Chapter 5

A few days later, Nora decided that living in the After was awesome.

Her mother continued to use video calls as a substitute for in-person mothering, limiting her time to one daily phone call on her way to tennis, back from lunch, or in the dressing room while shopping. She always excused her absence from Nora's life by saying she was just too busy. "The annual End SIDS fundraiser has gotten so big, I may need to bring on staff," she'd complain. "I think we might be able to get Lyle Lovett to play this year. Wouldn't that be a feather in our cap? Are you taking your medicine?"

"Yes," Nora would say, impatient to get off the phone. She was busy transforming her space from the Before into the After.

She started with her furniture. She made a few calls, found a charity that would pick up the couch, the chairs, and that terribly formal dining room table. She gave away the china she rarely used to someone she found on the apartment's neighbor app. Most of the dead plants were given a proper burial—she couldn't look at them without feeling massive guilt—but she wasn't ready to let go of a dead tomato plant Grandpa had given her. She could remember that sunny morning when he'd proudly handed her the pot. "This is for you, kid." It was such a small thing, but he always had a way of making her feel so special. A gift only because he was thinking of her, not because he was obligated by an event like a birthday.

She cleaned out every nook and cranny and deposited anything that belonged to the Before into a trash can or a donation pile.

In her closet, she didn't touch the box with her name on it but worked around it. It looked heavy, like it held too much of the Before that she wasn't ready to tackle. She'd deal with it later.

She took down all her handbags and boxed them up to be shipped off to an online luxury goods store that would sell them for her. She would get back only a fraction of what the bags were worth, but she didn't care. Anything would be a help with her bills.

Her clothes were a dismay. She'd never really noticed, but she'd dressed like storm clouds in the Before—everything she owned seemed to be black, gray, or navy. She threw all that gloom into a bag and took it to a nearby consignment shop. Then she popped into the thrift store next door to pick up a couple of gently used pieces.

She went to the library and checked out self-help books about the courage to change and steps for living in the moment instead of the past. She made an appointment at a hair salon. Not the trendy one where she had her caramel-colored hair highlighted because her mother said it made it look less brassy. But a more affordable salon with rock music playing in the background and a stylist who had all the colors of the rainbow in his hair. She asked him to lop off twelve inches of the ghost of Nora's hair.

"Did you say ghost?" the stylist asked.

"Just cut," Nora said. Now she was sporting a new shaggy shoulder-length lob that she loved. It was carefree and perfect for someone determined to live in the moment.

By the end of the week, she had her first postrelease appointment with Dr.Cass.

She really liked Dr. Cass. During her rehab, Dr. Cass had coaxed her to talk about many things she'd buried deep down over the years.

She met Nora in her office wearing a giant turquoise squash blossom necklace that was hard to look away from. "Hey! You look great, Nora. Love the jeans and the rainbow T-shirt. And the hair! Va-va-va-voom!"

"Thanks," Nora said. "I'm so... comfortable." She'd been dressing like an uptight November for so long that she'd forgotten how comfortable cotton and Lycra could be.

"How's your ankle?"

"Getting better every day. I should be out of the boot next week."

They sat in armchairs facing each other. "So tell me, now that you're home, how are you feeling about things?"

Nora eagerly scooched forward in her seat. "Surprisingly good. I feel like I'm still me, but so different. And I'm excited."

"Tell me about that."

"Remember I told you about the regrets I had for things I meant to do and never did?" Dr.Cass nodded. "I'm going to do them—I made a reverse bucket list of all the things I want to do after I died."

Dr.Cass gasped with delight. "That's brilliant! People who experience NDEs often come back feeling that things were left undone and have a renewed and invigorated purpose in life."

"That's exactly how I'm feeling."

"Well, this is a perfect opportunity. Let's talk about your list."

Nora pulled the paper from her purse and showed it to her. Dr.Cass pointed to Lacey's name. "Your sister?"

Nora nodded. "She's always been there for me, but I haven't always been there for her." And just like that, she felt tense. "I want to do better." Which sounded too vague and simplistic. She wasn't sure Lacey even cared if she was a better sister. Nora had tried calling her more than once since she'd been home, but it always rolled to voice mail. Her sister was a middle school principal and insanely busy, and maybe that's all it was... But Nora was beginning to recall just how difficult she'd made life for Lacey in the Before. It mortified her.

"Why do you think you weren't there for her?" Dr.Cass asked.

The tension settled painfully at the top of her head. "Because—" She was horrified when a sob she hadn't even known was there suddenly erupted. Dr.Cass nodded encouragingly. "Because my depression, it... it disfigured our relationship," she managed to get out. "It changed us."

"Can you say more about that?" Dr.Cass asked gently.

Another sob escaped. "I used to be the big sister Lacey looked up to. Until life became too much for me. There were days that staying in bed sounded a whole lot better than helping her move. But I'd promised her, and she was stuck without my help." Nora swallowed down another sob. "It wasn't the only time I wasn't there for her. She couldn't trust me to be her sister. She couldn't trust me not to disappear."

"That must have been very difficult for you both. But it was not your fault, Nora. Depression robs us of our ability to function in ways we generally consider normal. Was it the same with Gus?"

Nora's head began to throb behind one eye. She rubbed hard at her brow. "Not exactly. He's my cousin. He's an alcoholic and struggles with sobriety." He'd been to treatment twice. Before the last stint, Gus had reached out to Nora, needing her. Nora promised him that she'd come by, but she hadn't made it. Gus ended up drinking so much that he'd wandered outside wearing only his boxers. He'd tried to fight an old man who wanted to help him, and the cops had picked him up. He'd gone first to a hospital to detox, then to a treatment facility. "And I didn't help him. I couldn't help him."

