Chapter 11: Above the Funeral Home

That night I couldn't sleep, so I went down to the funeral home kitchen in Hattie's old robe.

Abel was at the table with the lights off and a mug in front of him.

"You, too?" he said.

"Every time I close my eyes I see a sequined bow tie."

"I know."

"I want to burn the whole Rialto down."

"Then I'd have to arrest myself for it," he said, "and I'm fairly sure I'd lose the case."

I sat in the chair across from him.

The refrigerator hummed.

Somewhere above us Hattie's radio played a crackly old song about a lonesome train.

"I keep waiting for you to disappear," Abel said.

"Why?"

"Because for nine days you were the best conversation I'd had in years, and you weren't real."

"I'm real."

"I noticed."

He said it quietly, looking at my hands on the table.

I stood up.

My leg hurt, and my side pulled when I breathed.

I walked around the table anyway.

"You've been carrying me around like glass," I said. "Up the steps. Into the car. Out of the car."

"You're recovering."

"I died in that box, Abel."

His eyes came up.

"And all I could think, up there, was that somebody was looking at me. Do you know what that's like?"

"Cora."

"Look at me now."

He stood.

He was a head taller, and he smelled like cedar and coffee.

I put my hand flat on his chest, and I felt his heart going as hard as mine.

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