But even as I said the words, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. This was the last year I was eligible for the full ride scholarship.
“No way. You’re not waiting, and the loan…” Kelly didn’t need to say that it would be hard to get that much money without our parents alive to cosign for it. “I know! We’ll sell the house. It’s ours now, right? We’ll sell it and we’ll use the money for your fees?—”
I shook my head as I remembered something I’d been told. “Actually, no, we can’t. This house belongs to the church. Mom and Dad were gifted it to live in only while he was pastor. Now that he’s not… they’re going to ask us to move out.”
“What?”Kelly screeched.
I nodded, staring at the second letter in my lap. The logo in the corner read “Emily Lawson, Solicitor” with an address in the United Kingdom. On any other day, I might find that curious. But now, it didn’t seem important. And I couldn’t handle any more bad news at the moment. My chest was already being squeezed in a vise.
Who cares that I just lost the best thing that ever happened to me? Who cares that without the scholarship I’d have to give up my place? Who gave a shit that Kelly and I would lose our home?
My parents were dead dead dead, and nothing would ever bring them back. And I could have saved them, Ishouldhave saved them, and I didn’t.
CHAPTER FOUR
MAEVE
Most people spend the days after their twenty-first birthday with the worst hangover of their life. It was the reward for finally reaching adulthood – the gift of knowing you were no longer invincible, and that all your actions have consequences.
I was spending mine at my parents funeral. In terms of life lessons learned, I’d much rather have the hangover.
But that’s what happens when your name is Maeve Crawford and you live a cursed life where every imaginable shitty thing that could possibly happen to a person happens to you, all in the same week.
It was almost laughable how little I was surprised.
I sat in the pew beside Kelly while the church band played Dad’s favorite worship song. Her hand gripped mine as a fresh wave of tears cascaded down her cheeks. Over the last week, Kelly cried practically every moment she was awake – she sobbed through the meeting with our family lawyer (when he showed us just how little money was in our parents’ accounts). She sniffled down the phone to reporters writing piece after sensational piece with headlines like COUNTY FAIR ENDS IN GRUESOME DEATHS and ARIZONA GOVERNOR CALLS FOR FERRIS WHEEL BAN. She bawled while Pastor Tim (formallyassistant Pastor Tim) sat us down to talk about the “next phase of our life,” and informed us we’d need to move out by the end of the month. She snuffled while we discussed options with the funeral director, who gently guided us toward closed caskets, given the extensive burns and damage to our parents’ corpses.
She cried enough to start the second Biblical flood. Which was just as well, because I still hadn’t cried. Not once. I played the memory of the accident over and over, watching the Ferris wheel toppling from the sky, crashing into the tents, the flames tearing through the fairground like demons hellbent on destruction. I heard the screams, smelled the burning,feltthe smoke scratching the back of my throat…
It felt like a dream, like some movie I’d seen.
I told myself over and over again how sad it was, how much I’d miss them. But my body refused to cooperate. My tears didn’t come.
The vise-like grip on my chest hadn’t eased. I had this odd sense of watchfulness, as though I was waiting for something to happen, for some sign to tell me what to do next. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to live, no plan for the future. Kelly at least had an aunt she could live with this year while she finished her senior year at high school. (My aunt too, technically, although they never really acknowledged me).
I, on the other hand, was completely untethered.
What the hell am I going to do?
On the raised stage at the end of the vast church hall (our denomination didn’t believe in grand buildings like the Catholics, so there was no interesting architecture to distract me) the newly minted Pastor Tim finished the opening prayers, and my parents’ friends stood to deliver eulogy after eulogy, talking endlessly about Matthew and Louise’s charity work, their mission trips, their contributions to the community.
Then Kelly got up, her whole body trembling as she folded and unfolded the paper containing her own eulogy. I raised an eyebrow at her, asking in sister-code if she wanted me to be up there beside her. But she didn’t even see me.
Behind the lectern from which we’d heard Dad deliver sermons every Sunday since I could remember, Kelly cleared her throat. She spoke in one long sentence, her words ragged from grief. She pushed them out in a rush – of our parents’ surprise when they found out they were pregnant with her (Mom wasn’t supposed to be able to have children, hence me), memories of our childhood, a rambling story about Dad’s obsession with The Beatles – eager to have it over with. In front of her, two closed coffins sagged under the weight of the floral arrangements Pastor Tim donated.
I stared at Pastor Tim in his formal black suit, my chest so tight I struggled to breathe. I couldn’t even manage to work up a righteous anger that he was taking away our home.
They were very pretty flowers.
At the cemetery, Kelly and I hung back behind the crowd, our fingers laced together. The bright Arizona sun bore down on us and beads of sweat trickled down my back, sticking my dress to my skin. Black clothing may bede rigueurfor funerals, but now I knew why we didn’t ever see any goths in Coopersville. Black is not the fashion for an Arizona summer.
The pallbearers moved past us as they made their way down the path toward the family plot. The vise tightened around myheart. I gasped for breath. Kelly rested her head on my shoulder and smeared tears and snot all over the sleeve of my dress.
“You’re not crying,” she sniffed.
My stomach flipped. I was hoping she hadn’t noticed. “Not now. I was before. During your eulogy. You did a great job, by the way.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Hey, did you ever open that other letter?”
