Page 40 of All Her Ghosts

“So, here?” I demand. “Or did you actually meannot ever, like always?”

Mom stares at the stoplight with her whole attention, fists so tight on the wheel her knuckles lose all color. She stays quiet long enough I almost give up, chest aching, sure she’s not going to answer at all.

At last, she says, “There’s a lot I can’t tell you.”

“Won’t,” I snap.

“Can’t,” she insists. “By contractual obligation and sworn oath.”

You know, that’s almost worse? I’d rather the silence than this childish insult to my intelligence. I snort, shaking my head. It’s not even a good lie.

“Some old promise is more important than your own kid. Figures.”

“No. Nothing is more important to me than you.” She rips her eyes off the road to glance at me, seeking out my eyes with every break in traffic, every hesitation at a stop sign. My face burns. My gut twists. I have to swallow twice to choke it down.

“Why do you keep glancing at me? Checking to see if I believe it?” I clench my fists around the handle of my carpetbag, hard enough the line of stitching sears my palms. “You didn’t even have the medics look me over.”

Something flickers across her face, faster than I can track it. “Did you need them to?”

“No! And that’s weird, Mom!” I protest. “I shouldn’t be fine, I shouldbedead. How are you so calm right now? A human ghost swarm broke through the fence and raided the school, and you haven’t even asked me what happened.”

“I know what happened.”

“Oh yeah, of course. Because you were there and you know everything. Fine.” I throw up my hands. “Great, even! So explain it to me, then. What the hell happened today?”

Suddenly, traffic consumes her full attention.

Quietly, staring dead ahead, she says, “You saved your teacher’s life.”

The wind rushes out of me like a punch to the chest. I suck in an unsteady breath.

“He’s… okay? He’llbeokay?” My hands spasm on the handle of my bag, the appendages of a distant stranger. My soul slips a little from my seams and for a second, I’m afraid if I shut my eyes I’ll slam right back into the corner of that classroom, cupping the vital flame of a man’s life in my hands.

He burned so brightly, a living bonfire against the backs of my fingers as I peeled the cold and clinging dead away, gathering them close.

But, no—I shake it off, digging my fingernails into my wrist, grounding myself in the pain. My mom can’tknowthat. She’s just trying to distract me.

“The school wouldn’t have known that, and no medic would have told you.”

“Believe it or not, I know more people than your school administration.”

“So your desk jockey friends, then? Like Bas’s babynapper said?” I snap. The shot lands—Mom’s mouth tightens. “Oh, let me guess, you don’t wanna talk about that?”

Mom falls silent for a second.

“Is that what he calls him?” she asks at last. “His babynapper?”

“Yeah.” I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I gather up my bag to my chest, holding it tight enough to dig the edge of my cellphone against me, its hard edge a reassurance, all my secrets safe where she can’t pick-pick-pickthem apart even if she’s about to give it the ol’ college try. I glance at her, trying to figure out her face. “What? It’s a joke.”

Mom sighs. She swallows.

“It isn’t, actually,” she says with a weird, quiet surety.

Anger flares so hot and bright it burns, my skin flaming, itching like poison ivy under all this inside-out wool.

“What is your issue with him?” I snarl. Fighting the seat belt down, I rip my way out of her coat, tossing it onto the floor-well regardless of the mud on my boots. “What, you had a bad breakup with his babynapper so now you’ve got a hate-on for Bas? You slapped him thesecondyou saw him.”

Mom sucks in a breath. Here we go—