But he does call me back, almost immediately.

“Abby? It’s Dr. Chun, from the neurology wing of Lincoln Memorial. Thank you for returning my call. Dr. Aster sent over some scans for me to look at,” he says.

Finally I find my voice. “I’m sorry. What kind of specialist are you?”

“Neurology,” he says, and I almost, almost relax. Neurologists look at brain scans. Normal. But then he goes on: “Actually, my specialty is neurological pathologies. And oncology,” he adds, almost apologetically.

I close my eyes and remember all the times I wished for my father to die. I open my eyes. The world is still there. A pickup truck rolls by, the truck bed packed with sunburned teenagers.

It carries a memory I must have buried long ago: me and Kaycee, maybe third grade, when my mom was still alive, the first and only time I was allowed to go to the Halloween Fright Fest.

I’d been scared out of my mind in the haunted house. Not because of all the monsters popping out in masks with chainsaws, but because Kaycee had run ahead, thinking it would be funny to pretend to disappear. I ran room to room, terrified and searching for her. There were coffins everywhere, and fake blood, and even a mannequin with blond hair hanging floppy-necked from a noose. She didn’t even have a face, just drawn-on eyes and a lipstick mouth—but in my panic, in the dark, I thought it was her.

We took a hayride afterward. We were on the back of a wagon, just the two of us, because Kaycee’s dad had gone to get another beer out of the car. Kaycee was sulking because I hadn’t seen the point of the joke.

I scared you, didn’t I? she kept saying. It’s a haunted house. Get it? I scared you.

Then, suddenly, we were in the woods. In the quiet drip of the overhanging branches, paper ghosts nailed to the trees, she turned to me. “I’m not scared of dying,” she said. “Not one bit. How about you?”

I had never actually thought about it before. My mom was dying, and that was enough to think about.

“No,” I lied.

She reached for my hands. “When I die, I’m going to become an angel, so I can look after you all the time.” Then she squeezed so tightly it began to hurt. “But first, I’m going to take revenge on everyone who deserves it. I’ll frighten all of them to death, one by one.”

—

One second, two seconds, three: I open my eyes, and the world is still there. I’m still holding the phone to my sweating cheek. Kaycee is still gone.

“Do you think you can bring your father down here to see me?” Dr. Chun says.

“When?” I croak out. I’m praying he says, Whenever you can make it. I’m praying he says there’s no rush. I’m praying he says, In a few weeks.

“I’m here until seven tonight.”