Ripple Effect: A Novel Read online

  “This is real,” he whispered in my ear, before kissing my cheek.

  My fingertips softly touched his face, his warm skin. “You don’t feel dead.”

  Kelly silenced me by kissing me once again and I fully surrendered all emotion to him. He made my skin flush and chills scattered all across my skin. He had me addicted to his affection. In reality, I’d never experienced something so real.

  I didn’t know how it was possible. We were both dead at the ages of seventeen and eighteen. Yet, we were so alive, so full of vitality. My heart and his heart were in sync, beating rhythmically together, and our skin felt warm to the touch . . . yet, we were dead.

  I ran my hands through his hair while peering into his blue eyes. “I think I love you.”

  Kelly smiled. “I think I’ve always loved you.”

  “We are just kids, though. Do we even understand love?”

  Kelly laughed. “Speak for yourself. I’m—well—ninety, or so.”

  After laughing, our lips met again.

  Chapter 15

  Fluffy, white, and not-cold snow sat beneath me. My hands ran in circular patterns in it as I stared absentmindedly at the sunset in the west. Above me towered the snowcapped peak of the mountain in my world. A tall green pine tree sat only a few feet away from me.

  Bandit trudged through the woods and barked at me with a very worried Kelly in tow.

  “What?” I asked, getting instantly to my feet.

  My dog ran to me—as if I were some chew toy that he had buried years ago and had just unearthed—and protectively plopped down by my feet so that no one could touch his things.

  Kelly patted him on the back as he passed. He still looked worried.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  “I feared that I had lost you.”

  My eyes softened. “Kelly—”

  He looked down. “I feel something changing.”

  “Perhaps it’s just regret?” I stared at him seriously.

  Kelly set his hands on his waist. “Who doesn’t have regrets after they die? It’s something else.” I didn’t like the sound of that. My arms crossed. Kelly rubbed my arm. “I love you, Cecily, nothing will change that.”

  “I know,” I breathed. “I love you, Kelly.”

  Kelly stroked my arm again. “Do ever think that it was supposed to be this way?”

  “Define it?” I said.

  “Us. You and me. Maybe we were supposed to die and meet each other here, in this weird in-between.”

  I looked from his eyes to his lips and back to his eyes. “I don’t know,” I whispered unsurely. “We would have never met in real life. I am young enough to be your granddaughter.”

  With a crooked grin, he looked up. “That is weird.”

  “But it’s not here, is it?”

  Without an ounce of hesitation, he kissed me softly.

  When I opened my eyes again, I found that we now stood in a hospital room. It held a bed with a metal frame and a ton of archaic looking medical instruments.

  The woman who was lying in the bed looked half-alive. Everything was quiet except for her breathing. Was she dying?

  A man in a sailor uniform entered––a commanding officer. His name read: Sharp. That name seemed too familiar to me and was causing me great amounts of stress.

  My mouth gaped open in shock as I realized who this man was. I stared at Kelly. “This is your bud from the ship?”

  Kelly nodded. He was equally as shocked.

  “You’re doing well, honey,” he whispered to his fair-skinned wife, lying half-alive in the bed.

  “The baby?” she asked weakly.

  Concern filled his face. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Her eyes popped open. They were super green. “The baby?”

  “He is fine, I promise you. Want me to get him for you?”

  She nodded her head tiredly. “Yes. I need to see him––to hold him.”

  The man left and returned quickly. A nurse in a white dress followed behind him, carrying the baby into the room.

  “Here is our son,” he said to his wife proudly.

  She slowly sat up with the help of two other nurses. “Let me see him.”

  Brown hair matted to her head with sweat. Balmy skin suggested that she ran a fever.

  With the assistance of her husband, she held the baby boy in her arms. Tears filled her eyes as she smiled down at her little angel.

  “What should we call him, Daddy?” she asked, staring up at the man with adoration.

  The man smiled sincerely. “I was thinking Evan for his first name and––” His eyes met hers. She nodded for him to continue. A smile lifted from the corner of her mouth, as if she already knew what he was going to say. “And Kelly for his middle.”

