 1

  THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE

  A bad beginning makes a bad ending.

  Euripides, Aeolus

  I DON’T RECALL MY FIRST TRIP TO REGIONS HOSPITAL.

  From information pieced together later in life, I know it was an odd, but otherwise unremarkable, visit. Dr. Ambrose displayed a curious affection for the forceps, and tugged me, the raven-haired girl, from Mom, who likely would’ve approved the use of a tow truck had it separated the two of us quicker.

  Dad’s role was much smaller. Unstable man that he was, he fled Mom’s birthing screams and spent most of her labor pacing and muttering in a lobby. Upon news of my arrival, he returned to perform a birth’s supreme act of symbolism. He muscled dull blades through the purplish umbilical cord, forever severing the maternal bond.

  “Your father was so proud of you . . .” Mom said many years later, before rubbing her face and turning away. “For one hour. It didn’t take him long to decipher what type of child you would be. Wailing always did him in.” Here, she paused to offer an exaggerated sigh. “You know how fragile he was.”

  Actually, I did not. Dad was my hero until the day he left, his return the object of my hidden hopes long after. But Mom’s sigh achieved its desired shaming effect.

  By all accounts, I cried for twenty-six hours straight. Never had those scrubs encountered a child with so much will in the lungs. The newborn nursery staff housed me in a torture chamber renamed the Circumcision Room, where I became the world’s youngest boarder. It boasted soundproof walls, and my internment there was a nursely attempt at mercy toward other, less-vocal newborns. Mom visited at feeding times. Dad peeked in then quickly fled my noise. And somewhere, in between all those comings and goings, a name appeared on my bassinet: Coraline.

  It’s a pretty name, and Dad alone used it. One of the scrubs in the nursery saw to that. She removed my pink hat, stroked my black hair, and sang lullabies to her “Little Crow.” Mom heard her singing and my cawing, and the name stuck. I entered life pre-nicked.

  On Day Three, the hospital evicted me. Dad pulled the Volkswagen into the turnaround. Mom received her ceremonial wheelchair ride to the curb, her arms laden with flowers and balloons. . . .

  But no child. I fol
lowed at a distance, borne by an anxious scrub, no doubt concerned that a parental escape was somehow in the works. She stuffed me into my mom’s arms; Mom stuffed me into a car seat; and after all that stuffing, the Raines brought home their colicky baby, who owned a scream that shredded any remaining hope of their marriage’s survival.

  • • •

  I don’t believe my final hospital visit was as commonplace.

  Train-car collisions were rare. That Will survived the collision was rarer still. My prospects, as driver and recipient of the impact, were much more tenuous. Using the persuasive doctor jargon Dr. Ambrose must’ve learned in medical school, he became more forceful by the day as he discussed my bleak outlook with Mom.

  “Your daughter will not wake up. Her brain activity is below the baseline for recovery. The humane choice is to let nature take its course.” Read into those comforting words: Flip the switch. Pull the trigger. Kill your girl.

  As much anger as I carried toward this doctor, it struck me that he was in a surreal position. He had brought me screaming into the world. Eighteen years later, he had the chance to silently usher me out.

  Here I need to ask my sister. Did you wonder—I know you did—where I was when I was hooked up to the machine? When the beep was steady? When the ventilator in my mouth sucked and filled, sucked and filled, and the screen that searched for life said Death had come?

  Ambrose and all the scrubs spoke in hushed voices, scared that Lifeless—an apt name for my body—might overhear. They stared and spoke in mock horror, as if they couldn’t believe it had happened.

  But even more than that, they wondered, like you wondered, where I really was.

  I’ll tell you.

  I was right there in the room. Did you ever sense my presence? Could you feel my gaze?

  I trailed Nurse ICU to the employee exit, listened to her and the other scrubs giggle and laugh and joke about the Unthinkable:

  “Why don’t they pull her plug?”

  That’s when I spit in her double latte. Did she taste it? Likely not. I tasted nothing either.

  How does a disembodied soul spend its days? This you’ll soon see. But initially, there was plenty of time to sulk, and question.

  What is a soul, anyway? You’ll remember how I spent time thinking about that, how the concept of an invisible center bothered me. I never became comfortable with the idea of a soul.

  Descartes didn’t either: “But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions.”

  Foolish man. As if senses are nothing.

  One thing I knew: to a soul, to me, senses were everything. They were what fresh air and blue sky are to a prisoner, what running and leaping are to an invalid.

  The numbness of a floating soul—how do you bear the emptiness? It was a stupid philosophical question until I experienced it. Then, the desire for touch overpowered all else and consumed my every thought.

  Except for one. As I stared at Lifeless, I still felt the connection, and the idea sickened me. An invisible umbilical cord stretched from it to me—wrapping around my midsection. Not even Dad’s shears could cut me free. Though I tried to leave its room, I couldn’t stray far from Lifeless.

  And when it dreamed, I dreamed.

  And the dream was always the same.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE

  The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.

  Socrates

  “CROW?”

  This irritated. She said my name like a question. As if my little sister needed permission to enter its room. As if Lifeless could even answer.

  Adele looked good—tan to my pale, healthy to my bony—though I do wish she would’ve asked to borrow my jeans.

