A. Rolland: Of Breakable Things

Tough as nails. Yeah, Alex was sure her father would say something like that. She was a product of her environment. If Alex was a nail, her father was the iron that strengthened the steel. “What was the first thing you bet on?” Alex asked.

“That you would ask about Chase.” Miss Petra inched closer to Alex, her face twisted in awe. “I never saw two children, two people ,” she corrected herself, “who were so immersed in one another. Everything about you, your behavior, your feelings, your desires, they were all braided together.”

Alex stared at Miss Petra accusingly. “You didn’t think it was so wonderful back then.”

“I don’t think I ever truly understood your relationship.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back then I didn’t think it was possible for an eight-year-old to have found the love of her life.”

Chase Lasalle was the youngest of four brothers. Even when they were in diapers, the Lasalle boys had been infamous in the town of Parrish. They looked like baby models with their innocently cherubic faces framed by halos of blonde hair. At a closer glance, their eyes gave them away, windows to their mischievous souls, though it was nearly impossible to witness any of the boys immobile long enough to notice. As preschoolers, they ruled the playground with a plastic fist. The power was in their effortless ability to turn life into a riveting game.

Their mother was friends with Alex’s mom long before the two shared a mat space at prenatal yoga. With three boys already, Danya Lasalle longed for a contrast from testosterone. Erin Ash just wished for health and happiness. Unfortunately, neither woman was granted her wish. Danya counted her blessings, nevertheless, when the doctors handed her another blue-blanketed bundle of joy, because she rested in a warm bed while Erin rested in a body bag. In a roundabout way, Danya got her wish, because Chase and Alex never left each other’s sight.

The Lasalle boys were less than thrilled when Alex tagged along during their adventurous excursions, especially since her fragile condition was often a buzzkill. But Chase was their weakness, and Alex was Chase’s weakness, so her presence was tolerated. Alex and Chase did everything together. At the circus, he’d pass her wads of cotton candy, waiting to take his share until she’d eaten hers. During baseball games, he punched his oversized mitt, hoping to catch a stray ball just for her. On trips to the beach, he held the bucket while Alex collected shells. Chase was her childhood, her partner in crime, and her saving grace.

“Chase saw this room too, didn’t he?”

“Why do you assume that?” Miss Petra asked. The window warped her reflection as raindrops collided with the glass, merging together into streams.

Chase’s presence was the lingering perfume of a candle long after burning out. “I can feel him. Like a ghost in the room.”

Miss Petra stiffened. “Yes, he was here. A long time. Longer than you will be, I think. He wasn’t as accepting of death. I think his choice was more difficult than yours will be.”

“Again, what’s left to choose? I thought after I died, my fate was kind of set in stone.”

“Freedom of choice doesn’t refute the idea of fate. Choices lead you to various paths, but some lives are intended to cross with others. It’s just in their design; some magnetically attract, and some also repel. So in that sense, there may be reasons why the universe pulls a person in a certain direction. But it’s impossible to control the decisions that a human makes.”

Alex only partially agreed. After all, no matter her choices, she would have ended up dead anyway. That was in her design. She’d been sick since day one. But not Chase. Not his family. They hadn’t been born with a death sentence like hers.

Miss Petra forced open one of the dingy windows, overwhelming Alex with deliciously fresh air. “How does a dead person still have a sense of smell?”

Miss Petra closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “Actually, your senses are much keener now.”

“That doesn’t seem logical.”

“Are your eyes still working?”

“Of course.”

“Although your eyes were part of your former body, which is ninety percent gone, your brain did most of the work to allow you to see, and your brain is still very much intact, working much harder, actually. Physical death is an awakening for your mind.”

This seemed rather oxymoronic to Alex. “How is that possible?”

Miss Petra held up three fingers. “In the physical life, you have to exercise mind, body, and spirit. In cognitive life, commonly known as the afterlife”—she took a finger away—“it’s just mind and spirit. Basically, the body is no longer inhibiting the other two.”

Alex was pleased to be getting some sort of explanation, even if it wasn’t completely clear. Confusing answers were better than no answers at all.

Miss Petra wrote the word SOUL on the blackboard in a large bubble. She then drew two lines, attaching two smaller bubbles, labeled MIND and BODY. It was like a pre-write for an English essay.

“All barriers break down once your fragile body is out of the picture. And the other two aspects, the ones that essentially make you who you are, are more vulnerable without the armor of the body.” Miss Petra lifted the chalk and wrote PHYSICAL next to BODY. “This world is over for you.”

“I think we’ve established that.”

She glanced over her shoulder with an expression of reprimand before writing MENTAL next to MIND. “In a nutshell, this is your afterlife. But the mind is a living thing, and it can’t live forever.”

“Why not?”

“Some just get old. Some aren’t stimulated enough. Some are beaten down.”

The idea of beating down a mind seemed silly. Alex pictured a geeky school competition with two debate teams of nerdy opponents in horrendous blue blazers, thick-rimmed glasses, and bad acne. “So you’re saying I’m not dead?”

“It’s all in how you choose to look at it. Your body is dead, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have options. Socrates said that death may be the greatest of all human blessings. Maybe he knew even more than we thought.”

“A blessing?”

The creases in Miss Petra’s youthful forehead deepened. “You don’t agree?”

Alex crossed her arms. Of course not. Death had been knocking on her decrepit door since the moment she was born, and then it arrived early to toy with her, to steal the only people who mattered to her. It wasn’t a blessing. It was cruel. “Why would I?”

“Considering your history … ”

“What do you mean?”

“You know to what I’m referring.” Miss Petra placed the chalk in a mug and began to straighten the objects on her desk. “Did you not consider taking your own life?”

Alex hadn’t realized her teacher would be privy to that information. Her arms were still crisscrossed protectively over her chest, but she peeked down nonetheless to be sure the scars were not exposed. “Something else happens to suicides. I’d have no chance of seeing Chase again.”

“Oh?” Miss Petra’s dark eyes grew wide. “And why would you think that?”

“Liv Frank told me.”

Miss Petra turned to the caterpillars. The capital letters spelling out Olivia’s name were slightly distorted. Kind of like Liv herself. “How would she know that?”

“Beats me. That’s just Liv.”

“And why would you take her of all people seriously?”

“If a Frank gives you advice, you listen,” Alex said.

For generations, the Franks had held the honor of being the strangest family in Parrish. Olivia Frank did not deviate from her ancestry. Like her relatives, she frequently spoke to herself in public, doubled over in laugher in a silent room, burst into tears for no reason, and saw no fault in any of it. But Alex liked her. She understood what it was like to be different.