Chapter 34

Nora felt dead inside, like she was a heavy bag of wet sand. Immovable.

She couldn't sleep. She sat on her used couch in the dark, reviewing all her missteps, and especially Lacey's burned kitchen. How had everything gone to hell so fast? All she'd wanted in the After was to get her life together and live on her own terms. Was that asking too much? The hope and euphoria that had come with her NDE had now given way to the terror that maybe she was incapable of change. That maybe the only thing she was good at was screwing everything up.

She couldn't stop seeing the look on Lacey's face when she'd said she didn't want to see her or talk to her. She'd looked so tired and disappointed and so over it all. Nora needed Lacey; she needed her sister in her life for friendship, for support, for solidarity. But she'd burned down any hope of Lacey trusting her again. Literally. She'd felt Lacey's fatigue and disappointment to her core—hell, she'd been living with it most of her adult life. Had she really believed her NDE had changed her? What a joke. She was still the same miserable waste of skin and bone she'd always been.

At some point she found herself on the floor. She sobbed at the memory of how freeing it felt to write the reverse bucket list after she came home from the hospital. She'd felt so hopeful, and she was learning how to tame that awful inner voice, the hypercritical one. The new Nora was starting to believe she could be anything she wanted to be.

That stupid, misguided Nora. Nothing had changed—her reverse bucket list hadn't magically transformed her into some sort of superwoman. She was still unforgivable and unlovable. Still making life hard for the people she loved.

When the sun began to rise, Nora was sitting on her balcony overlooking the parking lot, completely numb. As the first rays of light appeared over Riverside Drive, her numbness turned to grief again. Surely it hadn't all been in vain? Surely she hadn't nearly died only to come back and be worse than she was before? Surely she hadn't lived just so she could hate herself for the rest of her life?

Come on, Nora.You can't give up.

She tried to motivate herself. She went back inside and spent time checking on applications she'd submitted for jobs. Unfortunately, calling large firms that only accepted applications online was akin to calling outer space—no one answered, and if they did, they didn't know anything.

Her hopelessness began to turn derisive. She knew herself, knew that if she stayed in her apartment, her thoughts would get even darker.

She managed to get herself dressed and made a trip to the garden.

She expected some sort of divine transformation when she walked through the gates, but nothing happened.

Her tomato plants had died. The calla lilies were refusing to grow. The bell peppers were freakishly small.

Her failure at the garden was particularly soul-crushing. It didn't make sense. Yes, she'd neglected the garden after Grandpa's death, but she wasn't neglecting it now. She was furiously tending it, and her garden was not growing.

The metaphor for her life could not have been more obvious.

She sank down into the dirt next to her dead tomato plants, killed by too much water along with the Venus flytraps next door. She'd failed at reviving her inner athlete and had managed to get herself barred from the basketball court in the process. She couldn't cook without breaking something or starting a fire, had alienated Lacey, and for God's sake, she was useless to Gus—what was a painting class to him?

Her phone pinged. She pulled it out of her pocket—it was a text notification that her credit card payment was past due again. A tear slid down her cheek.

It was official—she was falling apart. "Why did you have to leave?" she whispered to Grandpa. Why hadn't she gone to see him when she said she would? Why couldn't she have stayed with him in his celestial garden?

The tears came in a torrent, sliding down her face and her nose, carrying her last gasp of optimism and hope with them. And on her ragged breaths, self-loathing rose like a phoenix to spread its wings and thrive.

There was only one real solution to her troubles. One she'd been trying to ignore for days.

She had to go crawling back to November and Sons.

What else could she do? She needed to pay her bills and her rent, to fix Lacey's kitchen, to get Gus into treatment... The list went on. She'd been lying to herself all this time. She wasn't different after her NDE—she was delusional. The person she believed herself to be at her core had been buried under reality. She was no more capable of recovering the girl she'd been than she was cooking, or painting, or anything else.

Her dad was going to make her grovel. Then he would make sure that she never again stepped out of the lines he'd painted for her. She would not be able to bear it.

