The Beginning of After

would solve all my problems.
    Joe had called too. Twice. I’d had Nana tell him I was sleeping. It was nice to know he was concerned— Tell Laurel I hope she’s feeling better was the message—but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him. Even though I could still feel his lips on my lips, his hand on my neck, when I tried to picture his face all I could see was how he’d looked at me when I started to sob. It was just too mortifying.
    Then there was the thought of David, smirking and frowning and collapsing, and retreating. David cruel and bullying, then David quivery and scared like the little boy I still remembered despite my best efforts not to. All that morphing left me baffled and intrigued and ultimately filled with sorrow; then I reminded myself of what he’d taken from me—a lovely night, a sweet first kiss, a memory to hold on to—and that brought back a swell of fury. If the swell started to go down, I added in the image of Mr. Kaufman driving his SUV, squinting and slurring and swerving, and it grew again.
    Sometimes I imagined what I’d do if I had a time machine and could go back to a single minute, any minute, of my life. In this time machine I’d travel to the minute of the accident night where, instead of asking permission to go home and work, I’d decide to go to Freezy’s with everyone else. My parents and Toby and I would walk back to our house and get into our own car, planning to meet the Kaufmans there. Mr. Kaufman would even be kind of bummed that we won’t get to check out his sweet new car, and my dad would be glad about it. We’d have dessert, and it would be totally boring, and then we’d come home to more boringness. But my parents would be downstairs now, arguing with Toby about leaving his socks on the couch.
    The no-sleep thing made it all worse, of course, but I didn’t seem to have any say in the matter. I’d gotten used to the headache and the pain behind my eyes, the sensation of pressure on my every muscle. This kind of exhaustion made me feel somehow more awake.
    And my family’s bodies kept me company.
    I couldn’t stop thinking about what they looked like. Nana had insisted on closed caskets. It was Jewish tradition, she said, but I knew it was also because of the burns and because of my mother. She’d been an organ donor, and somewhere out there, there were people alive with parts of her in them. I knew I’d be able to get that information someday. I might even want it, someday. But for now, all I could do was think of Mom as Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas , with stitchwork seams holding her together.
    What did their skin look like? How bad were the burns? Did their faces look peaceful, or anguished?
    I wished I’d had the presence of mind at the funeral to really look at those three caskets, one shorter than the other two. To tell myself that this was the last time my parents and Toby would physically be in the world together, and hold that moment close enough to feel like a good-bye.
    Now the rain tapped harder against the glass, as if trying to shake those images loose. I had to get my family out of those caskets and talking, breathing. Doing stuff.
    What a shame not to be outside today , Mom said in my head. My mother hated any day that didn’t involve sunshine. She’d seek it out wherever she went, moving her plastic lounge chair around the backyard as the bright spot traveled. She sucked up sunlight like a plant in photosynthesis, and never saw the beauty in bad weather.
    Dad did, though. His voice now: Whoa, look at how the wind blows the rain sideways. Watch the sky. We might just see some lightning. Hey Laurel, there’s a word on your SAT list that fits here. Can you guess it?
    Yes, Dad. Fulminate : “to cause to explode.”
    Toby. What was Toby saying?
    I’m going outside anyway! I pictured him by the door, putting on his rubber boots, grabbing an empty jelly jar in case he found something worth keeping. He liked to bring back slugs and pour salt on them to watch them shrivel up, and I’d yell at him for being so cruel.
    My body shook down into sobs again, and I grabbed the towel Nana had left folded on my nightstand. We’d given up on Kleenex that first post-prom day.
    Now Nana must have heard I was officially awake and knocked on the door once before coming in. She didn’t creep into the room slowly anymore but rather stepped briskly all the way inside.
    “Will you get out of bed today, sweetie?”
    “Probably