Now Is Everything Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Pat, Maggie, and Julia

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Then

  Then

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Now

  Then

  Now

  Now

  A Note from Amy Giles

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Books by Amy Giles

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  now

  Emergency first responders scramble up and down the hill around me like ants, trying to see what can be salvaged. We’re on different frequencies. Theirs is manic and frenzied, searching for life, while I watch without seeing. What I escaped below eclipses everything. Blank eyes. A blood-soaked Cornell sweatshirt. Necks bent unnaturally. Angry fists of heat pounding at my back as I crawled away from the wreckage.

  But the sky is a perfect crisp blue, like someone forgot to tell it to wipe that smug smile off its face.

  No one survives a plane crash. I shouldn’t be here.

  Feet crunch across the ice-crusted leaves. “She’s in shock.”

  A man in a navy windbreaker with yellow reflective “NTSB” letters on the sleeve crouches down in front of me. I stare down at his cheap black leather shoes, not at all like the rows of expensive Italian shoes that line my father’s closet.

  “Hadley?”

  My eyes travel up to a craggy face with kind, crinkly blue eyes that reach for mine carefully. He smiles gently when I meet his gaze. “They’re going to take you to the hospital now, okay?”

  Fingering the claddagh pendant hanging at the base of my throat, I glance down at my left arm resting against my stomach.

  “It hurts,” a small voice says, sounding nothing like mine.

  “They’re going to take good care of you.” He glances at the two EMTs handling a gurney. It was a long climb up the rocky incline. Bramble and rocks tore at my clothes, at my flesh, trying to drag me back down into the fiery pits of hell.

  A firefighter races past me down the gulley to the billowing smoke. I should tell him there’s no need to hurry. They’re dead.

  “Your grandmother has been notified.”

  My eyes bounce up. He takes it as a ray of hope. It makes those kind crinkles around his eyes deepen.

  His hope fills me with guilt. I’m bound to disappoint this complete stranger.

  BRADY: The date is January 6. Time . . . 8:03 a.m. Do I have your permission to record your statement?

  CW: Sure.

  BRADY: Please state your name and age.

  CW: Claudia Wiley, seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in May.

  BRADY: Miss Wiley, I’m Gerald Brady, senior air safety inspector from the National Transportation Safety Board. As you are aware, the McCauleys were involved in a plane crash. Hadley was the only survivor. Since we have yet to determine a probable cause for the accident, we’re interviewing witnesses as well as family and friends who knew the McCauleys to get a broader picture, if you will.

  Your name came up as someone who spent time with Hadley. I understand you played lacrosse on the same team?

  CW: Well, yeah. We both played on the travel team in the fall and the school team in the spring. But that’s kind of it.

  Honestly, I really don’t know why my name came up. Hadley and I weren’t friends . . . we didn’t really like each other all that much.

  BRADY: Why’s that?

  CW: They’re kind of a hard family to like. Were, I mean.

  BRADY: Well, tell me a little about that. What was it that made them hard to like?

  CW: Everything. Like how they never let you forget how rich they were. The McCauleys were ALL about the money.

  You’re looking at me like I’m a bitch, but I’m not. It’s just true. Ask anyone.

  BRADY: Maybe you could provide an example?

  CW: There’s, like, so many, where do I even start?

  So okay, here’s one: when the band was selling oranges and grapefruits to raise money for our trip to the Rose Parade, Hadley didn’t sell any. Not even one crate. Just showed up at band one day with a big fat check from her father. I don’t know how many zeroes were on that check, but Mr. Rosen’s eyes bugged out. If he were in a cartoon, they would have bounced out of their sockets on springs with a loud BOING and hit the floor.

  That’s how the McCauleys rolled.

  BRADY: Hmm. So who was Hadley close to at school?

  CW: Really just Meaghan and Noah. Meaghan Maki and Noah Berger, that’s who you should be talking to. Not me.

  And Charlie. Charlie Simmons. If anyone knows anything, it’s going to be Charlie.

  BRADY: The date is January 6. Time, 8:37 a.m. Do I have your permission to record your statement?

  MM: Yes.

  BRADY: Please state your name and age.

  MM: Meaghan Maki, seventeen.

  BRADY: Miss Maki, could you please tell me a little about your relationship with Hadley?

  MM: I don’t know what you want to hear. I mean, Hadley’s my best f—frrr—

  . . .

  BRADY: Miss Maki, do you think you can continue?

  MM: Yes. Sorry. This is harder than I thought.

  BRADY: How long have you known Miss McCauley?

  MM: Forever. We met in second grade. We’re both “Ms”—McCauley, Maki—so we sat together. Ms. White said it helped her learn our names that way. We just hit it off—me and Hadley, I mean. Not me and Ms. White. Because we did not hit it off. That was a bad year. All I can say is thank God for Hadley.

  Sorry, I know that doesn’t help you.

  BRADY: It’s all helpful. Why don’t you tell me a little about her family?

  MM: Well, I know things weren’t great at home, but Hadley didn’t like to talk much about her family. Except for Lila. Hadley always had a funny Lila story.

