After life, p.7
After Life, page 7
“It’s about that. Past lives.” Carlie waited for Paria to say something, and when she didn’t, she turned to me. “Go, Mara. Tell her.”
I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at anyone. “My brother,” I started, not knowing what I was supposed to say exactly. “He is remembering things. He remembers a different family and he told me that he had been killed…by a shadow, he says.” Looking around, I could see that nobody but Paria and Carlie were listening to my little spiel, but still I felt self-conscious. I stopped. That was enough. I’d keep all the sordid details to myself. I opened my eyes.
Paria realized that I was done, and she hummed soft and low. “And what do you think is happening when he says these things?” she asked in her best counselor voice.
I shrugged.
She smiled. But I thought she looked disappointed in me—that somehow my offering hadn’t been quite up to par. My stomach dropped and I itched to get up and go. I couldn’t handle another round of public humiliation.
“Carlie.” She turned her attention to my friend. “I know you and I have talked about many things here in private…but I can’t counsel your friends on issues of the afterlife.”
“But—”
She held up her hand and grimaced. “What I believe is what I believe. But there are a few things that just aren’t appropriate for me to share with you girls. I do think that your friend’s brother should possibly see someone. It’s quite uncommon to, once someone has aged past childhood, remember without…”
“He’s four,” I interjected. “He’s not a teenager. He’s four.” I said that number like I was pleading with her. Please believe me, I wanted to shout. Please don’t make me feel stupid.
The number stopped her and she bit her lip. “He’s just a baby,” she breathed. “Look…I was raised in a home that believed in many things, both practical and mystical. That is what can happen when you are raised on the cusp of many cultures. But my mother, you see, strongly believed that she had been a beekeeper in a past life, and that in another she had died in a plane crash. There were certain smells that set her nerves on end. Like this one time, I leaned over a birthday cake and lit my hair on fire. Instead of coming to help me, she shrieked and ran to her room and curled up in the fetal position in her bedroom for hours. The smell of my burning hair haunted her. Reminded her of something devastating.”
I kept my eyes on hers. I could see her attention waning back toward the group, but I leaned a bit to obscure them from view. I swung my backpack around and reached in for the folder. The top corner was now bent and an uncapped pen had drawn a wayward line down the front. Carlie rolled her eyes at my mishandling of her cargo. I held the file in my lap.
Soren hated water.
And he would scream at the top of his lungs if anyone threw anything over his head: a bath towel, a blanket. He’d talked about not wanting to drown before he had opened up to me about his memories of Cole.
I could taste the victory of someone believing me. If there was just one person who could help me, then I wouldn’t feel so impotent.
“He said his name was Cole,” I added. Then I handed her the file. She took it and opened it; one of the papers fell to the floor. She bent down and picked it up at the same time someone told a joke from the carpet and ALC began to laugh. She examined each piece of paper tenderly, not understanding, but trying to. I leaned closer. “There was a murder. Fifteen years ago. My brother remembered these names. He said these names…his brothers…” I knew my voice was rising. If I was louder, I could be heard.
Paria nodded. She was silent. Then she shut the file and handed it back to me. I clutched it to my chest. She smiled and reached out and patted my hand warmly. “I believe you,” she whispered, and I trusted her when she said it. Then sadness flashed across her face and she lowered her hand. “But I can’t comment on what goes on inside your house. Or this case. It’s fascinating and…” she trailed off. “Look, Mara, I can listen as much as you need, but—”
“But he remembers. How could a kid remember something he’s never been shown or taught? Do you believe in…” I didn’t want to say the word.
“Reincarnation?” a boy behind me said.
It was then I realized the room had gone silent. The entirety of Asian Lunch Club stared at our huddled trio, all ears trained on the specifics of our conversation. When I turned to them, some looked away. And others continued to watch and listen while munching on food. I wasn’t prepared for their attention. Small town high schools were a miniature version of small towns themselves: in a day or less, everyone would know that I had come to Paria for advice on rebirth.
I was about to shut the whole conversation down and get up and leave, but the same boy who had interrupted, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “My grandma thinks my nephew is my uncle.” It was the casual way he floated this fact that stopped me from bolting. “I’m Sam, by the way.”
He thrust his hand out at me and I shook it. He pumped my arm with three short bursts and smiled. “Mara.”
“Yeah, Mara, I mean, my uncle was killed in a car accident. A piece of glass from his windshield cut across his forehead.” He drew a line from his temple to his eyebrow. “And when my baby nephew was born?” He drew the same pattern again. “A white birthmark.”
All eyes were on me. I cleared my throat.
“Oh?” I managed.
He nodded, without reservation. The group looked at me and I looked at them. It was like some strange initiation into a club that I hadn’t known I needed to join. In the subtle shadows cast by the lamp, and the comfortable silence that grew from my apparent anxiousness, the group seemed to move toward me, extending a welcome despite my walls. Jessica handed me a plate. When I looked to Carlie and Paria for permission, neither of them rushed to tell me that I was making a horrible mistake, to back away from the buffet, to stop telling secrets. No; instead, they motioned for me to sit, and encouraged me to open up. Paria looked comforted that she had been relieved from commenting herself. She turned me over to the group and rested an elbow on her desk, watching me.
