"I will," answered Uncle Chris.
Once I died.
Deborah, Zack (Pierce's dad), Alex, Uncle Chris, & Pierce flinched.
No one is really sure how long I was gone. I was flatline for over an I was also is why - once they warmed me up - the defillibrators, along with a massive dose of epinephrine,brought me 's what the doctors say, anyway.I have a diffrent opinion why I'm still among the living.
They quickly gaze at Pierce curiously.
But it's one thing I've learned not to share with people.
Deborah and Pierce's father exchange a glance.
Did you see a light? That's the first thing everyone wants to know when they find out I died and came 's the first thing my seventeen-year old cousin Alex asked me tonight at Mom's party.
"My party? It's your party honey." she says softly looking at Pierce.
"I so this is tonight's party that just ended?" asked Pierce
Alex shrugs," I guess."
"Did you see a light?" No sooner were the words right out of Alex's mouth than his dad,my Uncle Chris, slapped him on the back of the head.
Alex just glared at his dad.
"Ow,"Alex said,reaching up to rub his scalp."What's wrong with asking if she saw a light?"
"It's rude," Uncle Chris said tersely."You don't ask people who died that." I took a drink from the soda I was hadn't even asked if I wanted a huge Welcome to Isla Huesos, Pierce party.."
Deborah blushed lightly. " I honestly thought you would enjoy it. Why didn't you say anything?"
Pierce shrugged," I don't know,"she said as she put a hand under her chin.
But what was I going to say? She was excited about 'd apparently invited everyone she knew back in the old days,including her entire family,none of whom had ever moved-except Mom and her younger brother, Chris-from the two-mile-by -four-mile island of the coast of South Floridaon which they'd been that Uncle Chris hadn't exactly left Isla Huesos to go to college, get married, and have a kid, the way Mom had.
Uncle Chris raised an eyebrow at her.
She just blushed and stared at the floor. She muttered, "Sorry."
"But the accident was almost two years ago,"Alex said."She can't still be sensitive about it."He looked at me."Pierce,"he said, his voice sarcastic," are you still sensitive about the fact that you died & then came back to life nearly two years ago?
John glared briefly at Alex.
Pierce's heart twisted when she saw him glare. Why is he glaring at him? I thought he wanted nothing to do with me?
I tried to smile. "I'm fine with it," I lied.
"Why didn't you say anything if you weren't fine with it ?" asked Uncle Chris interrupting himself.
She lightly shruggled.
"Honey, if you ever need us just say the word, okay?" said Deborah
"Okay, thanks Mom." Pierce noticed that John was somewhat scrutinizing her from beside herself and Alex. (AN: The couches are facing towards each other: seating: couch #1: Deborah, Uncle Chris, Pierce's dad. ; couch #2 : Pierce, John, Alex)
"Told you," Alex said to his me, he said,"So did you or did you not see a light?" I took a deep breath and quoted something I'd read on the Internet."Virtually all NDEs will tell you that when they die, they saw something, often some kind of light."
"NDEs?" asked Deborah
"What's an NDE?" Uncle Chris asked, scratching his head beneath his Isla Huesos Bait & Tackle cap. "Someone's who's had a near death-experience," I explained.
"Oh."
I wished I could scratch beneath the white sundress Mom had bought me to wear for the evening.
Pierce's face flushed deeply red.
"That wouldn't very nice would it, Pierce?"
"No, Ma'am." she replied much to her chagrin, red still flooding her cheeks.
It was too tight in the I didn't think that would be polite, even if Uncle Chris & Alex were family.
"Good."
"Oh," Uncle Chris said."NDE.I get it." NDEs I read couldm suffer from profound personality changes & difficulties readjusting to life after...well, preachers who'd come back from the dead had ended up joining biker clubs.
"Seriously!" Alex said, snickering while Uncle Chris did the same. Like father like son.. Everyone was tittering , John was having trouble containing his laughter,was currently spying Pierce from the corner of his eye.
Leather clad bikers had gotten up and gone straight to the nearest church to be born again.I thought I'd done pretty well for myself, all things considered.
"You have Pierce." said Pierce's mother and father as they beamed proudly at her.
Although when I'd glanced through my files my old school had sent over after it was suggested that my parents find an "alternative education solution" for me-which was their polite way of saying I'd been expelled after the "incident" last spring-I saw that the Wesport Academy for Girls may not necessarily agreed : Pierce has a tendency to she just drifts when she does choose to pay attention , she tends to hyperfocus, but not generally on the point of the and TOVA testing suggested.
"You sure you have don't have ADHD, cousin?"
Pierce lightly hit his shoulder, "Oi! I have no such thing!"
"You sure, you're acting like it." She gave him a death glare. He turned away, " Okay,okay you don't, can you continue dad?"
But that particular report had been written during the semester directly following the accident-more than a year before the "incident"-when I'd had a few more important things to worry about than homework.