  Evan Kelly Sharp. Evan Kelly Sharp. I knew that name. Evan Kelly Sharp . . . gave birth to Nina Marie Sharp, who became Nina Marie Sharp Wolf upon marrying Luca Wolf. Who then gave birth to Cecily Ann Wolf.

  I gasped and covered my mouth. That child is my grandfather!

  Kelly and I returned to our spot on the mountain peak.

  We stared at each other in complete shock.

  “You’re friend, the navy one . . . is my great-grandfather. Sharp—that’s my mother’s grandfather!”

  Kelly nodded his head slowly. “I can’t believe it.”

  “You are the reason that I am alive, Kelly! You told him to leave and he did. If you told him to stay, then he would’ve . . . died!”

  “So, there was a purpose for me joining the Navy . . .”

  My head nodded. “Yeah! It was so that I could be born!” I was somewhere between excited and shocked. “Can you believe this?”

  “I am trying to,” Kelly admitted seriously.

  I kissed him passionately in my excitement. Kelly eyes were wide when I looked back at him. “What?” I whispered, as if something terrible had happened.

  “You surprised me,” he said quietly.

  I laughed lightly. “You deserve it.”

  “This is weird, how we are linked and everything,” Kelly admitted.

  I nodded my head. “It’s supposed to be this way, I think. I am a result of your ripple effect.”

  Bandit began to bark frantically. He urged us to follow him. Kelly and I looked at each other with worry before running down the trail after the hound. Perhaps he had found a larger chew toy? One that didn’t have as much emotional baggage connected to it . . .

  Chapter 16

  Autumn leaves sat upon rusted train tracks that led us down a path of overgrown trees and bushes. Willows hung overhead, stripped of leaves completely, exposing the arterial-like structure of their bare branches. For some reason, things seemed to appear in sepia tone.

  The sunlight’s golden rays were muted as they cascaded forward from behind us. Silhouettes of two confused people moved forward as we moved forward. After a minute, the silhouettes connected hands and I glanced down to see my fingers interlaced in Kelly’s.

  “Whose past are we walking through now?” Kelly asked in a whisper.

  How was I supposed to know? I shrugged my shoulders as I continued along the abandoned train tracks.

  Three young voices bounced down the tracks until reaching us. It was the voices of three young girls, if I was correct. Youth granted life and vitality, well, for most cases. To be granted life and vitality once more . . . would be like eating a snow cone on a hot summer’s day, or drinking a cup of Papa’s hot chocolate as the streets filled with snow, or hugging my family one last time before I died, or––

  Kelly stopped me. “Do you think they are coming near us?” His head turned toward the direction of the voices.

  Or kissing Kelly's soft lips and running my hands through his hair, falling deeply into his gaze, and being held in his arms forever and ever.

  “Cecily?” he asked.

  I realized then that I stared at him longingly. “Um, they might be,” I answered, after taking my gaze away from him and staring up at the baldi
ng branches above. The voices were getting louder.

  “Kelly.” I stared down at the slabs of rotting wood beneath us. Weeds grew up from underneath. “Would you take back any of your regrets if you could?”

  “Regrets?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Like, regrets from when you were alive . . . things that you would want to take back.”

  He shook his head. “No. Things happen for reasons that make no sense at the moment. But when you go back and look at the progress you’ve made through life, you realize that the unfortunate moments––moments of regret for some––have only made you stronger. Now, why would you want to fix something that made you stronger and revert back to weakness?”

  “What if it was something really, really, really bad? Then, wouldn’t you want to fix it?”

  Kelly held my shoulders. His blue eyes softened as he looked at me. “There is a difference between reversing your mistake and fixing it. Fixing it makes you stronger.”

  “I just wish that I could go back and stop Cecily from dying. I wish—I wish I could stop everything, Kelly.”

  After pulling me to him, Kelly embraced me in his arms securely. “I understand.”