  BRADY: She was close to her sister?

  MM: Super close . . .

  BRADY: Take your time.

  MM: Sorry . . . I’m having a hard time with all of this. Processing it all.

  BRADY: Are you okay to continue? We can reschedule.

  MM: No . . . I’ll try.

  BRADY: Tell me about her father. What was Hadley’s relationship like with him?

  MM: [groan] The Drill Sergeant? He was horrible. Did you know he used to make her get up at four thirty in the morning to run with him? And she did it, even though she hated it. And lift weights with him. I think he was one of those dads who wished he had sons, not daughters, you know? He was like . . . obsessed with her.

  BRADY: Obsessed? How?

  MM: He was a control freak. He was living Hadley’s life for her, pressuring her to go to Cornell because he went there . . . play lacrosse because he played lacrosse . . . take flying lessons because he had his pilot’s license. Oh, and he had this strict no-dating rule.

  BRADY: Mm-hmm . . . But Hadley was seeing a boy named Charlie Simmons, correct? Did her father know about him?

  MM: We
ll, eventually. She got into a lot of trouble when her dad found out.

  BRADY: What kind of trouble?

  MM: The usual. Grounded. Um . . . when do you think they’ll let me see Hadley?

  BRADY: The time is 9:07 a.m. Do I have your permission to record your statement?

  . . .

  BRADY: Mr. Simmons, the purpose of the Safety Board investigation is to determine a probable cause of the crash in order to improve transportation safety. At this time, we have not been able to determine if the accident was due to mechanical failure or medical emergency or something else. We would appreciate your cooperation in our investigation.

  . . .

  BRADY: If we find you have information that would help us, the Safety Board is authorized to issue a subpoena to obtain your testimony.

  CS: Fine. Get a subpoena. Because I’m not talking to you, or the reporters, or God himself until someone lets me see Hadley. So unless you can get the hospital to waive this “family only” bullshit, everyone can just fuck off.

  then

  The sky is black and unwelcoming outside my bedroom window. It tells my body to go back to sleep, but even the heavens have no jurisdiction in this house.

  Downstairs, the metal spoon clangs against the glass container that holds Dad’s precious gourmet beans, followed by the obnoxious grating of the coffee grinder that’s like a buzz saw against my eardrums. Whirr, whirr. That’s my alarm clock, five days a week.

  Gravity presses down on my sleepy body, sinking me deeper into my mattress. But a couple more z’s aren’t worth the grief of falling back asleep. I slip out from under the warm duvet and change out of my pajamas, tugging on my black running tights with the reflective stripes down the legs, then a sports bra and a top. I’m tying my sneakers when he bangs on the door loudly.

  “I’m coming,” I whisper. Leaning over, I grab the doorknob and open it.

  Dad slurps his coffee noisily. It always amazes me that he can run with all that coffee sloshing around in his gut.

  “We’re late.” He doesn’t even try to modulate his voice for a sleeping house.

  I hurry, if only to get him away from Lila’s door. When I was her age, I could sleep fourteen hours straight, no problem, if anyone ever let me. Which they didn’t. Being the firstborn has no advantages at all, despite what Lila thinks.

  At ten, Lila thinks my life is exciting. I go to award banquets with my lacrosse team. I take flying lessons at McKinley Airport. She still doesn’t see how much of my life isn’t actually my own.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Dad says, looking at his watch. If we run for an hour, he has time to take a quick shower and still make the 6:17 train. This ungodly 4:30 wake-up fits his schedule. I come home, take a shower, eat, then help Lila pick out her outfit for the day. Left to Mom, Lila would walk out the door looking like a miserable American Girl doll. Left on her own, she’d walk out the door looking like she’s off to host the MTV Video Music Awards. She’s really into music and dancing, so I begged her to let me be her stylist.

  “Every self-respecting diva has one,” I said.

  It’s fun playing dress-up with her. I had been an only child for seven years when she was born. The day she came home from the hospital, Mom put her in the carrier on the floor. I sat in front of her watching her for hours, making sure she didn’t stop breathing. That actually terrified me, the thought of her lungs quitting because it was too hard; this whole living, breathing thing was completely overrated. By not tearing my eyes off her, I was willing her into existence. And then they let me hold her in my arms. Light and fair like my mother, with big blue eyes—unlike me and Dad with our brown hair and brown eyes—she looked just like my very own baby doll.

  “You’re a big sister now,” Mom said, smiling down at me as I held Lila, as if the big pink “I’m a Big Sister” t-shirt they bought me at the hospital gift shop wasn’t enough of a clue. “You have to protect her and take really good care of her.”

  It’s probably the one and only thing my mother’s ever said that I’ve taken dead serious.

  We stretch in the driveway, and Dad takes the lead down the blackened streets. Motion lights go off at every McMansion we pass, lighting the path behind us. Our block is one of those newer developments built on a patch of land that was once a potato farm, which means we have to worry about imidacloprid, DDT, and other pesticides in our groundwater responsible for cancer pockets across Long Island. The Poland Spring delivery truck is a regular fixture around here.

