19

“WHAT?” MY HAND fisted around a cube of cheese, and it squished between my fingers. My pulse pounded so hard in my throat I thought it would explode. “You mean the night Mom died.”

My father nodded. “She died that night too. But you went first.”

“Whoa…” Nash leaned forward on his stool, glancing back and forth between me and my father. “Kaylee died?”

My dad sighed, settling in for a long story. “It was February, the year you were three. The roads were icy. We don’t get much winter weather in Texas, so when it does come, no one quite knows how to handle it. Including me.”

“Wait, I’ve heard all this before.” I dumped the pasta into the now-boiling water, and a puff of steam wafted into my face, coating my skin in a layer of instant dampness and warmth.

“You were driving, and we were broadsided by another car on an icy road. I broke my right arm and leg, and Mom died.”

My father nodded miserably, then swallowed thickly and continued. “We were on our way here, for Sophie’s birthday party. Your mother thought the weather was too bad, but I said we’d be fine. It was a short trip, and your cousin adored you. The whole thing was my fault.”

“What happened?” I asked, my cheesy hand forgotten.

My father blinked slowly, as if warding off tears. “There was a deer in the road. I wasn’t going that fast, but the road was icy, and the deer was huge. I swerved to avoid it, and the car slid on the ice. We wound up sideways in the road. An on-coming car smashed into us. Near the rear on the passenger’s side. Your car seat was crushed.”

I closed my eyes and gripped the countertop as a wave of vertigo threatened to knock me over. No. My mother had died in that accident, not me. I’d been pretty banged up, but I’d lived.

I was living proof of that!

My eyes opened, focusing on my father instantly. “Dad, I remember parts of that. I was in the hospital for weeks. I had two casts. We still have pictures. But I’m alive. See?” I spread my arms across the countertop to demonstrate my point. “So what happened? The paramedics brought me back?”

The truth was looming, a great, dark cloud on my mind’s horizon. I could almost see it, but I refused to bring it into focus. Refused to acknowledge the coming storm until it broke over my head, drenching me with a cold, cruel wash of the answers I’d thought I wanted.

I no longer wanted them.

But my father only shook his head. “They didn’t get there in time. The man driving the other car was a doctor, but his wife hit her head on something, and he was trying to wake her up. By the time he came to help us, it was all over.”

“No.” I stirred the pasta so hard boiling water slopped onto the stovetop, hissing on the flat burner.

Nash’s hand landed softly on mine, though I hadn’t heard him move, and I looked up to meet his sympathetic gaze. “You died, Kaylee. You know it’s true.”

My father nodded again, and when his eyessqueezed shut, two silent tears trailed down his stubbly cheeks. “I had to go in through the driver’s side and pull the whole car seat out. When I picked you up, you didn’t make a sound, even though your right arm and leg were bent all out of shape.” His eyes opened, and the pain swirling there held me captive. “I held you like a baby, and you just looked at me. Then your mom crawled out of the car and took your good hand. She was crying, and she couldn’t talk, and I could see the truth on her face. I knew we were going to lose you.”

He sniffled and I stood still, afraid that if I moved, he’d stop talking. And even more frightened because part of me really wanted him to stop. “You died, right there on the side of the road, with snow melting in your hair.”

“Then why am I still here?” I whispered, but I already knew the answer. “It was my time, wasn’t it?” I flicked on the faucet and held my hands under the warm water, scrubbing cheese from between my fingers as I eyed my father. “I was supposed to die, and you brought me back.”

“Yes.” His voice cracked on that one syllable, and his face was starting to flush with the effort to hold back more tears. “We couldn’t stand it. She sang for you, and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I could barely see, I was crying so hard. But then I saw you. Your soul. So small and white in the dark. It was too soon. I couldn’t let you go.”

I turned off the water and grabbed a towel from a drawer near my hip, dripping on the floor as I dried my hands, then leaned over the bar and stared at him. “Tell me how it happened.”

He didn’t hesitate this time. “I made your mother look at me, to make sure she understood. I told her to take care of you. That I was going to bring you back. She was crying, but she nodded, still singing. So I guided your soul back into your tiny little body. You blinked at me. Then, with your first breath, you sang.”

“I…sang?” The towel slipped from my fingers and landed silently on the tiles, but I barely noticed.

“The soul song.” My father pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, as if to physically hold back tears, but his face was still wet when he looked at me again. “I thought it was for me. You needed your mother more than you needed me, and I was ready to go. But as I stood there holding you, the reaper showed himself.”

“He let you see him?” Nash interrupted from my side. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

My father nodded. “He stood in the grass, on the shoulder of the road. He smiled at me, with this creepy little grin, like he knew what I was thinking. I told him I was ready to go. I gave you to your mother, and you were still singing this beautiful, high-pitched song, like a bird. I felt so peaceful, thinking that the last thing I would hear was you singing my soul song.” He paused, and this time the tears actually fell. “But I should have known better, because your mother wasn’t singing with you.”