  Barking commenced as the voices came closer. I knew that bark. When I raised my head and looked toward the west, Bandit came trailing down the railroad tracks, his nose going crazy as he sniffed the ground below him. The mongrel was young again. He stopped where we were standing and circled around us.

  “Bandit!” a young girl with auburn hair and hazel eyes yelled. I’d notice that attitude anywhere. “You silly mongrel, nothing is there!”

  The girl who ran beside her began to laugh. Golden hair, messily pulled back, seemed very familiar, and her green eyes were filled with happiness. “Mongrel!” she mimicked.

  I glanced down at the dog. “Mongrel,” I whispered as well, before I began to laugh. I looked back at my thirteen-year-old self wearing a bright orange velour track suit. Hazel wore one in green. Oh, man, I was so young and innocent then. What happened?

  Behind them, further back on the tracks, a seventeen-year-old Adie stumbled along at a slower pace. She wasn’t looking so lively, and the dark clothing didn’t help either. Her skin seemed pale and her eyes were sunken in. A stick dragged behind her, making clicking noises each time she passed a wooden slab, as she slowly neared us. Her gaze remained staring forward as she kept a protective eye out for her sister.

  “Ces,” she yelled, “wait up!”

  Cecily paused mid-step, pretending to be frozen in her tracks. Hazel bent down to pet Bandits head. Adie rolled her eyes but smiled at her goofy little sister.

  I had almost forgotten who that child was that I saw. I was happy then, meaning that Papa hadn’t died yet. But he had to be close to dying, perhaps even the next day. After his passing, my world turned black.

  “Help me,” Cecily whispered to Hazel before giggling. Hazel laughed loudly, which caused Cecily to laugh and lose her balance. Try as she might to avoid it, she still fell onto the tracks, still laughing loudly with Hazel.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself,” Adie said informatively, like an older sister would.

  “Loosen up, sis,” Cecily responded, pushing herself to her feet and brushing the dirt from her knee and elbow.

  After giving Cecily a pat on the head, annoyed, yet loving, Adie kept along the tracks. That stick still clacked loudly as she made her journey along the abandoned way.

  “Adie?” Cecily said, her brow now furrowed.

  “Yeah?” she asked back, stopping, and facing her sister.

  Cecily faced the setting sun. “Do you think we should head home?”

  “Why? You never want to go home.”

  She looked at her older sister with teary eyes. “I have a feeling, that’s all.”

  “What kind of feeling?” Adie bent down to one knee to be on eye level with her younger sister. “Ces, what are you talking about?”

  Cecily’s threw her arms around Adie. “I am scared of Papa dying, Adie!” she cried, holding her sister tightly. “I don’t want him to die!”

  Adie wrapped her bony arms around her little sister. “Ces––”

  Pushing Adie away softly, Ces looked at her and smiled forcefully. My heart felt like breaking. “We’ll enjoy the time we have with him . . . . That’s what Mom always says.”

  Adie blinked away her tears and stood up tall. “Indeed.”

  “Adie, do you ever get scared?” Hazel asked. “Like, you go into surgery all the time, Papa is dying, and you aren’t even crying.”

  “I never get scared.” She tried to sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but I knew that Adie was extremely worried about everything Hazel had mentioned.

  Cecily wrapped her hand around her sister’s. “We’re in it together,” Cecily reminded her. “Forever.” She took Hazel’s hand in the other.

  Adie half-smiled and nodded. They went in the opposite direction of the setting sun, laughing and smiling on their way.

  * * *

  White walls surrounded us, illuminated by horrific fluorescent lighting. I knew this place better than any seventeen-year-old should. We were standing in the hospital.

  “Ew, ew, ew,” I said to Kelly. “I don’t want to be here!”

  “We are at the hospital?” Curiosity filled his voice.

  I rolled my eyes. “Obviously.”

  Kelly laughed at my attitude. “I see.”

