Incredibly, I spent the next hour at the Turnabout Diner, eating hamburgers with Bradley Pine and not talking about ghosts. By the time I went home, I was almost sane again.
15
Dodie
I stared at the ceiling of my childhood room. My temples throbbed. My eyes felt heavy in my skull, dry and swollen. The light was fading behind the curtains in the window. Had I slept? I must have. I felt sick.
There were voices downstairs. Vail and Violet. So Violet was home, then. I heard the heavy fall of Vail’s footsteps, his deep, familiar voice. “Damn it, Violet. You’d think—” The words became indistinct again. I listened to the hum of my brother and sister talking, listened to the soft breathing of the house. Listened for the sound of water, but it didn’t come.
Words from the conversation below drifted up again. Violet: “Is she sleeping?” Vail: “Yes.”
I didn’t move. When Violet’s footsteps climbed the stairs, when she walked down the hall, I didn’t move.
There was the soft creak of my door opening.
“You’re not asleep,” my big sister said.
I choked the words out. “Go away.”
Her tone was bitter. “I’m home, if you care.”
“I don’t. Go away.”
“Don’t you want to know what’s in Ben’s police file?”
My temples throbbed harder and my throat tried to close. “No. I don’t.”
“Jesus, Dodie.”
I was staring at the ceiling, not looking at her, but I could feel her eyes on me. I wanted her to stop looking. I wanted her to go away so I could be alone in the dark.
I didn’t want to know what a few pieces of paper said about my dead brother. I’d thought I wanted to know, but I was wrong. It had been a mistake to come here, because I didn’t want to know anything at all. I wanted it all to go away. I watched spots dance in front of my eyes and thought about what kind of person I was that I wouldn’t want to know such an important thing. Important information. As if information could make any of this better.
“So fucking dramatic,” Violet said, and the door closed again.
Good. Let her and Vail take care of it, whatever it was. I couldn’t do it. I’d never been able to do it. I’d never been able to do anything.
Except get my little brother killed. I could do that.
I knew Ben’s favorite hiding places. He was a little kid; he was easy to outsmart. When we played hide-and-seek, Ben always hid either in the back of Vail’s closet or the cubby under the main stairs. That final day, when Ben had suggested the game, I’d decided to mess with him. I’d pulled Vail’s dresser across his closet door so that it wouldn’t open. Then, as Vail counted loudly down from ten, I’d hidden in the cubby under the stairs myself.
I beat Ben to the hiding spot. I was faster than a six-year-old, smarter than a six-year-old, wittier than a six-year-old. What a fucking achievement.
My little brother’s footsteps had approached barely a minute after I tucked myself under the stairs, slowing and hesitating. “Dodie?” he’d whispered.
“Sorry,” I’d said, trying not to snicker too loudly. “This spot is taken.”
Ben had paused, and in the kitchen, Vail had finished counting. Ben’s footsteps scurried up the stairs.
I’d smiled to myself in the dark because I knew he was going to his second place in Vail’s room. He’d strike out there, too. A successful prank all around. Ben would have to find another hiding spot.
His footsteps hurried up the stairs, and that was the last I heard of him, ever again.
I had tried a thousand times over the years to strain my memory of those last footsteps. Had I heard Ben go down the hall? Go into any of the rooms? Had I heard a door open or close? Had I heard him come back down the stairs? Or had his footsteps simply stopped at the final step? My brain thrashed it over and over. It made no sense. If Ben had stayed upstairs, where had he hidden? If he had come back down, why hadn’t I heard him? Could he have hidden and come back down later, after I left my hiding spot? Where had he gone?
It didn’t matter where he had gone. Wherever it was, he had died there. It wouldn’t have happened if I had let him hide in one of his favorite places. If I hadn’t taken the spot under the stairs—if I had let Ben have it—then I would know where he was. If someone had to die that day, it would have been better if it was me.
I let the memory bubble up, let it burst at the surface and spread its toxic stench over me, let the acid eat at me. A single impulsive choice had changed my life forever. I could have slid out of my hiding spot and given it to Ben. I could have come out and chased him up the stairs, scooping him up in my arms instead of letting him go. I could have done so many things, but I hadn’t.