She could hardly see through her tears. She slid down onto the earth and rolled onto her back, the sky a blurry, watery blue above her.

She needed a lifeline. Someone to help her, someone who could promise her it would be all right. What would Dr.Cass say? That transformation was hard and there would be setbacks. But did everything have to be a setback? What would Grandpa say? Nora moaned and closed her eyes. He would tell her she was perfect the way she was, that God didn't make mistakes, that she had to keep going. Grow your garden. He would tell her that she would find her way, because he believed in her. You have to believe in yourself.

"I'm trying, Grandpa," she whispered. "I'm trying so hard." But the thought of having to return to the Before was so excruciatingly painful, like tiny daggers stabbing her over and over. It would be so much worse. She truly didn't understand the point of life right now.

"Are you all right?" a woman called to her.

"Yep. Fine," Nora said, waving her off. With a sigh, she forced herself to sit up. She wiped her face with her fingertips, probably smearing dirt on her cheeks. You have to believe in yourself. The weak thought whispered across her mind. "I do," she muttered. "I believe I can screw things up better than anyone." She stood up. She dusted off her pants. She took a few deep breaths. Okay. She'd go home and figure out how to approach Dad and try not to completely hate herself in the process. She leaned down to pick up her tote, and when she did, her gaze fell on a spot near where she'd planted the calla lilies. A clod of dirt that looked... disturbed. She walked to the spot and bent down to have a closer look. There, barely visible under the clod, was the tip of something green. It was impossible to imagine how something so small and tender could be strong enough to push a lump of earth out of its way, but Grandpa's calla lilies were rising up, coming to her rescue.

The cascade of hope that immediately fell over her was so great, Nora burst into tears again.

Thatwas the point—life was the point. These calla lilies could not be drowned. They had literally moved earth to breathe and live. She was at least as strong as that, wasn't she? She could not be drowned. Sure, she had some mountains to scale, but they weren't insurmountable, were they? She had to figure out how to get Gus into treatment, to fix Lacey's kitchen, and to pay her bills. Those were not character flaws; those were problems to be solved.

She could do it. She had to change her mindset. She was many things, but she wasn't stupid.

She remembered Grandpa telling her that this was her season.

This was her season, dammit. If the calla lilies could push off the weight of the world to grow, then so could she.

***

That afternoon she drove to the Triangle Theater. She'd talked to Terrell Carter-Smith, her former classmate, about the tax lien, and he'd given her a couple of ideas. Which were, he said, "not great." When you owed taxes, the government was pretty good about squeezing and squeezing until they got blood from the proverbial turnip.

At the theater, she was charmed by the pots of fresh flowers at the door of an otherwise nondescript beige building. Inside, the paint was peeling, the box office leaned slightly to the right, and there was a distinct smell that made her think a sewer had malfunctioned.

She could hear music and went into the auditorium where a rehearsal was underway. Catherine was singing—she had a surprisingly delicate voice for a woman who pulled no punches. She and a tall, gangly man whose deep bass voice rattled the rafters sang a duet. Given the state of the theater, Nora feared that such a performance could quite literally bring the place down, curtains and all.

She walked down the aisle, curious about the number of seats that had been covered with needlepoint. It was obvious some work had been done—the new lumber on the apron of the stage indicated the boards had been replaced. There were a few patches in the curtains, detectable by the slightly darker fabric. And the fabricated set of tenement housing was well done.

Nora took a seat in the front row. Catherine spotted her and waved at the end of her number. The director—Walter!—applauded them. "Great job. Take ten!"

Catherine came down off the stage, patting her face with a towel. "Can't we turn on the air-conditioning, Walter? It's boiling in here."

"We can do anything you want with money, Catherine."

Catherine winced. "That, we do not have." She fell into a seat next to Nora with a grunt, then leaned forward and looked behind her. A wire was pressing against the back of the seat. "Another one." She sighed. "We need to replace all the seats, but of course, we have no money." She looked at Nora. "Well, Venus flytrap killer? What do you think?"

Nora winced. "I'm so sorry about the flytraps."