"Like what?" asked Pierce's dad
"I was just distracted."
"Sure," he said with a huff.
Those jerks had even kicked me out of the school play-Snow White-in which I'd been cast as the lead.
Deborah said, " That was so horrible wasn't it?"
"Yeah," she responded automatically. She could feel John's gaze on her just for a miniscule second.
How had my drama teacher put it? Oh yeah: I seemed to be identifying a little too much with poor, undead Snow White. I don't see how I could've helped it at the time, in addition to having died, I'd also been born rich as a princess, thanks to Dad-
"You're welcome."
he's CEO of one of the world's largest providers of products & services to the oil, gas, & military industries(everyone's heard of his company. It's been in the news a lot lately)- & I also happened to been born looking like one, thanks to Mom.
Deborah beamed happily.
I inherited her delicate bone structure, thick dark hair, and wide dark eyes...
'Yeah I've certainly noticed , her eyelashes thick and dark and light as butterfly's wings... SNAP OUT OF IT, she won't go with me willingly , so why should I care?' thought John.
I also, unfortunately, inheriting Mom's princess-tender heart,
"Unfortunately?"
It's what ended up killing me.
"Ohh."
"So what was at the end of the tunnel ?" Alex wanted to know."The light that's what you hear people say." "Your cousin didn't go into the light," his father said, looking worried beneath his baseball cap."If she had, she woudn't be pestering her." "It's okay," I said smiling at Uncle Chris ."I don't mind actually."I did, actually. But hanging around in the backyard with Uncle Chris & Alex was better than inside with a bunch of people I didn't to Alex, I said, " Some people do say they saw a light at the end of the of them knows exactly what it was, but they all have theories.
Alex asked, "Like what?"
"Like what?" asked Alex
He blinked.
"Stop repeating yourself," Uncle Chris said with a wink.
Thunder rumbled off in the wasn't people inside the house proabably couldn't hear it, what with all the laughter & the splashing of the waterfall in the distance over in the pool & the music Mom had been playing on the indoor/outdoor stereo speakers, not so cleverly designed to look like rocks.
"Hey! I spent working on that for a long time."
But I heard it. It had followed a burst of lightning. . . not heat lightnin,either, even though it was as hot at 8 o' clock at night early September in South Florida as it ever got back in Conneticut in July at hign noon. There was a storm after sea, & it was heading in our direction. "I don't know," I said. I thought of something I'd read."Some if them think the light is the pathway to a diffrent spiritual dimension, one accesible only to the dead. Alex grinne. "Cool," he said."The Pearly Gates."
'More like my own inferno.' thought Pierce.
"Could be," I said shrugging."But scientists say the light is actually a hallucination produced by the brain's neurotransmitters firing all at once as they die." Uncle Chris eyes looked sad. "I like Alex's explanation better," he said."About the Pearly Gates."
Deborah and Pierce's dad nodded simultaneously.
I hadn't meant to make Uncle Chris feel bad.
Interrupting himself he said, " You didn't you just reminded me of someone anyways... bad memories , I'll continue reading."
"No one really knows for sure what happens to us when we die," I said quickly. "Except you," he pointed out. I felt more uncomfortable than ever in my too-tight white what I saw when I died wasn't a light.
"Then what did you?" Alex eagerly asked.
"Right now's not the time Alex." His father said sharply.
It wasn't anything close. I didn't like lying to Uncle Chris. I knew I shouldn't have been talking about this. Especially since Mom had wanted everything to be perfect tonight... not only tonight, but from now on.
Deborah had a peculiar expression on her face, she turned to face her only daughter." Pierce honey I just want everything to be perfect not for me, but for YOU."she said.
Pierce only nodded unsure what to do or feel. Maybe everything would be fine... but there was always that doubt back in the recess of her mind.
She'd gone all out buying the million-dollar house & flying in the famous friend from New York to decorate enlisted the aid of an enviromentally conscious landscaper who planted the backyard with native growth, like ylang-ylang trees and night blooming jasmine, so the air always smelled like a magazine ad for one of those celebrity perfumes.
She's even bought me a "beach cruiser" bicycle complete with a basket and bell-because I still didn't have my driver's license-painted my bedroom a soothing lavender,& enrolled me in the smae highschool she'd gone to 20 years earlier. "You're going to love it here, Pierce," she kept saying."You'll 're going to make a new 's going to be great. I just know it. I had good reason to believe everything wasn't going to be great.
"Why?"
But I kept it to was just so the party, she even hired professional caterers to cook & serve the shrimp cocktail, conch fritters, and chicken skewers. She'd released a flotilla of citronella candles in the pool to keep away the mosquitoes, then turned ont the waterfall, & thrown open every French door in the house.
Alex was drooling thinking of the food... Yum! iOh well...