  We went down the uberly bright corridor until I reached my mother. She stood beside a wooden door with a frosted glass window talking to a doctor––a friend of ours since we were kids. He’s the same doctor that was the coroner for my dead body, the one who had informed my mother that I had committed suicide. Now what? He was going to tell us that Adie was dying?

  “She’s not taking the chemotherapy very well,” Dr. Reed said solemnly. He couldn’t even bring his brown eyes to meet my mothers.

  A sigh escaped her. “What can I do?”

  “Without Cecily here, bone marrow transplantation is out of the question.”

  “There has got to be an alternative,” my mother said with determination.

  Dr. Reed nodded his head, but I could tell he lacked surety. “There is one other option. We can do somatic stem cell transplants.”

  “What?” I asked quietly. As if they could hear me, right?

  “What?” my mother asked. “What is that?” She gave him that look of confusion.

  Dr. Reed looked up as he thought of a way to explain it. “Well, stem cells can be extracted from the skin as well as the bone marrow, and be manipulated into acting like bone marrow cells.”

  My mother seemed skeptical, hands on hips and all. “It can be manipulated into acting like it? I want it to be the real thing, not something that is masked.”

  “Nina, this is the last option that you have for Adie.”

  My mother’s eyes filled with tears and she covered her mouth. On the left hand sat her gold and diamond wedding ring. After years of being widowed, she refused to take it off. “I must have faith,” she reminded herself vocally.

  The doctor touched her arm. “Things will work out how they are supposed to.”

  “Yes. My husband dying of lung cancer, my daughter committing suicide, and my other daughter dying from leukemia . . . things are certainly happening how they are supposed to.” She seemed annoyed, but I swore that she was dead serious. She really thought it was God’s will. Why wasn’t she angrier?

  Dr. Reed cupped her face in his hand, rubbing her cheek softly with his thumb. “You are a wonderful person, Nina. You’ve raised a beautiful family. You were a wonderful wife to Luca. Like I said, I don’t understand why this is happening, but things will play out like they should.”

  All that my mother could do was give him half a smile. “Make this somatic––whatever––work, okay? Adie is all I have left.”

  “We will collect the cells after she is done with the chemo,” Dr. Reed assured her. “It will be just a little bit of time before we can t
ry to cure her.”

  I stepped past them and into the room behind the closed door. A leather reclining chair sat near the wall, painted lavender purple for calming purposes, surely. In this chair sat a very frail and tired Adie. Curled up with her head resting down on her chest, she looked more than weak . . . she seemed broken entirely. Attached to her arm were needles and tubes that led up to bags of various fluids.

  My big sister was dying and all I could do was sit here and stare at her. My throat choked, my chest hurt, and I held back alligator tears. I had to be strong for Adie––the person who was always so strong for me. This time, I had to lift the angel that held my hand when my world became dark.

  “Adie,” I breathed. I stepped toward her and dropped down on my knees so that I could see her face. “Adie, don’t give up,” I pleaded.

  I swore that Adie looked directly at me through her brown, innocent eyes. She just stared away as her eyes became droopier and droopier with exhaustion. Purple lips tried to mutter something, but she was too weak to even speak.

  “Some people can see the other realms when they are close to death,” Kelly said quietly, behind me, breaking the silence of the small room.

  Glaring at Kelly, I folded my arms. “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s not supposed to be,” Kelly replied calmly.

  Adie moaned loudly. “Mom!” She looked rather green.

  My mother ran into the room, a frantic expression filling her face. She saw the condition of her child and grabbed a puke bowl. “It’s okay, baby,” she assured my sister.

  “Mom,” Adie mumbled, “Cecily.” Her head rolled back. Then she puked.

  Chapter 17

  Sitting in the still and quiet chapel brought me peace, though I was dead and had yet to see the creator that the religious folk gave their praise to every week. Yet, something about this dwelling brought me comfort. It could be the fact that I sat directly next to my mother, or that memories flashed through my mind of the chorus singing boisterous songs and clapping their hands and yelling their praises. Smiling was inescapable, and for two young girls such as Hazel and me, it was flat out hysterical.