Walter looked up with a frown.

"Hi, Walter," she said sheepishly. "I'm going to get you some more flytraps."

He rolled his eyes.

"What about the theater?" Catherine asked.

"I've consulted with a tax attorney, and it's not good."

Catherine's face fell. "But you'll figure it out, right?"

"I'm going to try, Catherine, but this is not my area of expertise," Nora said. "My friend said you have two options: one, pay the arrears. Or two, declare bankruptcy, which will slow the process. But even then, you'll still have to pay the arrears plus twenty-fivepercent interest."

Catherine gaped at her. "Well, aren't you Little MissSunshine?"

"I've never been accused of that. Look, I have more research to do. But in the meantime, you focus on making as much money as you can from your show to go toward the back taxes. And anything else you can scrape together."

Another member of the troupe took a seat on the edge of the stage.

"Don't sit there, Meredith. We just painted!" another woman shouted.

"Well, excuse me, Annabeth," Meredith said and clambered to her feet. "Do we have a chance?" she asked Nora.

"Like I said, I still have a lot to research. But honestly? Probably not," Nora said with a sympathetic wince.

"Should we be looking for alternative housing?" asked one of the men.

"Don't talk like that, Martin. What is the matter with you?" Catherine groused.

"I'm being realistic, Catherine. Why do we always have to believe?"

"Hey," said another man and pointed at Nora. "You're that girl."

"Excuse me?"

"That girl... on the news. We were justtalking about it. We saw you on TV looking for a man from that robbery."

"She's her?" A woman turned to peer at Nora. Then all of them were staring at her.

"That's me," Nora confirmed.

"What's happening with that?" the first man asked. "Any leads? Speaking of believing, Martin," he added as an aside.

"Not yet," Nora said. "But people are sharing the search, so maybe."

"Sharing what, exactly?" Catherine asked.

Once again, Nora told the story of the robbery and the hostage situation and her connection with a fellow hostage. In the interest of time, she kept the details to a minimum. She summed up by saying the night was kismet.

"Kismet is highly underrated on the whole," mused Walter.

"Why didn't you call him? Why didn't he call you?" Annabeth asked.

"That's what the whole TV thing was about, Annabeth," said Doralee.

Annabeth shrugged. "Seems like one of you would have called the other if you had such a great connection."

"You'll find him," Martin said. "If you believe." He gave Catherine the side-eye.

"Of course she believes," said Walter. "Hope's the only thing she's got."

How was it that all old people said the same things? It was like an auditorium of grandpas in here. And it might seem like all she had was hope on the surface, but Nora had more than that. She had a brain, and like those calla lilies, she had dug down deep enough to discover a will to thrive.

"My husband and I ran this theater on little more than hope for years," Catherine said. "You put hope into the universe and it comes back to you. I read that in a book. What was the name of that book?" Her brow scrunched into a frown as she tried to recall.

"Keep believing, kiddo," Walter advised Nora. "Maybe your luck will change. All right, everyone, we'll talk about this later, but right now we need to rehearse. We have only two weeks until opening night."

"But what about our lawsuit?" Catherine complained, gesturing in Nora's direction.

"Not a lawsuit," Nora corrected her. "How are your ticket sales?"

"Wretched," said Meredith as she began to climb the stairs to the stage. "I said all along we need a marketing strategy, but no one listens to me. Social media, I said. We ought to be on TikTok. That's where they all are now."

"I'll listen to you over cocktails, Meredith," Catherine said as she got up. "But I'm not doing the Tik."

"It's not called that," Meredith complained as they found their places. "Nobody calls it the Tik."

Nora watched them rehearse the first act. Catherine was a wonder as Blanche DuBois. Grandpa would have loved this so much. He would be buying a block of theater seats, determined to fill them with his friends. Hey ... she could do that. Okay, yes, she was feeling a huge financial strain, and she had only one friend... but surely she had enough money to buy a block of seats as a contribution to a worthy cause. She sincerely wanted to help them.

Because they weren't giving up, and neither was she.