"There's such a nice breeze," she kept saying, choosing to ignore the giant black storm clouds filling the night sky. . . .
Kind of like the way she was choosing to ignore the fact that she'd moved back to Isla Huesos to further her research on on her beloved roseate spoonbills-which look like pink flamingos
except that their beaks are pancaked like spoons
"Flattering."
-right after the worst enviromental disaster in American history had killed off most of them.
Deborah shot a weak glare at her former husband, Zack (Pierce's Dad).
Oh, & that her bright, animal-loving daughter had died & come back not quite. . . because of that her marriage to Dad had gone right down the tubes.
"Pierce, honey if I hear you blame yourself again for this I'm going to have to request a family meeting.
The divorce proceedings started while I was still in the hospital, in fact, when Mom kicked Dad out of the house for "letting me" went to go live in the penthouse apartment he keeps near his company's office in Manhattan, never imaging that a year & a half from now, he'd still be calling it home.
"It's much better to forgive and forget, Pierce," Dad always says time we speak."Then you can move on .Your mother needs to learn that."
Zack nods his head until he catches his ex-wife's sharp glare at him.
But really the term forgive & forget to me doesn't make sense to me.
Zack puzzled asked his daughter,"Why?"
"I'm sure it'll explain," she replied.
Forgiving does allow us to stop dwelling on an issue, which isn't always healthy (just look at my parents). But if we forget,we don't learn from our that can be knows this better than me?
"That certainly sounds ominous."
So forgive? Sure, Dad
But forget? Even if I wanted to I can' there's someone who won't let me. I don't blame Mom for wanting to come back to the island in which she was born and raisd, even if it is ungodly hot,often battered by hurricanes, & may have or may or may not have clouds of mystery chemicals billowing around it, in the same way I picture the evil from the box poor Pandora opened and then let loose on humanity.
"Exactly."
But if anyone had mentioned to me before I moved that the name of the place meant Island of Bones in English-and why the Spanish explorers who's found it had named it that- I proably would have never agreed to go along with Mom's "we're going to make a new start in Isla Huesos" plan. Especially since it's hard to make a new start in a place where you met the very person who keeps popping up to ruin your life over and over again.
John suddenly growled softly," I do not!"
Only I could hardly mention that to my mother either.
Deborah was racked wih own flesh and blood couldn't come and confront her about things that were plaguing her.I shouldn't have sent her to all those psychiatrists and pushed her that she could change things she would start paying more attention to her child.
The fact that I'd ever been to Isla Huesos once before
"What? Deborah!."
"So what she's my daughter too Zack!"
"When?"
"How did you know I took her there? It could have been anyone!"
"Because it's so typical of you, Deb."
was supposed to be this big secret
"Not anymore!" said Alex in a sing-songy voice.
(not a bad a secret between us girls ,Mom had always said).That's because Dad can't stand Mom's family,which he feels ( not without some justification) is filled with convicts and kook, not exactly a proper role model for his only had me promise never to tell him about the day trip we took to her father's funeral when I was I'd promised. What did I know? I'd never told. . .
. . . especially the part about what happened after the funeral, in the truth was, I never thought I really had to tell anyone, since Grandma knows about it.
"She does?"
So I didn't know anyone at Mom's party except Mom & Alex & Grandma, all of whom had sat in the same row with me at Grandpa's had been a decade earlier back when Uncle Chris had been in Chris wasn't adjusting well to life on the "outside."
Alex said his face totally devoid of emotion,"Such as?"
He didn't quite know what to do, for instance, whenever one of the caterers walked over to refill his champagne of just saying,"No, thank you," Uncle Chris would cry,"Mountain Dew!" & jerk his glass out of the way, so the champagne would pour all over the pool patio instead.
Uncle Chris face flushed red. "Sorry Deb."
With a fond smile she said to him, "It's altight Christopher."
"I don't drink," Uncle Chris would say sheepishly."I'm sticking to Mountain Dew."
"I'm so sorry sir," the caterer would reply, looking with dismay at the growing puddle of Veuve Clicquot at our feet.I decided I liked Uncle Chris,
"Why thank you."
even if Dad had warned me that would embark on a dark reign of terror & revenge immediately upon his release from all I'd ever seen him do in Isla Huesos-where he lived now with Grandma,who'd been raising Alex in his absence because Alex's mom had run off when he was just a baby, after Uncle Chris had been sent away to prison-was sit on the couch & obessively watch the Weather Channel, sippping Mountain Dew. But Alex's dad did scare me in one way:
"How?"
He had the saddest eyes of anyone I'd ever seen.
"I do?"Uncle Chris asked
Pierce silently nodded.
Except maybe one I was trying not to think about him.Just like when I tried not to think about when I people, however, were making both of these things extremely difficult.
