What I Leave Behind Read online

  I pack up Playa’s gift of the day. An invisible ghost catcher. Because invisible ghost catchers aren’t just for little kids. You know? I shove the failed cornbread into my backpack next to the gift bag and head out. It’s dark as hell. Later than late.

  Wait, did I remember her note? No.

  Don’t let the bastards get you down.

  You don’t need to see in order to write a note. That one, anyway.

  I’m walking past the weed lot, the one they keep trying to turn into a community garden, when I hear what at first, thanks to Major Tom, I think is my name:

  “Dolla?”

  But it’s not. It’s Superman.

  “Late for you, isn’t it, Superman?”

  “Dolla?”

  Whatever happened to Superman happened long ago, because as long as I can remember, he has been sitting against the wall, any wall on First.

  “You hungry, Superman?”

  He nods. Holds out his hand. Here you go, friend. A dollar and some failed cornbread for you. Carry on, my wayward son.

  I keep on walking.

  Past Taco Loco, past Estella’s Panaderia, past closed-up PAWN PAWN PAWN. Past an apartment building with someone practicing guitar in a third-floor window.

  Music, the refuge of the lonely.

  Playa walks the halls at school, friends watching over her. She’s going to need to be tough, my mom said.

  Her house is dark. Her steps are dark. The white bag is a white shadow in the darkness. I stand on the top step and spread my arms. I’m taking a stand for Superman. For the little dude. For Major Tom. For my mom and her notes. For—

  “Will?”

  Oh shit.

  She eases the door open and slips through it. She’s like a ghost. White T-shirt, white shorts. Dark hair that you can’t see in the dark.

  Invisible ghost catchers! To be used only for catching invisible ghosts!

  “I knew it was you,” she says.

  It’s too dark to see her face. Which means it’s too dark for her to see my face, right? She reaches down and picks up the little white ghost bag, sways it back and forth from her invisible finger.

  “Ghost man,” she says. “Sneaking around leaving presents for people.”

  Ghost man. Is she a mind reader?

  What do I say? Playa is a ghost girl and I’m a ghost boy and the little white gift bag is a ghost gift and we’re sitting on the top step in the dark, ghosts all around us.

  “Playa,” I say.

  She doesn’t say anything. Just swings the little bag from her invisible hand. I try again.

  “Playa.”

  But nothing comes out after that, because shit, I’m crying. I try to keep it silent so she doesn’t know, but she knows. I can tell by the way her invisible hand comes out and touches my shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” she says.

  It’s not okay. It is NOT okay. Jesus. We both know that. Her hand disappears and then comes back with something in it.

  “Here,” she says. I wipe my face with it, this soft and familiar thing. Smells like powder.

  “Is this—?”

  “Yeah. It’s my blankie.”

  Playa the ring champion, Playa the ghost girl. Playa the tough.

  It’s awful, having to be tough.

  But I don’t talk about that. I talk about the cornbread, how I keep trying to re-create it when my mom’s working the overnight, but how no matter what I try, it’s a fail. That it sucks.

  “His cornbread sucked too, though,” she says. “Remember?”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Will, your dad was great. But his cornbread? Nasty.”

  There in the dark she shakes her head. Playa, who has to be tough. Playa, who knew my dad. It comes to me then, comes washing over me, that she’s right.

  My dad’s cornbread sucked.

  “But everyone loved my dad,” I say. “Didn’t they?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “They did. Same as everyone loves you. I guess love isn’t cornbread-dependent.”

  She laughs. A tiny laugh. First time I’ve heard Playa laugh since it happened.

  Time to leave the capsule if you dare.

  Somewhere out there I hope Major Tom’s asleep, and Dear Mrs. Lin, and the little butterfly dude.

  Superman’s not asleep. He’s awake and against a wall, maybe eating cornbread and maybe thinking it’s not that shitty.

  And not my mom. She’s not asleep. My mom is at the hospital, working the overnight. Maybe she’s sitting by someone’s bed. Maybe she’s at the nurse’s station, eating her dinner. Which I don’t even know what it is, come to think of it.