  This time, I might’ve said yes.

  “Hi, Addy,” I rose from the corner and moved nearer. “I’m over here.”

  I heard me. The mirror reflected me. The chair supported me. Dead things knew I was there.

  “I came alone.” Adele quietly rounded its bed. I stretched out my hands and closed my eyes and stilled for Adele’s embrace. She entered my arms. I tensed, then relaxed. I turned and saw Adele behind me. She had passed . . . through.

  I never got used to that.

  “He’s not here,” Adele whispered. She swept the chair toward the bed and the hair off Lifeless’s cracked lips. “You look better today.” Sis forced a smile, but it couldn’t stay. “Maybe a little more color?”

  She paused and her head bowed. “Won’t you wake up?”

  Tears fell and Addy draped her body over Lifeless and I hated it all the more—the stupid thing was comatose but still received the touch I wanted more than anything in this world.

  Adele visited every day. She’s the only one who did.

  And after what I did to her . . .

  I walked around the bed and hugged her from behind.

  “Will is recovering fast. He’s sitting and talking.” She sniffed and swiped her eyes with the heel of a hand. “The doctors say he’ll probably be released in a week. So that’s good.”

  I straightened. “No, it’s not. He has plans for you. Mayday plans. The same ones Jude had when we were little. Stay away from him.” I folded my hands. “You know, I was driving him as fast and as far away from you as I could, but now I . . . I can’t protect you anymore.”

  Adele didn’t know how much time I spent in Will Kroft’s room, yanking at his IV drips. Harsh, I know. But what do you do to guys who want to destroy the one thing on earth you’ve sworn to protect?

  My sister hummed, the same song I had hummed to her when the nights were bad and sleep was hard to find. I stared at Adele, her hand on its cheek, and marveled.

  Why do you still come?

  Not for confessions. Other people did that. Whether or not they knew me. People told Lifeless everything, like she was an ancient priestess. They dumped their trash on the vegetable, and left feeling light and free.

  Things I learned since the train clipped my car:

  The harshest, most feared girl at Central had exactly zero real friends.

  Adele hated me, for about one week.

  The double-latte night nurse cheated on her husband.

  Jude, my stepdad, had Mom so blinded with his therapeutic excuses that she couldn’t see his hand destroying us all.

  The first of May is out to get me.

  Adele paused midsong and whispered, “You really need to wake, sis. Jude is starting to talk about some things. You just need to wake soon ’cause the doctor . . .”

  “Go on, say it.” I exhaled slow. “We took the elevator together yesterday. Ambrose needs the bed. He needs the room. Lifeless is a vegetable.”

  “He says you don’t think, but I don’t believe him.”

  “He’s close to right. It dreams though, if that counts.”

  Adele said nothing more. She rested her head on the bedrail and held its hand. In this moment, Adele gave me the greatest gift. The gift of pain. A deliberate rend that tore me in two, though there was no me to grasp. How clear it was: Adele was both my kite and anchor in this world. The one person I would die for, and the only one I could not leave.

  What I would have given to feel her hand, to believe that beyond this hospital room, that chance might come around again.

  I plopped into the recliner and watched Adele’s face. So innocent. She was worth it. My disembodied state . . . She was worth it all. Adele stood and kissed its forehead . . . and I gasped. Whatever air souls breathe grew thick. That was my kiss, the one meant for me. I jumped up to receive mine.

  “Addy? Please, don’t go.”

  She left. I followed a short distance down the hall, reached the n
urse’s station and froze.

  A force gripped my middle, and I yawned. I raised my hands and let it pull me back toward Lifeless.

  Time had taught me there was no escape, no weapon to fight this foe.

  My eyelids grew heavy.

  I knew what came next.

  We’re starting to dream.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE

  Dreaming men are haunted men.

  Stephen Vincent Benét, John Brown’s Body

  THE RECURRING DREAM BEGAN IN A FIELD, green and lush and surrounded by woods. I never actually walked through waves of tall grass, and Lifeless might have dreamed the country all wrong. Maybe peaceful glades hid broken bottles and serial killers, but if so, I liked the delusion. The field was light and joyful and felt like spring. My heartbeat quickened—scary fast—but I wasn’t too worried. Lapsing into a second coma seemed a stretch.

  I kicked off my shoes and ran, circling the field, feeling stronger and wilder with each step. Rabid dogs also ran in circles—the similarity was not lost on me. Sure, I could explore the woods, but I clung to every green moment. The place calmed me, reminded me of The Sound of Music, opening scene, without the mountains, or Julie Andrews.

  I slowed and spun and smiled and felt warmth on my face . . . and there stood Adele and Mom. We leaped like fools through waist-high grass of soft green. Mom was beautiful as the field was beautiful. She laughed, and the sound was music.

  Such a strange sight—Mom’s carefree smile. In life, I never saw it. Such a gentle laugh she owned. In life, I don’t remember hearing it.

  Mom also spoke. We all did. And of all the things I can’t remember, these unknown words haunt me the most. Words dribble fast and pointless off the tongue throughout our lives. Useless, meaningless . . . until after. Then every word feels weightier.