The Beginning of After Read Free

Meg’s mom, sat on the floor holding one of my hands. Theirs was the second number I had given Lieutenant Davis. Mr. Dill and Megan’s sister, Mary, were on their way north, a three-hour drive, to get my grandmother.
    “Just close your eyes and breathe,” said Mrs. Dill. “Just breathe.”
    All I could think was, Mrs. Dill smells a little like cranberry bread .
    Suzie Sirico showed up shortly after midnight. I hadn’t asked for her. I didn’t even know who she was. Lieutenant Davis said she was a grief counselor who sometimes worked with the police department. I tilted my head in Meg’s lap and looked at the woman sideways. She was short, with large features.
    “Hi, Laurel,” she said slowly. “I’m Suzie.”
    Mrs. Dill got up from the floor. “Can I get you some coffee?” she offered.
    “That would be wonderful, thanks.”
    They passed each other right then, switching positions like some careful team maneuver. Suzie squatted on the floor so we were at eye level.
    “I know we’ve never met,” said Suzie, pressing her lips together with seriousness, “but I’m hoping you’ll let me help you with whatever you need right now.”
    “There is something you can help me with right now,” I told her. “The cats are probably at the back door. Can you let them in?”
    Suzie Sirico cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. Probably making a note on a mental pad. I didn’t care.
    “I’ll do it,” said Meg, and a second later she was gone into the kitchen.
    If this woman touches me , I thought, I will barf right here on the white couch .
    “Laurel, you’re clearly in shock, and that’s normal,” said Suzie, reaching for my hand but trying to balance in that squat position at the same time. “We don’t need to talk. I’m really just here to meet you and let you know that I’ll be available to you, for any reason, over the next days and weeks as you deal with what has happened to your family.”
    My family.
    The word hit me in the chest, a real punch that knocked the wind out of my lungs. I looked at Suzie Sirico the way, in a movie, someone looks at the person who just stabbed them, that moment of surprise before the pain kicks in and the blood starts gushing.
    I heard the back door open, then close. Elliot and Selina came running into the room, their tails pointing straight up into the air, ready to get warm and dry and curled up for the night.
    I made a noise like a whimper, but loud. It felt like it came not from me but something half-human, crouched at the base of my spine.
    I was in bed when Nana got there, sometime before dawn. Mrs. Dill had given me two of the pills she always had on hand for her panic attacks. The medication was having fun with me, making me believe one thing was real, then another. In my mind, I was talking to someone at the Athens Theater ticket counter, begging them to let me in even though the movie had already started. “But everyone I know is in there!” I was yelling.
    I felt my grandmother put her hand on my head, smoothing my eyebrow with her thumb. “I’m here, Laurel,” she was saying.
    Now the popcorn machine behind the ticket counter smelled like Chanel No. 5.
    The hallway outside my bedroom door was buzzing slightly with echoed voices from the living room. Somebody blew their nose.
    Back inside my head, I wasn’t trying to get into the movie anymore. I’d given up and moved on, wandering down the street toward a supermarket, suddenly starving.

Chapter Three

    P retty much everyone came to the funeral, which was held on a day so beautiful, normally everyone would be walking around saying cliché stuff like, “Spring has sprung!” The air smelled fresh and sweet, and the slight breeze was the kind that tickles a little.
    Our whole neighborhood showed up. Relatives I hadn’t seen in years, and my parents’ friends from college, and people from my dad’s office. Toby’s friends and his whole soccer team came with their parents, and all his