  Maybe she’s composing a note in her head. A note to her son, making sure he knows she loves him.

  A long time ago, a father used to wear a Bowie T-shirt. He used to make cornbread. He used to tell his kid secrets, like melt the butter, like only use cast iron. He used to sing Bowie songs while he worked. He sang about Major Tom and ground control, about sitting in a tin can far above the world, how Planet Earth was blue and there was nothing he could do. He used to tell his kid that music was the refuge of the lonely, and to carry on, that blessings are everywhere you look, even in the dark.

  Me and Playa, we’ve left the capsule and we’re walking down the street, looking up, the way artists do. Stars here and there, even in smoggy L.A.

  “Will,” she says. “You got through what happened with your dad, right? And I’ll get through this, right?”

  Correction: I’m getting through what happened with my dad. That’s not what I say, though.

  “Yes,” is what I say.

  “Don’t let the bastards get you down,” she says. “Right?”

  I’m nodding. A ghost girl and a ghost boy walking through the dark, earth below and stars above, not letting the bastards get us down.

  Acknowledgments

  This book holds within its pages much of my heart. Life is beautiful and it is hard. Like others, I have lived through the bewildering grief of suicide, anguished over others’ pain due to sexual assault, and walked my way through times that felt unbearable. Will’s dad told him that blessings are everywhere you look, even in the dark, and I believe that. I thank the people in my life who have made a cloud of safety around me, especially Mark Garry; my mother and father; my sisters; my children; my friends Ellen Harris Swiggett and Julie Schumacher; and my beloved brother, Doug. Thanks to Sherman Ng for the beautiful calligraphy. Love to my agents, Sara and Heather, both of whom were integral to this book. More love, and eternal gratitude, to Caitlyn Dlouhy, who still and always coaxes my books to their best selves.

  My deep thanks to all my Chinese language students at South High School. You were my crucible for so much. It was in that windowless classroom that I first learned how to teach and how to listen to the stories you told me. Stories hurt, stories heal, stories save our lives. I look back on those years with love and gratitude. Wo ai nimen.

  To those readers struggling with feelings of hopelessness and despair, please know that you are not alone. There are people who will help you. Here are two good resources:

  1. If you are dealing with depression or if you are thinking of suicide, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text NAMI to 741-741 for help.

  2. If you have been sexually assaulted by someone, call 1-800-656-4673 or text RAINN for help.

  About the Author

  ALISON McGHEE is the critically acclaimed author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Someday and the Christopher Award–winning Firefly Hollow, as well as many other novels and picture books, including Pablo and Birdy, All Rivers Flow to the Sea, Snap, Little Boy, and So Many Days. She is also the Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of Shadow Baby and its follow-up, Never Coming Back. She divides her time between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Laguna Beach, California. You can visit her at AlisonMcGhee.com.

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  A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book

  Simon
& Schuster, New York

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Alison McGhee

  Jacket illustration copyright © 2018 by Dana Ledl aka Myokard

  Chinese calligraphy by Sherman Ng

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Atheneum logo is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Book design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian and Irene Metaxatos

  Jacket illustration and hand-lettering copyright © 2018 by Dana Ledl aka Myokard

  The calligraphy for this book was rendered in brush, India ink, and Photoshop.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: McGhee, Alison, 1960– author.

  Title: What I leave behind / Alison McGhee.

  Description: New York : Atheneum, 2018. | “A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book.” | Summary: Since his father’s suicide, Will, sixteen, has mainly walked, worked at Dollar Only, and tried to replicate his father’s cornbread recipe, but the rape of his childhood friend shakes things up.

  Identifiers: LCCN: 2017001373 | ISBN 9781481476560 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481476584 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Grief—Fiction. | Stores (Retail)—Fiction. | Fathers and sons—Fiction. | Rape—Fiction. | Suicide—Fiction. | Single-parent families—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.M4784675 Dol 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at the https://lccn.loc.gov/2017001373