  Our particular house model came with the requisite five bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, gourmet kitchen, granite countertops, and twelve-foot coffered ceilings. Instead of the theater room all the other models have, Dad made the builders turn our basement into a home gym. He works out like he’s training for the Olympics. Which means I do too.

  A few dogs bark as we run by their homes. The neighbors must love that. No one should be up at this hour. Not us, not the dogs. I pant to the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement. It’s like meditating, I guess. Focusing on my breathing helps me forget the ache in my hip that shoots through me with every step. The October air holds just enough chill that I can see my breath. It’ll get really cold soon, but weather never interferes with our runs.

  “Early decision deadline is coming up.” He huffs, white clouds punctuating his words.

  I nod. He looks at me for an answer, but I pretend to focus on my run.

  “November first.”

  “Yep.” I pant.

  “Cornell’s lacrosse team did really well last year. Brown did a little better, but . . .” He trails off.

  “I know.” You told me. Monitoring my exact words is an impor-tant survival skill, like building a fire out of twigs or foraging for cattails and conifers in the wilderness.

  “We should fly up one of these weekends. Take another look around. Talk to the coach this time.”

  I nod.

  He pants. “Pick up the pace; you’re lagging.”

  I’m not sure how I’m lagging since we’re neck and neck, but I pick it up, just enough that he has to struggle now to keep up with me.

  Suddenly he stops running and doubles over, clutching his chest. He coughs and gasps for air.

  “Dad, are you okay?” Fear and panic and something unspeakably luminous in the periphery root me to the ground. He doesn’t answer. Finally, he straightens up and spits a loogie across the street.

  “Something flew down my throat,” he gasps, his eyes watering. “I’m okay.”

  He runs and I follow.

  Meaghan and Noah wait for me by my locker before third-period Spanish.

  “Hey, Muscles.” Meaghan reaches over and squeezes my bicep hello. Noah leans back against the lockers, arms folded, his lips twisted to the side. His eyes narrow as he assesses me.

  “You’re walking like my nana before she got her new hip,” he decides.

  I’m limping slightly, but nowhere near the way Noah’s grandmother used to shuffle and rock. Though even after two ibuprofens, my body feels as creaky and ancient as hers. I twirl my combination, making sure to hit the numbers just right. My lock is as rigid and inflexible as everything else in my life.

  “My hip’s acting up.” I dig into my locker for my Spanish book.

  “Again?” Noah sighs and takes his phone out, tapping on it. With a satisfied nod, he turns it around to show me a fitness website. “You need to show your father this.”

  “Drill sergeant.” Meaghan coughs into her fist.

  Noah smiles in agreement at Meaghan then continues. “Ten warning signs you’re overtraining. First one on the list is prolonged muscle soreness.” Noah stares purposefully at my aching hip.

  Behind Noah, Charlie Simmons walks up the hallway toward us, his Spanish textbook tucked under his arm. Our eyes lock. It’s probably just my imagination, but he seems to course correct a few degrees in my direction. I’m not certain because I take this opportunity to spin around and look in my locker mirror, pretending to fuss with my hair unt
il I see his reflection walk away behind me. His tall, beautiful reflection.

  When it’s safe to turn back around, Noah is still reading through the list with a smirk. “Number five is interesting. How’s your menses going?”

  “None of your business.” I slam my locker shut.

  Noah jabs a finger in the air as if I just made his case. “Irritability. Number seven.” He pockets his phone.

  Mrs. Marino sticks her head out of her classroom door and glowers at the stragglers in the hallway. “Why are you dawdling? Get to class.”

  With a quick wave to Noah, I race Meaghan upstairs to Spanish. Even with an aching hip, I smoke her. I’m conditioned to run through pain. It’s when I’m still that the ache settles in, a combination of my muscles stiffening and the inability to ignore what demands to be felt. We settle into our regular seats just as the bell rings.

  Opening her homework folder, Meaghan turns to me. “Come with me to the mall after school? I want to get something new for Mike DiNardi’s party.” By the twinkle in her green eyes, she’s crushing on someone new.

  I pull my homework out to have it ready. “Really? Who’s the lucky guy?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Mike DiNardi!”

  “Oh, the host! Okay then.” I laugh.

  “So you’ll come?”

  “Can’t. I have a flying lesson.”

  She looks away, irritated. “Shocking.”

  Shuffling my papers, my eyes flutter down, trying to pretend that didn’t sting as much as it did.

  She sighs and bites her lip. “Sorry. I was just kidding. I—”

  I tilt my head at her and smile. She nods solemnly and lets it go.

  “You are coming to the party though, right?” she asks, with her dead-serious, don’t-try-me look. Meaghan always bugs me to stand up for myself more.

  “Grow a pair!” she’ll say with two clenched fists.

  “I would if I could, but my Y chromosome is still on back order!” is my go-to comeback. I’ve gotten lots of advice from her over the years about how to handle my dad. Her father happens to be a real softie.

  I nod. “I’m going to try.”

  “Not try. Do! I need you there! You’re my—”

  “Wingman?” I ask, and we both laugh.