"Did you think you were responsible for Gus's drinking?" Dr.Cass asked. "Wasn't that a choice Gus made?"

"Yes... but I should have helped him," she said quietly. "I could at least have been present. Been someone he could lean on."

Her dad had arranged Gus's treatment, but not without complaint. "That's the Levinson in him," he'd said dismissively, referring to Gus's father. "A bunch of losers. And this one is making us look like trash."

Nora had been horrified at her dad's lack of empathy. "He's sick," she'd exclaimed.

Her father had rolled his eyes. "There's nothing wrong with him that putting down the bottle won't cure."

Gus's life had been hard. His father died in a car wreck when he was fifteen. When he was twenty, his mother—Nora's maternal aunt—died from cancer. The Novembers were all the family that Gus had, and Nora had let him down. She hadn't had the strength to be there for him when he'd needed her most, because she couldn't be there for herself.

She tried in vain to will away her guilt, but the only thing she willed was more tears.

Dr.Cass handed her a box of tissues. "We will talk more about this," she said soothingly. "But for now, let's keeping looking at your list. What's this?" she asked, pointing to Corner store guy.

Nora's face turned hot. What was the matter with her? She couldn't seem to regulate her emotions anymore. In those hours Nora had spent with the corner store guy, locked in a storeroom, the world had seemed bursting with hope and possibilities. "That... that was a missed opportunity." And a colossal, gaping hole of regret.

She gave Dr. Cass a watered-down version of the story. A robbery, a hostage situation, sitting all night with a man she really came to like. "Anyway, I wrote his number on my hand. But I must have washed it off. And now I can't remember his name." The one good thing to happen to her in years, and she'd, what, just let it slip away? She avoided Dr. Cass's gaze. "It's one of the things I lost in the NDE." Maybe. But the truth was that after the robbery, Nora had fallen into a black hole of depression, the can't-get-out-of-bed variety. Maybe she'd forgotten his name then.

"My goodness! That must have been traumatic for you."

Nora nodded.

"With trauma like that, sometimes details can be buried," Dr.Cass said. "You remember what he looks like and the emotional connection you felt, but the name is lost. It will eventually come back to you, just like your surfing accident will. Still, without his name, it's going to be a real challenge to find him, isn't it? You'll have to be creative, and that's the best kind of challenge to have. What's this?" She pointed to Get anew job.

"I, ah... I never wanted to be a lawyer, so..." She shrugged. She didn't know how to put into words that she, a grown woman, had been afraid to cross her father at a critical time in her life. She'd needed something from him: His approval. His respect. His love. Parents were supposed to love their children, but Nora was apparently unlovable. She'd spent so much of her life trying to be worthy of his affection, waiting for him to see her and understand her.

"Veryinteresting," Dr.Cass said. "That's a lot of school and training to be something you never wanted to be."

"Wasn't it?" What a waste of years of her life. She used to rationalize it by thinking she'd drawn the short straw. Her brother, Nathan, had died as a baby, and Lacey made it clear early on that she was gay, therefore making herself an unsuitable substitute for dear old Dad. Which left Nora. Eager to please, malleable, chicken-shit Nora, who was too afraid to stand up to the man who'd tyrannized her all her life.

She suddenly remembered being eleven years old. Her mother had signed her up for ice-skating. But Nora wanted to play basketball—Grandpa had loved basketball and she'd spent many evenings curled into his side as he explained the rules of the game. At dinner that night she'd announced quite innocently that she wanted to be a basketball player when she grew up. Her father had brought his fist down on the table, rattling glasses and plates, and told her never to say that again. "I can't think of anything more graceless. You will be a lawyer, like your father, like your grandfather. You will carry on the November name. That's it."

She could remember feeling like it was a matter of life and death to stake her place in this world as a basketball player. She'd been on the verge of tears, but her father hated crying more than almost anything. "I want to play basketball!" She'd felt afraid and brave in the same breath. She was planting her flag, and she was ready to fight off anyone who tried to take it.

Her father laughed at her. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. And she'd crumbled, just like she always did.

"What would you do if you didn't practice law?" Dr.Cass asked curiously, drawing her back into the present.

Nora swallowed. She'd spent a few weeks blissfully free of her father and didn't want thoughts of him to ruin things now. "I'm thinking about that. Maybe something in the arts. Or something completely different, like volunteering at Greenpeace." No, that wasn't it—she wasn't going to volunteer at Greenpeace. "I mean that I would like to be useful somewhere. To someone."

"Exciting!" Dr.Cass said. "Your list is brilliant, Nora. I can't wait to talk more about it. Unfortunately, that's our time today." She stood up.

Nora stood up too.

Dr.Cass grasped Nora's shoulders. "You know what's great? You're alive, Nora November. You. Are. Alive. You get to do things you very nearly lost the opportunity to ever do. Who gets that chance? You do. Make the most of it." She dropped her hands. "Same time next week?"

Make the most of it.Yes, that's what she had to do. She had to find a way to do the things she'd left undone, face the painful trip to Grandpa's garden, figure out how to reach Lacey and Gus, and... and find the corner store guy.

Somewhere there was a record of that robbery. Someone had taken down his full name. Surely someone somewhere could remember what she couldn't.