The group began to unfold its secrets. Wailee’s mom remembered her past life on a farm in China. And several of the kids talked about their parents praying for departed souls to return to them as babies. There wasn’t a hint of strangeness in their stories, no embarrassment upon admission. In that room, everyone told a story of reincarnation as the norm, and my worry of rejection slipped away.
When I look back on that day in particular—the morning I learned about Colton and the Sullivan family—and think of our opportune arrival at Asian Lunch Club, settling in among students who brought a subculture to life and convinced me to pursue Soren’s claims further, I have to wonder if maybe my life would have kept moving in its predictable, lazy path if I hadn’t been so enamored with Paria’s belly laugh, and a plate full of sushi rolls.
Maybe, if I hadn’t ended up there, I wouldn’t be so afraid of the darkness lurking in places just beyond my reach, poised to pounce if given an open door and a willing heart. I had opened the door. My heart was willing. I brought this all upon myself.
7
An excerpt from After Life: Past Lives and the Children Who Remember by Alfred Fjord, PhD:
It is difficult to ascertain why some children remember past lives and others do not. Some speculate that traumatic deaths are imprinted on a soul, while a more peaceful passing would allow the consciousness to adjust to a new life without attaching past memories. It is common, in the case of a traumatic death, for a child to feel fearful or have phobias related to their cause of death. Sometimes regression therapy or talk-therapy can cure a child of their phobias. Giving the soul a chance to understand that the danger is no longer present is an important step.
We can carry many emotions with us from one life to another. Guilt, fear, anger. But also love, desire, and passions. Both an unexplained phobia and a rare talent can be linked to the lives we’ve lived before.
The most important thing for a parent or guardian to do if he or she suspects their child might be remembering a past life is to encourage the child to talk. Ask open-ended questions. Never lead the conversation, always allow the child a safe place where he or she can explore their life fully.
Our souls are transitory; one single life is fleeting. Based on some children’s accounts, not all souls are immediately reincarnated. Sometimes the consciousness can choose rebirth. What a lovely thought to look upon your child and realize that he entrusted you to raise him.
What a gift.
8
We won our game with embarrassing swiftness. My mom and Troy and Soren sat in their usual places and called out their usual chants, and I ignored them like I usually did. Carlie and I worked like a machine to oust the players from competition. We were methodical and ruthless in our quest for victory, and it arrived without much fanfare. As we high-fived and graciously greeted our opponents after the final out, Carlie and I shared a moment on the mound.
“You okay?” she asked. She wiped her hands on her white pants. Summer was near, I could tell by the air. The sun set later in the day, and even though the clock told me to go home and go to bed, the sky sent me mixed signals.
“About the game?” I asked. “Of course.”
“No,” she answered. “Just about today. Everything.”
“Oh.” I looked up and watched as our teammates moved into the dugout to collect their bats and mitts. “I don’t know what to think. I’m just kinda…reeling.”
In the stands, I could see Jessica from JV sitting there with the other kid from the ALC. The one with the dead uncle-cousin—I couldn’t remember the details. The scar. The kid whose cousin had the scar. Sam. The JV team played their game before us; they had also won. I waved. Jessica waved back. She nudged the boy next to her in the ribs and he gave a half-hearted wave. Had they watched our game? I turned back to Carlie.
“Just as long as you’re okay,” she said, stretching upward. She looked into the stands, too, and saw the duo watching and waiting. “You’ve got an Asian fan club.”
“Racist.” I punched her in the arm.
“What’s racist about stating that they are Asian?”
I looked up and sighed. It didn’t seem worth answering.
“It’s not racist if it’s true,” she said with a smirk.
“I think that’s what racist people say.” I rubbed my temples. “How can you be so smart and so dumb?”
I turned back to the bleachers, but Jessica and the guy were gone. I scanned the area and saw them taking a turn to walk back up toward the school. While I made my way to the dugout, I tried to keep my eyes on them, to see if they turned around for once last glance, but they didn’t.
Carlie and I were the last ones to pack up.
“Hey, um, look,” I said as we walked together toward the parking lot. “I don’t want to tell everyone else about the things from today. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” she answered. “I won’t tell anyone.” She paused.
“It’s just…I don’t know. Jared’s moods…and Emily. I don’t want to defend it.”
“I already said okay.”
“But I’m not just being mean. I have my reasons.”
Carlie stopped walking, and I stopped, too. I looked back at her. Now the sun dipped a bit. The sky went from blue to gray, and the air went chilly. I could hear the distinct clink of a ball against metal. Someone was holding a personal batting practice.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Carlie said.
And that was that. We walked to my waiting van without another word. We took Carlie home and this time, her mother opened the door as we pulled into the driveway. She was wearing a silk top and a black bra, both of which had slipped off her right shoulder. She held a small glass with brown liquid in it and when Carlie hopped out, my mother motioned for Troy to roll down his window. He pushed the button and the window zoomed downward.
