AfterMath by Emily Barth Isler EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Emily Barth Isler
- Language: English
- Genre: Siblings Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Kenton, Maryland, and Queensland, Virginia, are 31.5 miles apart via the
Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and the speed limit averages 45 mph
along the way. However, via I-95, the towns are 38 miles apart but with
a speed limit that averages 60 mph. Which is the faster route from
Kenton to Queensland?
distance divided by speed = time
via the BW Parkway: 31.5 / 45 = 0.7 hours, or 42 minutes
via I-95: 38 / 60 = 0.63 hours, or about 38 minutes
But in reality, it might as well take seven million hours either way,
because it seems like we’re never going back there.
I live in a dead girl’s house. I sleep in her room.
We knew this before we bought the house. Our real estate agent, Cheryl
Ann (her full name—who on earth has the last name Ann???), mentioned it
during our tour. Well, technically she only said that the couple who were
selling the house had lost a daughter in the Queensland school shooting. But
I know that my room is the one that used to belong to the daughter, because
in my new closet, on the edge of the sliding doors—covered in an anemic,
barely-there coat of white paint—I found a vertical set of hash marks, with a
date written next to each mark and the name Bette written at the top.
It’s a height chart. I had one just like it on my wall at home. My dad used
to measure Theo and me every few months and draw lines where we stood
to show how much we’d grown. Then he’d write our names and the date.
I often wonder who sleeps in my old room. Or in Theo’s. Does the kid
who lives there now know that they’re sleeping in the room of a dead kid
too?
Cheryl Ann also informed us that basically no one has moved to this town
in the four years since the shooting, until my family. I don’t blame everyone
else for staying away. If it were up to me, I would have.
I hate that we moved. Especially to this town, where practically everyone
lost someone. (In case you were wondering, Cheryl Ann lost a nephew.)
My
parents considered several empty houses here, because so many people have
moved away over the past few years. The elementary school where the
shooting took place was demolished afterward, and now there’s a garden
where it used to be. And the new elementary school across town is tall and
modern, with prison-style lockdown safety features and bulletproof
windows. The middle school, where I’ll start seventh grade this fall, has
gotten security upgrades too. Cheryl Ann made sure to tell us that.
We’ve driven by the memorial park a few times. Sadness seems to hang
from the trees like brown, shriveled leaves that never fall off and never get
replaced by fresh green ones. It feels like there’s no rebirth here. Only death,
and memories, and sadness.
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