Page 56 of You'll Be the Death of Me

“Are you all right?” Cole asked at what must have been the strange look on her face.

Pixels of the forest scene still lingered, dotting her mental vision in a way that felt like... a memory. She didn’t know what to make of it.

“Yeah,” she said with a shake of her head. “I just never realized my mom knew the pressure I’m under. It’s nice to hear them say they are proud of me.”

“They have a lot to be proud of. Do you want to sit down?” he asked, and gestured at the chair beside him. She was still a bit dazed.

Dell shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Speaking of parents, weneed to find Robbie’s mom.” She nodded at his tablet still in his hand and joined him in the corner.

“Right. That,” he said, and pressed a button to bring it to life.

To Dell’s surprise, he didn’t pull away when she leaned in to look. To her further surprise, it looked like a normal tablet. Where she might have expected some otherworldly language, maybe symbols and signs she couldn’t interpret, it was a standard home screen with little app widgets and a search bar.

“Getting more corporate by the minute,” she said to Cole.

He poked an app, which looked like a contacts directory, and up popped a box listing names with another search bar.

“Can you look up anyone with this?” she asked.

“Within some limits, but mostly yes.”

“That’s amazing,” she said as he typed in Barbara Sanders and hit Search.

“This will bring up her case file and direct me to her case manager. I can’t directly contactherif she’s moved on already,but I can send a message through her manager.”

“That is... weird and cool.”

Cole huffed a little laugh. “Yeah, I guess it is weird and cool.” His arm rested against Dell’s bare arm from where she’d leaned in to look. Neither of them moved. Dell watched as a new window popped up with a blank email draft already addressed to someone named Maxine Vanguard.

“Ah, Maxine,” Cole said. “She’s lovely. She will certainly pass along a message.”

Dell was still reeling that any of this was possible. “Afterlife emails. Who knew,” she said, unable to keep the disbelief out of her voice despite seeing it with her own eyes.

“What would you like it to say?” he asked as he quickly typed out an introduction.

Hi Maxine,

Cole Lewis from Transitions. I’ve made contact with Barbara Sanders’s son, Robert, and he asked to deliver a message. Could you please pass along the following?

His thumbs hovered over the screen’s keyboard, waiting. He tilted his face toward Dell with a question in his eyes.

“Oh, um. Robbie asked that I tell her he and Grandpa Charlie are okay and he misses her.” Her voice pinched with emotion. Cole added the words to the email and hit Send. “Will we know if she responds?” she asked, full of hope.

“We will.”

“Good. Thank you for doing that.”

“My pleasure.”

They were staring at each other again, Dell feeling that mysterious, distant tug, when her father’s voice pulled their attention.

“Andy?” he said with his phone pressed to his ear. “Yes, we are still at the hospital. What’s going on?”

Dell bit her lip and watched her father listen to whatever her brother was saying.

“What’s going on?” her mother echoed.

Her father angled the phone from his mouth. “It’s the boys. They say turn on the five o’clock news.”