“And? So?” Carlie’s mom called to the van.
“We won,” my mother announced with a forced smile.
Carlie’s mom nodded and then disappeared back inside, leaving the door open for Carlie. I knew the routine. Troy zoomed the whining window back into place and my mother sighed, as if she kept forgetting that her interactions with Carlie’s mother were already set in stone. No amount of friendliness or additional hospitality was going to pull the woman from the abyss.
“She’s not really into softball, Mom,” I said.
“She could be into her daughter.”
We could have this conversation a million times, each time structured a tiny bit differently, but the foundation would be the same. My mother wanted validation that she was the better mother because she attended almost every game; she organized the senior night banquet, and she ran a silent auction fundraiser. These were the things she used to measure herself against the other mothers. But it didn’t matter if they praised her craftiness or ability to whip together a donated gift basket, because she wanted to hear it from me.
“Yeah, I know,” I replied. I leaned my head back against the seat. My stomach growled; I craved an entire pizza. “But, whatever, they love each other. And that should be good enough.”
Everyone else had gone to bed. It doesn’t matter how exhausted you are at the end of the day, if your brain has something to energize you, it will zap you into submission, your need for sleep be damned. The game bled me dry, my limbs ached, and I felt emotionally exhausted. But I wanted to know more; I was hungry for details. So, I resumed my new ritual of furtive midnight Internet searches. Colton Sullivan’s full name combined with the word murder yielded a treasure trove of results, and I shifted in my bed, aware of every squeak and squawk of my springs. When a house is quiet, you realize something as delicate as your own breathing can be deafening.
The strange part about this particular search was that the official news was scarce. A fifteen year-old murder in Garsten, Oregon didn’t garner much press, but that did not mean the world was quiet about this particular case. The first few hits were from an online crime magazine that tackled cases involving missing or endangered kids. There was that word again: endangered.
Colton and David had been found drowned in the bathtub and left lifeless on the bathroom tile. Timothy had never been found. The magazine posited that Timothy was the killed first, and then Adam Sullivan murdered his younger kids, but they lacked proof or evidence of any kind. I exited the webpage and kept scanning.
Four entries down, I found WebDetectives. The site was rudimentary and old school; the background was black, all the writing in white, and the banner at the top looked like it had been made by a fifth grader in an elementary school design class. A clip art magnifying glass with a pixelated yellow beam highlighted the site name: Web Detectives – an online community committed to sleuthing out all cases. It appeared user driven, with people creating their own forums about high profile and unknown murders, kidnappings, and other crimes. I scrolled through the forum related to the Sullivan murders.
All the crazies came out to play.
A woman professing to be in love with the dad and convicted murderer, Adam Sullivan, went by the handle Luckyinlove77, and she had started a thread vindicating her pen-pal boyfriend. She was prolific across the boards for six intense months and then her responses slowed and ceased entirely. For the past two years, Luckyinlove77’s account was quiet.
Her responses vacillated between informative and antagonistic. As her tenure on the site crashed to an end, her actions became trollish. I couldn’t stop reading, and I dug deeper and deeper, following the trail of her comments as they led me from one thread to another and deeper into the mystery of the Sullivans.
Guest145: Motive doesn’t mean anything. People can snap. I just wish that Adam Sullivan can sack-up and tell us where Timothy’s body is buried. It would be a very special anniversary gift to the people following this family.
DonTreason: So, Guest145, you can’t hop on the Timothy is alive bandwagon? I know it’s not popular, but those of us working that theory have ample proof that Brick left that house alive. Check out my post on the thread Timothy’s Whereabouts [LINK] to see our timeline.
Guest145: I refuse to even click that link, Don. I’m not traveling down that road. Adam Sullivan confessed to all three murders. Timothy Sullivan is dead. His father killed him and refused to divulge the location of his body for God knows what reason…but my guess has always been that his murder of Colton and David seemed humane by comparison of what he did to Brick. Why would you admit to murder, but not divulge body location? Because the evidence would paint you as a monster vs. the overwhelmed dad who reached a boiling point narrative that everyone was selling.
MamaBear1: Humane? Yeah, when you’re ready to leave this earth, why don’t you give me a call and I’ll hold your head under soapy bath water until you inhale and die. Humane way to go, if you ask me. Dying at the hands of someone you trusted.
Luckyinlove77: ADAM SULLIVAN DIDN’T KILL HIS KIDS. ADAM SULLIVAN ISN’T *%&$#*# GUILTY. DAMN YOU ALL FOR YOUR LACK OF UNDERSTANDING. The facts are there. If you just look. Can’t even deal with people like you who have already made up your minds.
DonTreason: Hey, looked who joined us. We’ll publish your story Lucky if you want to tell us what you know instead of shouting. PM me.
Luckyinlove77: I am not telling you assholes SHIT. You don’t deserve the truth. You don’t deserve shit. ADAM isn’t GUILTY. Adam is innocent and someday you’ll see. Someday he will come out and tell the truth.