"Not everyone who dies & comes back," I said carefully to Uncle Chris,"has the exact same experience-"
It was right as I was saying this that Grandma came teetering down the steps of the back porch on her little high ,Uncle Chris and Alex, she'd made and effort to dress up, & had on a filmy beige dress & one of her own hand-knitted silk scarves. "There you are,Pierce," she said in a voice that made it sound like she was annoyed.
"She most likely is."
"What are you doing out here?All these people are waiting inside to meet on, I want you to say hello to Father Michaels-" "Oh, hey," Alex said,brightening."I wonder if he knows."
"Knows what?" Grandma said, looking bewildered. "What the light was that Pierce saw when she died," Alex said.I think it was the Pearly Pierce says scientists say it's. . . what dot they say it is again, Pierce."
"Way to put me on the spot," Pierce said glaring half-heartedly at Alex.
I swallowed."A hallucination," I said."Scientists say they've gotten the same results in test subjects who weren't dying, by using drugs & electrodes to their of them saw a light,too."
"That's what you're doing out here?" Grandma asked,looking shocked."Committing blasphemy?"
After I died & came back, my grades took a downward 's when ym guidance counselor at the Wesport Academy for girls,, recommended that my parents find somthing outside of academics in which to get me interested.
Zack muttered something like," Look how well that turned out."
Children who fail to do well in school can often still be succesful in life,, assured my parents, if they discover something else into which to "engage." Eventually, I did find an interest outside of academics in which to "engage." One that ended up getting me kicked out of the Wesport Academy for Girls & landed me here in Isla Huesos, which some people call paradise.I'm pretty sure the people who call Isla Huesos paradise never met my grandma.
"No," Alex said with a laugh."Blasphemy would be saying the light is coming from between the legs of their new mom as they're born into their next course,if you were Hindu,that wouldn't be blasphemy at all."
Deborah broke out chuckling and slapping her knee. "I can't believe you actually said that in front of my mother!"
Grandma looked like she'd just bitten a lemon. "Well, Alexander Cabrero," she said sharply.
"Ouch! First name." said Pierce snickering remembering the look on her cousin's face.
"You are not you may also want to remember I that I'm the one making the payments on that junk heap you call a you'd like me to keep on doing so, you might want to think about being a little more respectful." "Sorry, ma'am," he said while looking down a the champagne puddle on the ground, while beside him, his father did the same, after quickly removing his baseball glanced over to me trying to change her expression into something a little softer.
Alex mumbled," Of course, Pierce is the favorite."
"Now, Pierce," she said."Why don't you come inside & say hello to Father Michaels?You won't remember him, of course, from Grandpa's funeral, because you were too young, but he remembers you & is so happy you'll be joining our little parish." "You know what?" I said."I'm not feeling so good." I wasn't making it up heat was staryting to feel oppresive.I wished I could undo a few of the buttons in the front of my too-tight dress. "I think I need some air."
"Then come inside," Grandma said, looking bewildered again."Where it's it would be if your mother hadn't opened up all the doors-"
"Cue Mom/Aunt Deb."
"What did I do now,Mother?" Mom appeared on the back porch & snagged a cocktail shrimp from a passing caterer."Oh, Pierce there you are.I was wondering where you'd disappeared to." Then she saw my face & said,"Honey, are you all right?"
"What did I look like?"
"Like maybe you were going to get an anxiety attack."
"She says she needs some fresh air," Grandma said still looking bewildered."But, she's standing 's wrong with here?Did she take her mediacation today?Are you sure Pierce is ready to go back to school,Deb?You know how she she-"
"She's fine,Mother," Mom me, she said, "Pierce-" I lifted my 's eyes seemed darker in the porch looked pretty and fresh in her white jeans, & loose silky looked was going to be great.
"I've got to go," I said, trying to keep down the panicky sob I felt rising in my throat.
"Go then,honey,"Mom said, leaning down from the porch to press on my forehead with her hand as if she were feeling for a fever.
"Thanks, Mom."
"No problem honey."
She smelled like she always did, of her perfume,& something dark hair swept my bare shoulder as she kissed me."It's don't forget to turn on your bicycle lights so people can see you."
"What?" Grandma sounded incredulous." You're just letting her go on a bike ride? But it's the middle of the party.Her party." Mom ignored her.
"As usual."
"Don't make any stops," she said to me."Stay on your bike." I turned around without saying anything to Alex & Uncle Chris, who were both staring at me in astonishment,
Alex said," Of course, it was pretty strange you just wanted to bolt."
& headed straight for the side yard where my new bike was parked. I didn't look back.
"And Pierce?" Mom called for me. My shoulders if Grandma had said made her change her mind?
Deborah said with a huff of annoyance," As if."
But all she added was "Don't be too long. A storm is coming."
"Anyone else want to read?" said Uncle Chris.
Pierce volunteered and took the book from Uncle Chris and began.
